Intentional Design Inc. » Management

The Content Strategy Bookshself

rahelab — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 06:09:49 +0000

If you were to look at your library of books related to content strategy – directly or indirectly – what would be on that shelf? Here’s what is on mine. Some have been with me for a longer time; others are brand new. Also, I’ve excluded a lot of books on web design and user experience that I didn’t feel were really right for this list of books. I’m not saying that this list forms any sort of corpus; they’re just books from which I have gleaned information, from a little nugget here or there to the books marked with so many post-it notes, the spine is bent out of shape.

This list is organized arbitrarily by broad category. Hey, my blog, my rules. And what you can do, gentle reader, is add your favourite books to the comments section. More reading, more knowledge!

Planning and Design

Harnessing Complexity (Robert Axelrod and Michael Cohen)

Managing Enterprise Content (Ann Rockley)

Content Management Bible (Bob Boiko)

Document Engineering (Robert J Glushko, Tim McGrath)

Content and Complexity (Michael J Alberts, Beth Maxur, eds)

Designing e-Learning (Saul Carliner)

Information Design (Robert Jacobson, ed)

User Experience

Understanding Your Users (Catherine Courage, Kathy Baxter)

The User is Always Right (Steve Mulder and Ziv Yaar)

Paper Prototyping (Carolyn Snyder)

Why Software Sucks (David Platt)

Handbook of Usability Testing (Jerry Rubin, Dana Chisnell, Jared Spool)

Storytelling for User Experience (Whitney Quesenbery, Kevin Brooks)

Observing the User Experience (Mike Kuniavsky)

Subject to Change (Peter Merholz, Brandon Schauer)

Rocket Science Made Easy (Steve Krug)

Simple and Usable (Giles Colborne)

Do Good Design (David B Berman)

Built for Use (Karen Donoghue)

Mental Models (Indi Young)

The Inmates are Running the Asylum (Alan Cooper)

Practitioner Guides

The Web Content Strategist’s Bible (Richard Sheffield)

Elements of Content Strategy (Erin Kissane)

Letting Go of the Words (Ginny Redish)

Content Strategy for the Web (Kristina Halvorson)

Creating the Perfect Design Brief (Peter L Phillips)

Business Process Mapping (Jacka Keller)

Request for Proposal (Bud Porter-Roth)

Managing Knowledge (Wayne Applehans, Alden Globe, Greg Laugero)

Managing Your Documentation Products (JoAnn Hackos)

Techniques for Technical Communicators (Carol Barnum, Saul Carliner)

Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog (Kitty Burns Florey)

The Accidental Taxonomist (Heather Hedden)

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (Edward Tufte)

Envisioning Information (Edward Tufte)

Wordsmithing for Effect

Clout (Colleen Jones)

Neuro Web Design (Susan M Weinschenk, PhD)

Content Rules (CC Chapman and Ann Handley)

Get Content, Get Customers (Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett)

Content Nation (John Blossom)

Curation Nation (Steven Rosenbaum)

Predictably Irrational (Dan Ariely)

Delivering Happiness (Tony Hsieh)

Branded Nation (James B Twitchell)

Call to Action (Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg)

Intercultural Communication (James W Neuliep)

A Practical Guide to Localization (Bert Esselink)

International Technical Communication (Nancy L Hoft)

Metadata and Delivery

Audience, Relevance, and Search (James Mathewson, Frank Donatone, and Synthia Fishel)

Search Engine Visibility (Shari Thurow)

Metadata Solutions (Adrienne Tennenbaum)

Killer Web Content (Gerry McGovern)

Wiki (Alan Porter)

Introduction to DITA (Jennifer Linton, Kylene Bruski)

User Engagement

Conversation and Community (Anne Gentle)

Here Comes Everybody (Clay Shirky)

SocialCorp (Joel Postman)

Sway (Ori and Rom Brafman)

The Thank You Economy (Gary Vaynerchuk)

Radically Transparent (Andy Beal, Dr. Judy Strauss)

Crowdsourcing (Jeff Howe)

Participating in Explanatory Dialogues (Johanna D Moore)

CMS selection practices need maturation

rahelab — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 20:20:46 +0000

Janus Boye, a content management analyst whose skills I have long admired, recently posted an article Is Corruption [in the CM industry] an Issue? In it, he discusses some of the ways that vendors inadvertently, or purposefully, incent buyers to favour their products. I believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg, as my comment reflects; any of us in the industry have been exposed to temptations and have experiences that leave us uncomfortable.

Janus is in the enviable position of living and working “across the pond” where talking about dysfunctions isn’t sanctioned by threats of lawsuits and exposed to the “shoot the messenger” syndrome. On this side of the pond, a CM consultant is expected to turn away, tight-lipped, and not expose irregularities to public scrutiny. When one sees, for example, a CMS contract awarded to a questionable vendor – the vendor rep who leaves the group RFP debrief, where requirements were being discussed, and courts the IT Director instead – any questioning of this manipulation of the system will work against the consultant. It’s as if ethics takes a back seat to the expediency that requires membership to the inside track.

Janus Boye is organizer of the J Boye conference series. At the Philadelphia, online professionals can share knowledge, hear great keynote speakers, and further their professional development. If I weren’t already committed to going to the STC Summit, I would definitely be there.

Life After Launch: Web Operations Management

rahelab — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 23:15:23 +0000

I wrote an article for the Duo Consulting blog on what used to be generally lumped into the change management phase of a content management project. The gist of the post is that preparing for the launch of a CMS is like preparing for the wedding day itself, rather than thinking of the coming together as a long-term committed relationship – in other words, a marriage.

When the project budget starts to get iffy, what gets cut is usually the planning for after The Big Day. There seems to be a blind faith that either (a) the romance of the new system will make everything work just fine – I call this the starry-eyed bride approach, or (b) that staff will adopt the arranged marriage by edict – the bullying husband approach. We know the outcomes of these approaches; some of us have been subjected to them ourselves.

The good news is that now we have a name for the line item in the CMS project budget: web operations management. The bad news is that more organizations still prepare for a wedding than prepare for a marriage. With the wonky economic situation and a greater need for fiscal responsibility, will 2009 finally be the year of responsible coupling?