This presentation was delivered at Confab 2012 and it approaches the topic of content strategy from a slightly different angle. Specifically it highlights how Content Strategists often find themselves in the role of organization therapist and thus encountering unexpectedly powerful forces.

1. CONTENT STRATEGY
Confab 2012
Joe Gollner, M.Phil.
Gnostyx Research Inc
jag@gnostyx.com
www.gollner.ca
Copyright © Joe Gollner 2011
@joegollner

2. Topics of Inquiry
 Three True Stories
 Content Strategy
& Psychoanalysis
 Perspectives on
Content Strategy
 True Story: Twin Portals
 The Emergent Role of
the Content Strategist
 The Burden of
Content Strategy

3. True Story: A Sibylline Web Site
 Engineering Process Support Site
 10,000 pages of guidance material
 Bilingual (English / French)
 Step One: Analysis
 Deep textual analysis (NLP) used
 Multiple personalities identified
 Step Two: Treatment
 Establish intelligent content store
 Introduce advanced publishing tools
 Step Three: Result
 Good technical solution crushed by bureaucratic entropy

4. True Story: A Political Web
 Parliament of Canada Public Access
 Large volumes of complex material
 Bilingual (English / French)
 Step One: Analysis
 Complex process & content structures
 Opportunities for public engagement
 Step Two: Treatment
 Internal optimization to speed access
 Public engagement avenues explored
 Step Three: Result
 Politicians wanted to curtail openness…

5. True Story: MyClassroom Education Portal
 K-12 Education Initiative
 Curricular & Instructional Material
 Multilingual (English, Punjabi,…)
 Step One: Analysis
 Deep study of content structure
 Involvement of user community
 Step Two: Treatment Bueller…Bueller….
 Sophisticated management & publishing environment
 Stakeholder participation in design, population & testing
 Step Three: Result
 Great solution encountered strong union opposition

6. Content & the Unconscious Organization
 Accumulating Insight
 Organizations primarily driven
by unarticulated impulses
 Especially evident in how
technology is deployed
• Automated processes are
• Largely opaque
• Often erroneous
 Doubly evident in how content
is presented to the world
• Intense pressure to be accepted
• External forces drive
internal turmoil

7. Content Strategy & Psychoanalysis
 Parallels can be drawn
 As a practice
 As a discipline
 Practice
 Establishing a
working balance
between internal
& external forces
 Discipline
 Establishing the
background & skills
needed by the content strategist

8. Freud & the Internal World
 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
 Viennese founder of
Psychoanalysis
 Highly attuned to the
practical questions of
launching a new professional
discipline
 Observation on influence
 Introduced a highly influential
model of how internal forces
are repressed & channeled
within observable behaviour

9. Jung & the External World
 Carl Jung (1875-1961)
 Swiss founder of
Analytical Psychology
 Early protégé of Freud
who famously broke away
from Psychoanalysis
 Observation on Influence
 Very focused on the shared
cultural models historically
used to describe & guide
individual personalities
 Myers-Briggs…etc

10. Content Strategy as a Balancing Act
 Proposition:
 Content Strategy
entails establishing
a functional balance
between:
• Internal forces
that drive an
organization’s actions
& communications
• External forces  A Content Strategy balances
that determine the  What you need to say
environmental context
 What the audience wants to hear
for those actions
& communications

11. The Intrinsic & Extrinsic Sides of Content
 A Moment of Practical Utility
 The design of metadata structures for content resources
 Distinguish between intrinsic & extrinsic metadata
 Intrinsic Metadata
 Properties that are innate to
the subject of the content asset
 Extrinsic Metadata
 Properties that pertain to how the
subject, or the content, will be used

12. Content Strategy & Organizational Personae
 A Content Strategy
 Facilitates effective
participation in the world
 A persona that can
be sustained
Freud’s Dissection of Psychical Personality Jung’s Model of the Psyche
 Ideally – A Content Strategy
 Helps internal processes to
strengthen & grow
 Helps the organization to
contribute positively to society

13. Content Strategy awakens Powerful Forces
 The Three Cases highlight an important truth
 Framing a content strategy will often open many doors
 Focusing on how an organization appears can raise
serious questions
 Implementing a
content strategy will
open more doors
• Technology players
• Forgotten stakeholders
 There can be more
contributions than you
bargained for

14. True Story: Twin Portals
 Discovery Portal  Discovery Portal
 Several Years of  New Initiative led by
Operation business team
 Challenges with  Flexible environment
site quality
 Extensive usability tests
raised sensitivities
 A dialogue on content
 Data & IT stakeholders
took control to limit  An immediate success
system potential
 IT sought control & failed

15. Content Strategy: The Rise of a Discipline
 Content Strategy
 Emerged as a phrase during the late 1990s
 Chiefly tied to Web content
 A marketing focus
 New Directions
 Channel diversification
 Intensified marketing
pressures
 Diversified web
specializations
 The need has arisen for
an integrative role

16. The Emergent Role of the Content Strategist
 The Content Strategist
 A leadership role within Web teams
 Capable of integrating the many Web specializations
 Providing a system-view
 The Challenge
 Becoming a conduit
between Web teams
& corporate strategy
 Following where the
content questions lead
• Into the internal domains
where content is forged

17. The Fundamental Content Archetype
 The Core Challenge
facing Content Strategists
INFORMATION
 Leveraging the basic
distinction between
content & information
 Content is
potential information
that needs management
 Information is an action
that needs to be effective
CONTENT
 Confusing the two is the
source of many troubles
Visual Credit: oneiromancernjv.deviantart.com

18. The Burden of Content Strategy

19. Acknowledgement

20. Contact
Joe Gollner
jag@gnostyx.com
Gnostyx Research Inc
www.gnostyx.com
Content Philosopher Blog
www.gollner.ca