Communication is hard. And when you think about higher ed, where we’ve got both central- and unit-level communications staff—each with their own stories, platforms, priorities, and staffing—it is really hard. The oft-invoked analogy is “herding cats,” and it certainly applies in this instance. So, we organize an editorial meeting, inviting all the top cats. Finally, we’ll bring order to the editorial chaos! But it’s not that simple. Our feline … [Read more...]
Designing Content Workflow for Your CMS
July 26, 2012 by
We can talk all day about creating great content, but if we don't have a process for sustaining it, our content strategy will fail. A big content governance challenge is ensuring that multiple content contributors maintain messaging, communication, editorial and content standards. This is particularly true for staff who have other responsibilities and for whom content is not always the highest priority. For many higher education … [Read more...]
Managing Content Workflow for Faculty
July 17, 2012 by
You’ve done it! You’ve captured the intricacies and practical applications of Professor Mumblemore’s groundbreaking work on glottochronology (or electrophysiology, or perhaps paleoentomology) in crisp, engaging, easy to comprehend prose (or a minute-thirty of video, if you prefer). Good work! All that’s left is to get his A-OK and we can get this puppy published. Wait… what’s this? Professor Mumblemore returned your piece with notes—lots of … [Read more...]
Margot Bloomstein and Colleen Jones on Higher Ed Content Strategy
May 24, 2012 by
While at Confab 2012, we sat down with renowned content strategists Margot Bloomstein and Colleen Jones, both of whom have done a significant amount of work with higher education, for a wide-ranging discussion about how the discipline applies in our field. Bloomstein is principal at Appropriate, Inc., and author of Content Strategy at Work. Jones is principal at Content Science and author of Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web … [Read more...]
Update Your Style Guide to Keep It Useful
May 4, 2012 by
Are you ready to get pumped about editorial style guide updates?!! (Would it help if I added a third exclamation point?) If you have a hard time keeping your editorial style guides current, you're not alone. Even the best of us need to work at keeping our style guides updated and useful. Angie Halama of Brain Traffic shares a great style guide pep talk to raise our spirits (or "spirts" if your editorial oversight is lacking). A … [Read more...]