During our webinar last week, Georgy and I talked about content strategy as change management—how content strategy can provide a framework for making positive changes with your organization. While discussing the current unchanging landscape in higher ed, one issue that topped the list was collaboration. Really? We're Still Talking About Silos? This week, a colleague said in a moment of exasperation, "When will we stop talking … [Read more...]
Leading Successful Editorial Meetings
August 9, 2012 by
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...]
The Content Strategy Knowledge Gap
July 11, 2012 by
I’ve had the pleasure of working with some amazing web folks — creative directors, marketers, digital strategists, designers, developers, information architects — and a distinguishing quality of their work was an understanding of content strategy. Being smart about content is the road to success for all web professionals. As prospective employees and consultants step up to the plate to bridge the content strategy knowledge gap, colleges must … [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...]