1. How to Future-Proof Your Business Content
by Sarah Beckley
CMS Expo 2013

2. Agenda
• About
• Timey-wimey content
• Building “future” content
• Resources
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3. Senior Content Strategist,
Razorfish, Chicago
7 years in Content Strategy
10+ years tech/web writing
Specializes in financial services, contextual help, online
applications, content matrix development
Client projects include work for HSBC, Allstate, Citadel, STAR
Financial Network, and the Options Industry Council
@sarahbeckley
Sarah.Beckley@razorfish.com
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About Sarah Beckley

4. Razorfish
3rd largest US digital agency
2 years running on Ad Age’s
Agency A-List
300+ staff in Chicago
2,500+ staff worldwide
Owned by Publicis
One of Forbes’ Top 100 Global Ad
Agencies That Know Social Media
and Google

5. Timey-wimey content

6. “The 19th century was defined by the
novel. The 20th by the cinema. The
21st will be defined by the interface.”
- Lev Manovich

7. Interfaces are gaining and changing
• 50 million people own tablets in the US.
• Mobile use will exceed desktop use next year.
• 133.7 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones
(57% mobile market penetration) during the three
months ending in February 2013, up 8 percent
since November.
• Sources: comScore MobiLens & TabLens, U.S., 2003-2012, shapshop.com/2012-mobile-marketing-statistics, ComScore
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8. Books are dead
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9. Home pages are dead

10. Scrolling is in
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11. Curating is stealing your content
• Instapaper
• Readability
• Pocket
• Pinterest
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12. Visualize your content’s future
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13. The future is change
You never change things by fighting the existing
reality. To change something, build a new model
that makes the exiting model obsolete.
- Richard Buckminster Fuller
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14. What is the new model for content?
Human-consumable, contextualized data—aka the stuff
between the tags. - Rahel Bailie
Not limited to one purpose, technology or output.
Intelligent content is structurally rich and semantically
aware, and is therefore discoverable, reusable,
reconfigurable and adaptable.
- Ann Rockley
All content is marketing content
- Bailie and Urbina
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15. Current trends: Responsive or Adaptive
• Responsive: content moves to fit the device
parameters; client-side adjusts pages
as a whole.
• Adaptive: content-centric experience; server-
side pushes appropriate content elements
based on device type and features.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/garrett-goodman/adaptive-design_b_2344569.html

16. What is future-proof content?
Adaptive
Accessible
Agile
Findable
Nimble
Agnostic
Semantically linked
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17. How do we build for change?

18. The future’s stepping stones
• Strategy
• Standards
• Structure
• Schema
• Reuse
• Re-size
• Socialize
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19. Strategy
The goal of content strategy is to use "…words
and data to create unambiguous content that
supports meaningful, interactive experiences.”
- “Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data,” Rachel Lovinger
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20. BBC’s strategy: Never miss a moment
20 Sources: Olympics: User Experience and Design and Sports Refresh: Dynamic Semantic Publishing, bbc.co.uk./blog

21. Novel = Vlog + Twitter + Tumblr
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22. Serial = Mobile app + UGC w/a twist

23. Standards
• Content guidelines
• Governance board
• Editor in chief
• Document everything
• Clearly defined roles
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Image source: http://kidmincoach.files.wordpress.com

24. Microsoft’s model
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25. Structured content from way back
• XML was made official
in1997
• Managing Enterprise
Content 1st edition
published in 2002
• Enterprise content
management became
trendy in 2006
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26. Powers future content
• NPR famous for their content API
• They are the ones to “beat”
• Anil Dash and MindTouch both recommend
building an API first, UI second
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27. Semantics are waiting for you
• XML-Extensible Markup Language
• HTML5-Hypertext Markup language
• Microformats-Open data based on HTML5
• RDF-Resource Description Framework
• OWL-Web Ontology Language
• DITA-Darwin Information Type Architecture
• JSON-JavaScript Object Notation
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28. Pattern recognition is coming
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29. Schemas map the future
• Content models
• Metadata schema
• Tagging strategy
• Content ecosystems
• Assign content type
behaviors
• Map content elements
between content
types
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30. Metadata resources
• Organization’s own content
• Controlled vocabulary
• Open vocabulary
• Industry standards
– Schema.org
– Dublin Core
– Etc.
• Social
– FOAF- Friend of a Friend (describes people and their connections)
– SIOC- Semantically-linked Online Communities
• Video
– MPEG-7- Moving Pictures Expert Group
– Media RSS- custom RSS for media-specific info
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31. Reuse: Content is Precious
“You can’t afford to create a piece of content for any
one platform. Instead of crafting a website, you have
to put more effort into crafting the different bits of
an asset, so they can be reused more effectively, so
they can deliver more value.”
- Nic Newman, BBC (via Karen McGrane)
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32. Build with gems
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Hubert Duprat, artist, interviewed by ecouterre.com

33. Re-size: Small but effective

34. Microformats and chunking

35. Socialize: Drive the bus
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36. Old-fashioned talking paves the way
• Change management best practices
• Marketing to the marketers
• User testing/focus groups
• Town halls
• Communication plans
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37. Recap
• Strategy
• Standards
• Structure
• Schema
• Reuse
• Re-size
• Socialize
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38. Recommended reading
“Nimble” by Razorfish/Rachel Lovinger
“Contents May have Shifted” by Erin Kissane (Contents magazine)
“Mobile Content Strategy and Why Should I Care?” Karolina Szczur
Managing Enterprise Content by Ann Rockley and Charles Cooper
Content Strategy for Mobile by Karen McGrane
Content Everywhere by Sara Wachter-Boettcher
Content Strategy: Connecting the dots between business, brand, and benefits
by Rahel Anne Bailie and Noz Urbina
Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski
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39. Questions?