When we create content—whether it’s a tweet, a blog post or a program description—we can no longer anticipate the default experience to be the desktop web browser. Our content is going places—sometimes places we can’t predict. It could be an iPhone, a Kindle, even a Nintendo Wii. As it is dispatched to digital corners far and wide, is it equipped to do its job, no matter the context? Will content goals and user needs remain well … [Read more...]
Content Governance Assessment
March 19, 2012 by
During our first Meet Content webinar, an attendee asked a great question: where do you start with web content governance? It’s a challenging question to answer because content governance requires that you first have a content plan. Content governance — a process of managing content roles, responsibilities, processes, documentation, tools and training — can’t be distinguished from your content strategy. In order to manage the elements of … [Read more...]
Content Entrepreneurship: A Commitment to Change
December 5, 2011 by
It’s a common refrain: we’re so busy. We have so much on our plates. It’s hard, or impossible, to try new things when we can barely keep our heads above water with our existing CMS, channels, deadlines… the list goes on. But it’s time we realized that innovation and experimentation are not nice-to-haves. They are the core functionality that allows our online channels to thrive and evolve over time — not to mention keep us professionally … [Read more...]
Liberate Your PDF Newsletter Content
September 20, 2011 by
We’ve all received them—heck, perhaps we’ve even had to (shudder) distribute them. You know what I’m talking about: PDF newsletters, sent as an email attachment to a distribution list or linked on a webpage. In some corners, they still lurk. I’m just going to say it: People use PDFs for a hundred different reasons, and about 97 of them are wrong. (Rick blogged about some of these content problems in April.) The wrongest of the wrong, however, … [Read more...]
A Content Strategy Approach to Online Crisis Communications (Part One)
August 24, 2011 by
The most important communications plans at our universities are the ones we hope we never have to use. These are our plans for crisis communications, to be activated when a threat is posed to the health and safety of our campus community. Nowadays, these plans revolve heavily around electronic communications. Many universities shifted their crisis communications planning into high gear following the fatal shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007. … [Read more...]