1. IBM Digital, Integrated Content (IC) Center of Excellence (CoE)
Creating a content strategy ecosystem
Andrea Ames (@aames)
IBM Enterprise Content Experience Strategist/Architect/Designer
LavaCon (@LavaCon)
25 October 2016
@aames #LavaCon
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Today’s agenda, part 1
Part 1: Metaworkshop J
Part 2: Assess and analyze today state
Part 3: Identify requirements
Part 4: Define metrics
Part 5: Build a business case
Part 6: Create a communication plan and present your case!
Part 7: Wrap up
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About Andrea
Technical communicator since 1983
Areas of expertise:
Content experience design: strategy, architecture, and interaction design
Architecture, design, and development of product-embedded assistance
Information and product usability
User-centered process for content development and experience design
Senior Technical Staff Member and chief content strategist for Integrated Content
(IC) Center of Excellence (CoE), IBM Digital Business Group
University of CA Extension program chair and instructor
STC Fellow, past president, former member of Board of Directors
ACM Distinguished Engineer
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CONTEXT AND LEVEL
SETTING
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Some organizational context and level set
Group
Division
Portfolio
Product
Division Division
Portfolio Portfolio
Product
Group
Division
Portfolio
Product
Division Division
Portfolio Portfolio
Product
Where are you?
Company
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Systems thinking, part 1
from wikipedia (of course ;)
The process of understanding how things, regarded as
systems, influence one another within a whole
An approach to problem solving
Viewing “problems” as parts of an overall system, rather than
reacting to specific part, outcomes or events, and potentially
contributing to further development of unintended consequences
A set of habits or practices within a framework that is based on
the belief that the component parts of a system can best be
understood in the context of relationships with each other and
with other systems, rather than in isolation
Focuses on cyclical rather than linear cause and effect
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Systems thinking, part 2
from wikipedia (of course ;)
And most importantly for our purposes…
Attempts to illustrate how small, catalytic events
that are separated by distance and time
can cause significant changes in complex systems
Acknowledges that an improvement in one area
can adversely affect another area
Promotes organizational communication
at all levels
to avoid the silo effect
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The Iceberg Model
Summarized from It's All Connected: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions, Benjamin Wheeler, Gilda Wheeler and
Wendy Church. www.facingthefuture.org
Trends/patterns of behavior
(anticipate) What’s been happening?
Systemic structure
(design) What is contributing to the patterns?
Events
(react)
What happened?
Increasing
leverage
Mental models
(transform) What keeps these patterns going?
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Habits of a “systems thinker”
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What is a “content strategy ecosystem?”
Content strategy ecosystem:
The community of people and processes
Interacting as a system
To conceive of, develop, justify, drive, validate, and
implement
Your content strategy
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What is an “information experience?”
Content
Presentation
Delivery
Navigation
User
• Message
• Motivation
• Form/format
• Layout
• Where
• When
• Organization
• Structure
• Perceptions
• Judgments
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To users, often experienced more like this…
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ASSESS AND ANALYZE THE
“TODAY-STATE”
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1. Before you begin
2. Identify sources and gather data
à A closer look at some specific inputs…1
Analyzing business data
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Analyzing business data
Step 1: Before you begin
Make sure that you are well-grounded and well-connected in the product or
information experience that is your focus
Show that “you belong” by building enough knowledge of the domain to ask
intelligent questions—at this phase of the game, you don’t have to have the
answers, but you do need to ask the right questions
Be sure you are experienced in using the current version (if it exists), its
information experience (IX), and the content ecosystem that supports that IX
Gather and absorb any development plans and designs
Find out where thought leaders are connecting and making decisions, and get
involved! Be assertive!
Join any relevant product development, product management, or user
experience design teams to stay informed and advocate for content
strategy and the value of information
Network extensively with the extended product team (marketing,
support, test, sales, and so on)—let them see your value
Find and enlist a “sponsor” to help you get connected if this is new
territory; a mentor to help you navigate these waters is even better
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Business plans and priorities:
Business strategy
Market intelligence
Target customers
Development plans and priorities:
Product, solution, or service development plans
Existing functional requirements, scenarios,
use cases, etc.
Analyzing business data—Step 2: Gather data
Step 2: Identify sources and gather data
“But I can’t find
this stuff!”
Your company MUST
have this data somewhere.
You just haven’t made
the right contact yet.
Don’t give up.
Keep fighting the good fight.
“Why?”
When you analyze data
from development, try to
figure out why the plans are
what they are. Where did
the requirements come
from? How do you know
they’re valid?
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Your company’s business strategy might be layered:
Enterprise-level strategy
Business unit strategies that support the enterprise strategic intent
and focus items
Product or portfolio strategy that delivers on business unit and
enterprise strategy
Mine business strategy data to discover:
Customer priorities
Company priorities
Investment areas for future growth
Plan for balancing competing opportunities and focus areas
Roadmap for growth
Analyzing business data—Step 2: Gather data
A closer look at business strategy, part 1
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Look for the “Why?” behind your company’s business strategy.
Is your strategy a response to:
Change, challenge, or opportunity in the marketplace?
Change in the IT landscape?
Change in financial realities or global dynamics?
The answers to “Why?” will help you figure out what matters:
Discern strategic priorities from point-in-time tactics
Distinguish high-value investment and innovation from low-value “traditions”
Identify high-impact opportunities where information can contribute to the success
of market plays, key initiatives, or customer requirements
Identify areas where you can demonstrate that content strategy maps precisely to
the priorities of the enterprise, the business unit, and the product or portfolio
Identify areas where you can demonstrate that content is a high-value product that
customers want
Identify business metrics to which you can connect content strategy outcomes
Analyzing business data—Step 2: Gather data
A closer look at business strategy, part 2
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Analyzing business data—Step 2: Gather data
A closer look at market intelligence
Market research happens at every layer of an enterprise
Find channels into each layer and investigate things like:
Sales support resources
Customer references
Market insights and intelligence
Find the people who are the keepers of this information—build your
network
Ask colleagues in product management, user experience design, marketing,
development, sales, etc.
Do your own sleuthing! See what’s going on in industry literature and blogs, customer
groups and social media
Use market intelligence data to determine:
What’s important to our customers
What problems our customers are trying to solve
What our competitors are doing and how you measure up (and does this vary by things
like geographic location or industry?)
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Analyzing business data—Step 2: Gather data
A closer look at target customers
Depending on your industry or
the size of your business, your
company may have a layered
view of its target customers
The business data that you
uncover may refer to specific
customers—”Company X” or
“Client Y”
Tease out which client layer
the data address in order to
understand what the data
show about the target
customer
Take note of the way that
specific messages in the
content ecosystem target
specific client layers
The Big Cs:
Executives—CEO,
CIO, CTO, CFO, etc.
Buyers:
People who make
purchase decisions
Deployers:
People (experts?) who
plan solution roll-out
Users:
End users, the focus
of the user experience
A layered view of “the client”
What do the decision-makers care about?
What do the users care about?
What issues concern the people who
have to integrate the solution into the
company environment?
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1. Before you begin
2. Find critical client data
3. Identify any known client issues
4. Mine client data
5. Research and understand client metrics
2
Analyzing client data
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Analyzing client data
Step 1: Before you begin
Get connected and build deep relationships with your user experience (UX)
design team, if you have one
If you don’t have a UX design team, it’s critical that you network with other
members of the extended product team who have insights into the nature
and needs of your client. (This is a good idea in general). Examples of these
kinds of people include:
Marketing reps
Sales reps
Trainers and education teams
Beta programs
Support reps
Customer advocates or account reps
Development team members who interact frequently with clients
Your work to gather and analyze client data depends on good data about the
client. If you can find the data you need, then prepare yourself: you need to
do the research to get the data. Prepare to become an agent of change!
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Analyzing client data
Step 2: Find critical client data
Do the hard work to really know your client! Find:
Personas that define client/buyer/user goals, wants,
needs, knowledge, motives, etc.
Business scenarios that define the target customer,
their organization, their business goals and pain points,
the users and the tasks that those users perform with the
product or solution—in particular, their reason for buying
your product
Task scenarios that define how users interact with the
offering to complete the tasks that contribute to solving
the larger business goals
Examples of architectures, topologies, deployments,
usage scenarios, application, or whatever to achieve a
particular business result with your product
User stories or use cases that fill in the details of each
scenario and highlight how the client will actually use your
product
(optional) Integration scenarios that define how the
task scenarios of multiple products fit together to solve the
most important or difficult problems
“No really.
I can’t find this
stuff!”
Create it.
Validate it.
Share it.
“But I can’t find this stuff!”
Your company likely has this
data somewhere—it just
might look a little different
than you’re used to. For
example, it might look like
support call summaries,
business intelligence, or
marketing reports.
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Analyzing client data
Step 3: Identify any known client issues
You may already have a collection of known client issues. (Validate and
document them—quotes are great; videos are better.)
Use your network!
Ask Support: “What kinds of customer calls are you getting? Any trends?”
Ask Sales: “What’s the hardest part of your job selling our product? What do your
customers like least about the product? How do we measure up to the products and
people you’re competing against for the sale?”
Ask your product management and development leads: “What kinds of customer
issues are you hearing about most? What keeps you up at night?”
Ask your Marketing representatives: “Are your market messages working as you had
hoped? What kind of feedback are you getting? What ideas are taking hold?”
Mine known client issues for data, such as:
How the product compares to other products
The success and quality of the product once it’s in real customer hands
How content contributes to the success and quality of the product
Opportunities for improvements in the information experience to contribute to
improvements in the total offering or product user experience
Requirements for content, both strategic and low-hanging fruit
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Analyzing client data
Step 4: Mine client data
Content strategists mine client data to
determine:
The identity of the target clients
The business goals for which clients
purchase the product, solution,
service or whatever in the first place
The tasks that clients must do to
achieve their goals
The tasks that clients have to do as a
result of product or solution design
Connections to other products,
solutions or information
Current and potential problem areas
Connect dots & synthesize:
Client business goals
+
Client problems
+
Business strategy
=
A great way to identify
opportunities where
high-value content
can make a difference
that matters to business!!
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Analyzing client data
Step 5: Understand client metrics
We’ve talked about relevant business metrics and development metrics thus far
What about the client? What are your clients’ metrics? Do your clients value the
same things that your business values? How do you know? Can you prove it?
Key idea: think of yourself as a partner in your clients’ success (this is one of IBM’s
core leadership competencies)
Leverage network relationships with client-facing personnel. (Better yet, develop
those relationships yourself.) Use those relationships to discover, prioritize, and
validate client concerns. Here’s a simple list to get you started:
ROI
Time-to-success
Time-to-value
Ease of use
Ease of maintenance and support
Functional priorities
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1. Before you begin
2. Analyze content
3. Analyze “packaging”
4. Analyze people
5. Analyze processes
3
Analyzing the current content ecosystem
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Analyzing the content ecosystem
Step 1: Before you begin, part 1
To learn about the ecosystem as a whole, you need to build and leverage a
network that includes subject matter experts from every facet and entity that
participates in the content ecosystem—you need their expertise both to gather
and interpret data
Wherever possible, use metrics to distinguish opinion from fact—but don’t try to
interpret the data you collect without others’ insights and experience
Like any ecosystem, the content
ecosystem is comprised of
interdependent elements
While it’s tempting to focus solely on the
content facet of the ecosystem, you must
see the system
To gain a nuanced and true
understanding of how the ecosystem
works (and where you’ve got work to do),
you need to analyze each element and
how the system functions as a whole
z
content process
peoplepackaging
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Analyzing the content ecosystem
Step 1: Before you begin, part 2
Your systems thinking skills are
really getting a workout!
Another system impacts the
content ecosystem: the
product lifecycle
When assessing your content
ecosystem, view it as the
client/buyer/user sees it: an
interconnected series of product
interactions facilitated by
content
Interpret the effectiveness of
your content ecosystem by
asking:
How well does the ecosystem
function in and between each
phase of the product lifecycle?
A generalized view of
IBM’s product lifecycle
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Analyzing the content ecosystem
Step 1: Before you begin, part 3
material
objects, actions—
owned, controlled, repeatable
commodities made of scarce resources
immaterial
knowledge, competencies, emotions—
not owned, boxed, or controlled
available in abundance
*Adapted from Miikka Leiononen’s “Melt,” here
*
Effective content ecosystems
generate profit for the business
and value for the client:
In the knowledge economy,
profit is created by “stuff”
but value is created by content:
new economy
old economy
Remember what the content ecosystem is for…
Company-
generated
information
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Analyzing the content ecosystem
Step 1: Before you begin, part 4
A word about assessing a content ecosystem…
When you analyze the content ecosystem, you look at:
Content
Packaging
People
Processes
When you measure the content ecosystem, make sure you
identify or define measurements for:
Content
Packaging
People
Processes
Only measuring content will not give you a complete
assessment of the effectiveness of the ecosystem
Think about:
Metrics for external effectiveness
Metrics for internal efficiency
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Analyzing the content ecosystem
Step 2: Analyze content, part 1
To assess content health, do a heuristic evaluation:
How well does the content meet client/buyer/user needs?
Go back to your client data—are the high-priority client business goals, scenarios,
and tasks thoroughly covered?
Can you easily see the value propositions for the product in the content ecosystem?
Is the content client-centered, task-focused, and high-value?
How thoroughly does the content cover the full product lifecycle?
Are there gaps or disconnects between the phases of the product lifecycle?
Are there content redundancies or inconsistencies that could derail or confuse a
client?
Does the content enable client success in the typical tasks within each phase?
How well does the content address typical client content needs?
How well does the current information experience address product content such as
up-and-running, getting started, preventing or recovering from errors, and so on?
Does the information experience include embedded assistance where appropriate?
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Analyzing the content ecosystem
Step 2: Analyze content, part 2
Continued…
How well does the content address typical information-seeking behaviors?
Starting: identifying relevant sources of interest.
Chaining: following and connecting new leads found in an initial content source.
Browsing: scanning contents of identified sources for subject affinity.
Monitoring: staying informed about developments in a particular subject area.
Differentiating: filtering and assessing content sources for usefulness.
Extracting: working through a source to find content of interest.
How well does the content contribute to a delightful client experience?
Is the information experience elegant in its presentation, visual design, etc.?
Are there opportunities to simplify or innovate?
Are there opportunities to improve the information experience, such as:
Improvements to the product that result in a need for less content?
Tighter integration between interaction (UI) and information?
Simplified information architecture—fewer sources, fewer pages, designed paths?
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Analyzing the content ecosystem—Step 2: Analyze content
What is high-value content?
As you analyze today-state content, spot the high-value content—track
it, measure it, note its impact on the information experience
High-value content is content that:
Speaks directly to client/buyer/user business goals
Includes only the tasks necessary to achieve those goals
Aids the client in making decisions or applying concepts in their own
situations
Is technically rich in the sense that it includes validated real-world samples,
examples, best practices, and lessons learned
High value content does not:
Focus on manipulating elements of a user interface (those things that
everyone should know by now, such as "Type your name in the name field")
Describe tasks that can't be mapped to a meaningful goal or objective
Describe what to do without explaining how to do it
Describe how to do it without explaining why to do it
!
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How do you measure high value content? That depends!
If your goal is to convince others that high value content matters, look at:
How does my content contribute to clients' purchase decisions? Is there click-through data
and contributions to conversions on marketing pages that I can reference?
How does my content contribute to clients' perceptions of product quality? What's the
relationship between quality problems in my content and known quality problems with the
product?
How does my content contribute to client satisfaction with our products?
How does my content contribute to the product visibility (and thus the sales cycle and
revenue streams) in the marketplace? What kind of social capital is being generated around
my content? Who's active, and how active are they? How frequently and with what impact
am I engaging with customers through my content? What are they talking about—nits, or
requirements for content or broader product strategy? Does the sum of the social
conversation support IBM business strategy and advance the eminence of our brand?
If your goal is to assess the effectiveness of your content and
experience, look at:
Heuristic evaluations (we just talked about this)
Traditional web statistics
Analyzing the content ecosystem—Step 2: Analyze content
Assess today-state content metrics, part 1
We’ll talk more about
business metrics later on—
let’s look at web stats now…
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Analyzing the content ecosystem—Step 2: Analyze content
Assess today-state content metrics, part 2
Web metrics are one way to assess the effectiveness of content
Content strategists use web metrics to gain a clear picture of
client/buyer/user activity in the current information experience that the
content ecosystem supports:
Historical data: Number of visitors to the site or page over time
User data: Who is visiting your site and where they are located
Page popularity: Most and least accessed pages
File types: Files that have been loaded as opposed to viewed
Operating systems and browsers: Browsers and devices used to view content
Referrers: Who is pointing to your stuff, and who isn’t as expected
Referrals: How people are getting to your stuff
Search terms: Words with which users describe and try to find your content
Robots and spiders: Programs that have crawled your site in order to provide
information about site contents to search engines
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Analyzing the content ecosystem—Step 2: Analyze content
Assess today-state content metrics, part 3
Interpret current web statistics to understand how clients:
Search for the information—whether the content is optimized for search engines
(SEO); what click-through and bounce rates show about user paths and success
Enter the experience—whether designed entry points are effective
Think about the information space—what search terms they enter, what topics
they pick as they browse found content
Navigate the information space—whether user paths make sense relative to
your understanding of their business goals and tasks
Use the information—how actual usage patterns differ from designed or
predicted usage patterns; how much time they spend on certain pages;
whether they’re accessing content on mobile devices, etc.
Value the information—any social interaction to consider?
Web usage statistics give us hints at the core issues:
Is my content ecosystem performing in the ways that I expect it to,
based on user actions? Is the information experience effective?
Is my content high-value, or just highly-findable?
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Consider “packaging” aspects of the ecosystem:
Is the presentation of content effective and predictable across the ecosystem? Does
the visual design of content support the branding strategy for the product?
Where and how is your content delivered to the client? Lots of places? One place? Do
the delivery vehicles integrate well with each other? Is the content easily accessible
from the client’s context or point of need?
How findable is your content across delivery vehicles? Are the signposts for wayfinding
visible, usable, and predictable across the ecosystem? Is your content progressively
disclosed in support of clients’ need for increasing depth or breadth of content?
In the information experience,
several mediators come between the
client/buyer/user and the content. We
call these mediators “packaging”:
Presentation—the visual design of the
content
Delivery—the vehicle used to publish the
content for client access
Navigation—the various ways in which the
user finds the content
Analyzing the content ecosystem
Step 3: Analyze “packaging”
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Analyzing the content ecosystem
Step 3: Analyze people
Who are the human players in the ecosystem?
Internal players
Professional content producers
Marketing team
Sales enablement content team
Education teams
Beta programs teams
Support teams
Product documentation teams
Non-professional content producers
Subject matter experts
Client-facing personnel
External players
Business partners
Clients, with all their social networking tools and capabilities
What unique value does each player contribute to the ecosystem?
Look for:
§ Strengths—these are your assets!
§ Mission overlap—these are your pitfalls!
§ Ways to maximize organizational
capabilities—this is your vision!
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Analyzing the content ecosystem
Step 4: Analyze process
The processes at work in the content ecosystem
have as profound an effect as the content itself.
Analyze:
What processes are present in the ecosystem?
Business processes
Corporate-level processes
Business unit-level processes
Content design and delivery process
Processes that span all content producers
Processes unique to individual content producing teams
Are the processes effective?
Do processes make it easier or harder to package content for publishing?
Do processes make it easier or harder for people to work together?
Do process make it easier or harder to produce high-value content?
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1. Before you begin
2. Do a little archaeology
3. Assess the treasure you find4
Analyzing history
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Analyzing history
Step 1: Before you begin
Find people who represent multiple perspectives
Your view of history depends on who you are
Get multiple views to triangulate upon “truth”
Go in with humility
You may have the latest tools, techniques, and technology, but these alone will not
guarantee your success
Start from the assumption that people have good motives and are doing their best
Dig deep, and wear your systems-thinking hat
Pay attention to organizational dynamics, significant relationships, cause-and-effect,
and systemic issues
Look past obvious issues—try to understand pressures, motives, and circumstances
Don’t let it drag you down
Learn from the past—but don’t believe everything you hear
“History is bunk.” –Henry Ford
“Those unable to
catalog the past are
doomed to repeat it.”
—Lemony Snicket
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Analyzing history
Step 2: Do a little archaeology on the content ecosystem
1. Who was here before?
2. What did they do?
3. Why did they do it?
4. What worked well?
5. What didn’t work so well?
6. What challenges did they encounter?
7. What did they learn?
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Analyzing history
Step 3: Assess the archaeological treasure you find
What did you learn?
Any lessons from history that can
help you form a strategy?
Did develop a better appreciation for
why things are the way they are?
What failures from the past can you
turn into future opportunities?
Use your new historical perspective
Show respect for—win the respect of—those who have been there before
Identify potential roadblocks—politics, resources, schedules, skills, people
Identify potential heroes and pre-heroes (read: villains that you haven’t
won over yet)
Go in fore-warned and fore-armed
Prepare effective messages to counter arguments that history suggests
you are likely to encounter
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1. Before you begin
2. Consider political factors that may influence
your success
3. Manage stakeholders
5
Analyzing the political landscape
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Analyzing the political landscape
Step 1: Before you begin—get your head in the game
If you’re not there already, content strategy requires you to step into the world
of politics
Think of it as a game—moving pieces on a board
You can’t touch the pieces directly to move them where you want them
You have to inspire them to move
You inspire them by figuring out what they care about, and speaking to that
It doesn’t have to be an evil game
Look for win-win alliances and opportunities
Discover and play to people’s strengths
Enjoy finding kindred spirits in the game—don’t get bogged down by pieces on the
board that refuse to move
Enjoy the wins—be sure to share the rewards
Learn from the losses—keep your eye on the end game on not on emotional setbacks
Make smart for the greater good—but remember who you are
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Analyzing the political landscape
Step 2: Consider political factors that
may influence your chance of success
1. Do I have the right big picture view of what my
organization cares about?
Executives?
Visionaries?
Management?
The proletariat? (political metaphor, you know)
2. Where are there opportunities for me to connect my
strategy to initiatives in which the organization is
already investing?
What problems does my strategy help solve?
What opportunities does my strategy help maximize?
Keep asking:
What are my options?
Where are my opportunities?
3. Whose agendas do I need to understand to be successful?
Which influencers can help me? What are their agendas?
Which influencers could block me? What are their agendas?
4. Put it all together—which path forward seems most promising? Where do you
need to campaign? Where do you need to gain allies?
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Analyzing the political landscape
Step 3: Manage your stakeholders
Your best political asset—your stakeholders!
A rigorous stakeholder management process will help you
take rigorous advantage of this key asset
Think through the ways that your stakeholders can help
you—start by identifying and analyzing:
Their status relative to your project—advocate, supporter,
neutral, critic, blocker
Their top interests and hot issues
Their key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics
The level of support you desire from them
The role on your project that you desire for them
The actions that you want them to take (and their priority)
The messages that you need to craft for them to enable the
outcome you want
The actions and communication that you need to make happen
with each stakeholder to achieve your desired outcome
Keep your stakeholder management plan current
“Stakeholder
management is
critical to the
success of every
project in every
organization … By
engaging the right
people in the right
way in your project,
you can make a big
difference to its
success...
and to your career.”
—Rachel Thompson
Source and free
stakeholder
management
worksheet here:
Thompson, Rachel.
Stakeholder
Management:
Planning
Stakeholder
Communication.
MindTools. Web. 12
April 2013.
http://bit.ly/8UnUdj
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IDENTIFY REQUIREMENTS
50
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1. Before you begin
2. Extract requirements from the business, user,
historical, and political data you collected
3. Articulate requirements effectively
4. Group requirements
5. Prioritize requirements
1
Identifying and prioritizing requirements
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Identifying requirements
Step 1: Before you begin—procedural overview
determine the importance of individual requirements
to user success — to product success — to business success
all the data you collected
become requirements
business priorities, market plays, competitive analysis, target customers
[why your company produced the product]
client goals, tasks, work context, wants, needs, and motives
[why clients purchase the product in the first place]
what the business needs and values (and doesn’t)
what the client needs and values (and don’t)
that you prioritize to identify strategic focus areas
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Identifying requirements
Step 2: Extract requirements from data
Think deeply about what the data you collected shows you—mine the
data for:
Themes or systemic issues
Problems
Opportunities
Reflect on history and the current state
Don’t think about the future just yet
Consider:
What is the want or need?
Who wants or needs it?
Why do they want or need it?
How might the want or need be addressed? (Caution: don’t get too far
into implementation details at this stage.)
Each need is a requirement!
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Identifying requirements
Step 3: Articulate requirements effectively
Write requirements as simply as possible:
Pragmatic Marketing recommends (and we like)
this approach:
[Persona] has [problem] with [frequency].
[Alyson and Andrea] have [a hard time focusing on
the task at hand when they are having fun making
charts for LavaCon] [pretty much all the time].
Pragmatic Marketing also says that the best
requirements are SMART:
Specific—precisely what to achieve
Measurable—all stakeholders can determine if the
objectives are being met
Achievable—attainable objectives
Realistic—doable with available resources
Time-bound—when the desired results must be achieved
Pragmatic
Marketing’s
5 Pitfalls of
Requirement
Writing
1. Not knowing the
audience
2. Ambiguity
3. Squeezing a
solution into the
problem
4. Not making form
follow function
5. Not having a
holistic approach
who what why where when howX
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Identifying requirements
Step 4: Group requirements
Group requirements into categories to
make prioritizing them a little easier
Pick the group that makes the most sense
for your work—here are some examples:
By area of impact (from these charts):
Requirements to fulfill client/buyer/user wants and needs
Requirements to support business strategy and objectives (and all that
entails)
Requirements that address historical issues
Requirements that address issues in the political landscape
By type (suggested by Pragmatic Marketing):
Functional requirements—capabilities needed
Performance requirements—capacity, speed, ease-of-use, etc.
Constraint requirements—conditions that limit the strategy or design
Interface requirements—interactions needed
Security requirements—such as client privacy or government mandate
Card sort image thanks to UX Matters
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Identifying requirements
Step 5: Prioritize requirements, part 1
Prioritizing requirements is an art—but we can follow a repeatable process to
ensure rigor and high-quality outcomes:
1. Assign each requirement a low, medium, or high priority according to its:
Value to the client
Helps achieve the business goal for which the product was purchased in the first
place (speeds time-to-value)
Helps complete a goal or task (speeds time-to-success)
Solves a problem—better yet, prevents a problem (increases customer satisfaction)
Improves user experience (increases customer satisfaction)
Simplifies; delights (increases customer loyalty)
Value to business strategy
Contributes to product visibility and success in the marketplace
Contributes to brand recognition and mindshare
Value to development
Supports product functionality or capabilities
Saves resources (political note: content band-aids don’t save money long-term!)
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Identifying requirements
Step 5: Prioritize requirements, part 2
…continued:
2. Identify the “must-do” items, and mark them high priority. Caution:
Think critically about those must-do items! Why are they must-do? Ask
yourself:
Do these requirements support user needs or business strategy? Or are they
“because we’ve always done it this way” requirements? Or “because I think it should
be like this” requirements?
Do the requirements yield high-value content that maps to clients’ real-world business
goals? Can you prove it? Or are they “because we must have one help topic per user
interface panel” kinds of requirements?
Is it because “development told me to” or “marketing insisted?” That doesn’t
necessarily mean the requirement is really a high priority one. What does your
analysis tell you?
3. Ensure that requirements high in value to your clients, your product
strategy, and your overarching business strategy are marked higher in
priority than those items that are only valuable to one or two of those
areas.
4. Group items by priority, from high to low.
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Identifying requirements
Step 5: Prioritize requirements, part 3
…continued:
5. Rank high-priority items by doability:
Identify any low-hanging fruit (easy or quick to address).
Do you have the necessary time, skill, and technology resources?
Does the team have the resources to implement the solution?
6. Do the same for medium priority items.
7. Hang on to the low-priority items for now; depending on time and resources, you
may be able to incorporate them into your information strategy and architecture.
8. Share and validate your focus area prioritization with stakeholders:
Start at home first: get feedback from your content team. Use this time to:
Help the team think strategically about the future
Collaborate with management about resource requirements and the best ways to
deploy skills strategically against high-priority work
Help your executive management chain think about the business value of content
through discussions of your focus items and priorities.
Then get feedback from your extended offering team and your users.
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Identifying requirements
Step 5: Prioritize requirements—summary
1. Absorb—synthesize—summarize into requirements and groups of requirements
2. If you get stuck, try a free-form card sort or an old-fashioned SWOT analysis:
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
3. Prioritize: critical vs. nice-to-have
Define a scale to communicate impact—high impact, low impact
Define a scale to communicate effort—high effort, low effort
Get as close to the ideal as you can—high impact, low effort
Do this for all the kinds of requirements that your data revealed
4. Be prepared to show evidence for all of the above
Quotes are good
Videos are great
Numbers are better (provided they’re the right numbers)
Numbers AND videos are best
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METRICS PLAN
60
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1. Before you begin—rethinking metrics
2. Plan to sell to two different audiences
3. Map stakeholders to metrics
4. Map content metrics to stakeholder metrics
5. Set metrics-based goals
6. Plan for a closed-loop process
7. Plan for story-telling
1
Defining success
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Defining success
Step 1: Before you begin—rethink metrics, part 1
Problem: Metrics have gotten a bad rap
Numbers can be hard for word people
The right numbers are hard for everyone
Getting metrics to work for you requires a significant shift in thinking
Solution: Rethink metrics
Metrics are another form of audience analysis (who cares about what?)
Metrics are another form of usability testing (what works for whom?)
Motivation for change: Metrics are a powerful tool for getting what you want (and
making sure you want the right things)
Metrics transform opinion into fact
Metrics remove emotion from analysis and decision-making
Strategize with metrics: Use metrics at every phase
Beginning: identify opportunity, prove the strategy is right
Middle: show incremental progress, course-correct
End: to prove value and earn investment for the future
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Defining success
Step 1: Before you begin—rethink metrics, part 2
A strategist is (among other things) a story-teller:
Define the right vision
Tell a compelling, true story that inspires people to buy into your vision.
What makes a story true? Facts—things you can prove.
What makes a story compelling? It speaks to what matters most.
What matters most? Depends on your audience. Duh, right?
We prove the value of content with metrics
Value is in the eye of the beholder.
Who’s your “beholder?” Understand who your beholders actually are—that
is, the real decision-makers and influencers in your world. (Remember the
stakeholder management plan from Part 1?)
Use metrics that target actual decision-makers.
Your actual decision-makers are probably business people—executives,
managers, and others who hold the purse-strings.
Figure out what your audience values—their metrics for success.
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Defining success
Step 1: Before you begin—rethink metrics, part 3
So what audience are we speaking to when we talk about things like this?
Site visitors
Page hits
Visitor location
Most popular pages
Least popular pages
Bounce rate
Time spent on page
Referrals and referrers
Search terms
Etc.
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Defining success
Step 2: Plan to sell to 2 different audiences
Audience 1: Business people
Unless you can make a direct connection between your content metrics
and the metrics that drive business, you are telling the wrong story for
this audience.
You need this audience! The business community funds us. We have to
sell our vision to them, with a metrics story that resonates with them.
We must learn to speak “business”—that is, prove the value of content
using metrics that matter to business.
Audience 2: Content producer people
A enterprise content ecosystem typically includes many kinds of content
producers
Content producers across the ecosystem tend to reflect the values of their
leadership and business unit in which they’re located
This means that even kindred spirits—other content people—can have
widely different goals and metrics
Your job is to define common ground by speaking to what matters most
to this audience, too.
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Defining success—Step 2: Selling to two audiences
Selling content strategy to a business audience
The kinds of metrics that we use to build
effective content strategies don’t resonate with
most executives, managers, and finance people.
Sometimes we “talk to ourselves”—that is, use
metrics that resonate with content people, not the
actual people we need to support our strategy.
“Page hits” resonate with us. “Sales leads”
resonates with business.
You cannot directly connect things like page hits
and bounce rates to core business metrics.
You need an informational professional’s
intuition to know how content supports business
metrics—most business people don’t have that
intuition.
The business audience funds us. We have to
sell our vision and prove our value to them, with
a metrics story that speaks to what they care
about most.
Example
business metrics:
Revenue streams
Sales leads
Cost per lead
Customer satisfaction
Customer loyalty
Return on investment (ROI)
Time to value
Market share
Mindshare
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At IBM, we’re learning to tell a better story for a business audience
We conducted a survey since 2010 with clients and prospective clients
about the value of content—here’s the hot-off-the-press data:
67
Defining success—Step 2: Selling to two audiences
Proving the business value of content—IBM example
Shameless
ad:
May 2014 issue
of STC’s
Intercom
magazine
contains an
article that my
colleague
Alyson Reilly
and I wrote on
proving the
business value
of content.
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Defining success—Step 2: Selling to two audiences
Selling content strategy to a content audience
Analyze each organization or team that contributes to the content ecosystem
In what business unit are they located?
Who are their executives, sponsors, and stakeholders?
Who “grades them” on their performance?
Who funds them?
What matters to them?
How do they measure their progress or results?
What are they doing well (both in your analysis and theirs)?
Where can they improve (both in your analysis and theirs)?
Identify areas of similarity and difference
Where do their goals align with yours? ßbuild bridges!
Where do their goals conflict with yours? ßbuild business cases!
Use metrics to craft a story that:
Shows problems and opportunities that each content team cares about
Maps in key areas to their goals for content
Diverges from their current goals in ways that would increase their value to sponsors
and stakeholders
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Defining success
Step 3: Map stakeholders to metrics
Remember the stakeholder management plan
from “Assessing and analyzing the today-state?”
Here’s another place where it provides value.
Be highly intentional about making sure that
your metrics plan includes data that map to the
things your key stakeholders care about.
This mapping activity will help you:
Validate your strategy—does your work align with
mission-critical organizational objectives?
Prepare persuasive communications for your key
decision-makers—do you have the framework for
a strong story to connect in meaningful ways with
your various stakholders?
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Defining success—Step 3: Map stakeholders to metrics
Metrics for a business audience
Use the research you did
during the today-state
analysis phase
Target the key decisions-
makers—those who hold the
purse-strings
Identify what the key business
decision-makers care about
Use language that resonates
with that business audience
Remember: unless you can tie
a particular goal or result to a
measurement that the
stakeholder cares about, that
result ultimately doesn’t
matter
Stakeholder Example metrics
VP Marketing § ROI
§ Cost per lead
§ Campaign performance
§ Conversion metrics
VP Sales § Viable leads
§ Sales growth
§ Product performance
VP Support § Call volume
§ Call length
§ Customer satisfaction
VP Development § Development costs
§ Market share
§ Lines of code
§ Compliance
§ Quality and test results
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Defining success—Step 3: Map stakeholders to metrics
Metrics for a content team audience
Now map
players in the
content
ecosystem to
the metrics
they care
about
Remember
that each
content team
has their own
decision-
makers who:
Approve
their goals
Determine
their
funding
Determine
their
futures
Stakeholder Example
metrics
Example associated
content teams
Example
content metrics
VP
Marketing
§ ROI
§ Cost per lead
§ Campaign
performance
§ Conversion
metrics
§ Web team
§ Social team
§ Event team
§ Web traffic
§ Click-throughs
§ Likes and shares
§ Conversions
§ Collateral distributed
§ Cost per unit produced
VP
Sales
§ Viable leads
§ Sales growth
§ Product
performance
§ Sales enablement
§ Education & training
§ Beta programs
§ Proofs of Concept (PoCs)
to sale
§ Number of classes
§ Beta program participants
§ Cost per unit produced
VP
Support
§ Call volume
§ Call length
§ Customer
satisfaction
§ Web support team
§ Call center team
§ Amount of web
information produced
§ Number of calls reduced
§ Time of calls reduced
§ Cost per unit produced
VP
Development
§ Dev cost
§ Market share
§ Lines of code
§ Compliance
§ Quality and test
§ Product documentation
team
§ Developers who publish
whitepapers and case
studies
§ Product community
forums and wikis
§ Lines of text, number of
pages, etc.
§ Cost per unit produced
§ Web traffic
§ Number of forum
participants
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Defining success
Step 4: Map content metrics to stakeholder metrics
Tie your content strategy metrics to the metrics that matter most to your
stakeholders so you can tell a story that inspires the outcomes you want.
This means researching how content influences the metrics that are most
important to the specific people you need for success.
Start your research with these hints:
How does content drive
purchase decisions? direct link to the revenue stream
How does content impact
product quality? direct link to customer loyalty
How does content influence
customer satisfaction? direct link to ROI
How does content shape clients’
perceptions of your company? direct link to mindshare
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Defining success
Step 5: Set metrics-based goals
So what are the goals for your content strategy? Express those goals in the form
of business metrics and content metrics. Some examples:
Business metrics Sample content metrics Sample content goals
Purchase decisions
(revenue)
§ Reach—visits, etc.
§ Engagement—referrals, etc.
Contribute to revenue stream
through referrals from technical
content that become sales leads.
Product quality
(customer loyalty)
§ Reach—visits, etc.
§ Engagement—referrals, etc.
Contribute to product quality
through by simplifying the
amount of content in the user
experience.
Customer satisfaction
(ROI)
§ Web traffic
§ Direct feedback
§ Ratings
§ Shares (social)
Create high value content that
speeds customer time to success.
Perceptions of company
(mindshare)
§ Sentiment—nature of social
dialogue, etc.
§ Direct feedback
Create high quality, highly usable
content delivered in an elegant
information experience.
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Defining success
Step 6: Plan for a closed-loop process
Closed loop: end up at the beginning!
Start with metrics—use at project outset to:
Identify problems and opportunities
Define the vision
Prove that the vision is right
Continue with metrics—use during implementation to:
Measure the success of your progress in small increments
Stay on-target through implementation
Determine when it’s time to course-correct (before change gets expensive)
Keep your sponsors and stakeholders engaged throughout the long haul
Ensure that you remain connected to the broader goals and metrics of the surrounding
business
Ensure that you stay responsive and adapt to change
End with metrics—use at project conclusion to:
Prove the business value of cultivating an effective content ecosystem
Prove the business value of your work—enhance your credibility and career
Encourage future investment in the content ecosystem
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Defining success
Step 7: Plan for story-telling
What your metrics give you:
The “black and white” part of your strategy
The facts that prove your strategy is a good one
An argument that speaks to the analytical mind
What your metrics don’t give you:
A guaranteed successful “sell” to your stakeholders
A vision that inspires people to believe
A story that speaks to the emotional heart
Think through the content, tactics, and rhetorical devices that will sell your vision
Aristotle had it right:
Ethos—your credibility as a speaker (professionalism; authority)
Logos—the logic of your argument; the clarity of your message and evidence, using
either inductive (bottom-up) or deductive (top-down) reasoning
Pathos—an emotional appeal, vivid storytelling, creative envisioning
The point? Be sure that your metrics help you gather all the data you need to tell
an ethos—logos—pathos story
EXPERT
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STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT
76
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BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE
85
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1. Before you begin
2. Specify the issue
3. Depict the outcome
4. Articulate your recommendation
5. Provide justification
6. Identify the team
7. Tell a good story
1
Building a high-level business case
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Building a business case
Step 1: Before you begin—embrace the case
The beauty of black-and-white—a business case helps you:
Ensure that your strategy is complete and that you’ve thought through every
potential issue
Fight the battle for content strategy by equipping you with powerful
ammunition
Transform your message from “I want this” to “These critical data show
that…”
Demonstrate rigor and professionalism
Assert your credibility—it is the lingua franca of the business world
Lots of mental roadblocks out there about writing business cases!
Let’s demystify business cases a bit! There are lots of approaches and
templates out there for building good business cases—but for our
purposes today, let’s pare down the content in a typical business to a few
key ideas…
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Building a business case
Step 2: Specify the issue
Describe the business problem—clearly, briefly, factually
What business problem does your content strategy solve?
What is the impact of this business problem—today, and tomorrow?
Go back to your metrics and stakeholder management plans—state
the problem in those terms, mapped directly to business priorities
“Management is concerned with decreasing costs and increasing
revenue, so state the problem in those terms.” —Jack Molisani
“Don’t assume that management can see the ‘pain’ of this problem as
clearly as you can.” —Jack Molisani
Do not describe how the problem will be addressed—merely define
the problem.
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Building a business case
Step 3: Depict the outcome
What would an ideal tomorrow-state look like?
What would success look like?
This is the spot where you help your audience imagine the
possibilities that your solution will address!
Your vision!
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Building a business case
Step 4: Articulate your recommendation
So how do we achieve the outcome you described?
Describe your solution and how your solution solves the problem
Describe the benefits of your solution (another spot where you can use those
metrics and stakeholder management plans)
Revenue?
Customer satisfaction?
Client ROI?
Mindshare?
Marketshare?
Cost reduction or avoidance?
You get the idea…
Describe how moving forward with your strategy will achieve desirable results.
Use your skills as a technical communicator—write your justifications using
why? and for whom? and how much?
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Building a business case
Step 4: Provide justification
Let your audience see how you arrived at this solution:
Describe all viable/meaningful alternatives (including doing nothing)
Use your metrics plan to evaluate each option
Calculate ROI (where you can): amount returned / costs
Estimate how long it will take to see those returns on investment
Identify any risks and communicate a plan to mitigate those risks
Specify why you selected your approach over alternative
options
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Building a business case
Step 5: Identify the team
Who do you need in order to achieve your vision?
Leaders of the project?
Sponsors?
Stakeholders?
What skills do you need?
Leadership/strategy/vision
Project management
Technical
End-to-end information experience skills
Information development skills
Etc.
Make a clear and concise request for resources, and be sure that these
resources have been accounted for in your cost assessments
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Ethos—your credibility (professionalism; authority)
Logos—the logic of your argument; the clarity of your message and evidence,
using either inductive (bottom-up) or deductive (top-down) reasoning
Pathos—an emotional appeal, vivid storytelling, creative envisioning
Use all the techniques you can to help your audience visualize the future!
Show, don’t tell—include imagery, video, and audio as appropriate to show the
challenges of the today-state and help your audience imagine tomorrow
Keep your packaging professional—high-quality, visually-appealing charts and
documents will enhance your ethos
Help your audience learn—start with the big picture (an executive summary),
then feed them the details
Building a business case
Step 6: Tell a good story
Remember good old Aristotle? Use your skills as a technical
communicator to tell a compelling story with your business case!
Ensure your story speaks to:
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COMMUNICATE
94
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1. Before you begin
2. Identify who needs to know something
3. Define what they need to know
4. Describe why they need to know it
1
Identify and capture expectations
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Identify and capture expectations
Step 1: Before you begin
Choose a capture method
Expectations matrix
List all of your constituents—take a 360-degree look around
Determine what they need to know—talk to them
Define what they want to do—and what you want them to do—as a
result of the knowledge
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Identify and capture expectations
Step 2: Identify who needs to know something
Who needs to know something—anything—about your initiative?
You likely have the beginning—if not the entirety—of a list from
your analysis activity! Again, consider:
Content producers, for evangelism, implementation
Marketing team
Sales enablement content team
Education teams
Beta programs teams
Support teams
Product documentation teams
Subject matter experts
Client-facing personnel
Business partners, for evangelism and validation
Clients, for validation and evangelism
Look for stakeholders, colleagues, team members, etc.:
With strengths that can further your mission (so that you can leverage them)
With missions that overlap this initiative (so that you can meet objections and get them on
board)
In organizations with capabilities to deliver the mission (so that you can leverage them)
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Identify and capture expectations
Step 3: Define what they need to know
Use your business plan for input
List the topics will you need to communicate
For each of your constituents, describe what they need to know about
each topic
How does each
audience relate
to the
communication
themes?
Responsible
Accountable
Consulted
Informed
From RACI blog post,
See resources
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Identify and capture expectations
Step 4: Describe why they need to know it
Use your business plan for input, as well as what you know about your
climate from analysis
For each constituent and topic, consider why you are communicating
For you:
What will you get for the effort of communicating?
Is there a specific action you want them to take?
For them:
What will they get for the effort of paying attention?
Is there specific knowledge they need to do their jobs?
Are there actions they want to take but cannot until they have your
information?
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1. Before you begin
2. List your communication customers
3. Identify the output of the communication
4. Define the process for how the communication will
happen
5. Describe the input required
6. Identify the suppliers who will communicate the
information
2
Summarize the communication process
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Summarize the communication process
Step 1: Before you begin
Choose a capture method
COPIS matrix
List the customers who will receive the information
Identify the output messages that will be communicated
Describe the process and delivery mechanisms used to communicate
Define the inputs to the messages
List your suppliers of information
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Summarize the communication process
Steps 2&3: List the customers and identify outputs
Step 2: List the customers
Who will receive the communication
è Use the “constituents” dimension of your expectations matrix.
Step 3: Identify the output (what they need to know)
What messages/information will be communicated
è Use the “needs/to” dimension of your expectations matrix.
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Summarize the communication process
Step 4: Describe the process you will
use to communicate
How will you communicate? What channels/delivery
mechanisms will you use?
Each audience and type of communication might warrant a different
communication approach
It is very likely that you’ve already discussed some of this during
analysis, metrics, and business case work
Don’t feel they all need to be unique; leverage what already exists (or
is identified) when possible
Consider
Internal, external, or both?
“Mass” communication, such as e-mail blasts, blog posts
Targeted and more controlled communication, such as live presentations
Highly targeted and controlled communication, such as one-on-one
discussions
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Summarize the communication process
Step 5: Define the inputs to the messages
Dependencies: What do you (or other suppliers) need to
know to ensure you are communicating the correct
message?
It is likely that you’ve already discussed some of this
during analysis, metrics, and business case work
Consider
Team member information that rolls up
Changes in the organization, org climate, or initiative that could
(should?) trigger communication
Events in related organizations to which you should respond
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Summarize the communication process
Step 6: List your suppliers of information
The messenger
Who is the right person to deliver the message?
You might have already discussed some of this during
analysis, metrics, and business case work
Sometimes your suppliers are also your constituents!
Consider
Team members to whom you want to give credit
Other teams’ leaders or members with
whom you want to share credit
Leaders who need to take responsibility
Stakeholders for appropriate visibility
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1. Before you begin
2. Determine how to best sell your vision
3. Talk to the right audiences
4. You’re on!
3
Communicate for buy-in
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Communicate for buy-in
Step 1: Before you begin
Nurture your inner influencer by cultivating your emotional
intelligence and appropriately leveraging your power J
Do your homework through analysis
Define the right vision—your requirements and unified
content strategy, validated by the right metrics
Tell a compelling story by measuring the right things
What makes a story true? Facts—things you can prove.
What makes a story compelling? It speaks to what matters most.
What matters most? Depends on your audience.
Capture your story in a way the business can understand—
your business case
108. IBM Digital, Integrated Content (IC) Center of Excellence (CoE)
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Communicate for buy-in
Step 2: Determine how to best sell your vision
Think through the content, tactics, and rhetorical devices
that will sell your vision…remember Aristotle
Ethos—your credibility as a speaker
(professionalism; authority)—your
inner influencer
Logos—the logic of your argument; the
clarity of your message and evidence,
using either inductive (bottom-up) or
deductive (top-down) reasoning—
your metrics
Pathos—an emotional appeal, vivid
storytelling, creative envisioning—what’s
in it for them
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Communicate for buy-in
Step 3: Talk to the right audience
What’s in it for them?
Business people
We must learn to speak “business”—that is, prove the value of
content using metrics that matter to business.
They fund us. We must sell our vision and prove our value to them.
Content producers
We must define common ground by speaking to
what matters most to them.
Their implementation will realize the vision of
the ecosystem. We must sell our vision and
get their buy-in.
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Communicate for buy-in
Step 4: You’re on!
It’s just another communication project!
Approach it that way!
Leverage the business plan
outline/sections to develop the
presentation structure
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andrea ames (@aames)
thank you
may your content ecosystem thrive
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REFERENCES
112
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References
Ames, Andrea and Alyson Riley. “Strategic information
architecture: The information user experience.” Intercom
(October 2012). 28-32.
Wheeler, Benjamin, Gilda Wheeler, and Wendy Church.
It's All Connected: A Comprehensive Guide to Global
Issues and Sustainable Solutions:
www.facingthefuture.org
Ecology, Mind, & Systems: ecomind.wikidot.com
Checkland, Peter. Systems Thinking, Systems Practice.
1999.
114. IBM Digital, Integrated Content (IC) Center of Excellence (CoE)
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References
Ames, Andrea and Alyson Riley. Strategic information architecture: The information
user experience. Intercom (October 2012). 28-32.
Ellerby, Lindsay. Analysis, plus synthesis: Turning data into insights. UX Matters (27
April 2009). Web. 12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/C2vQ6
Ellis, David. (1989). A behavioural model for information retrieval system design.
Journal of information science, 15 (4/5): 237-247.
Johnson, Steve. Writing the market requirements document. Pragmatic Marketing.
Web. 12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/SiTrF2
Kalbach, James. “Designing for Information Foragers: A Behavioral Model for
Information Seeking on the World Wide Web.” Internetworking, Internet Technical
Group newsletter. Web. 20 April 2013. http://bit.ly/11Ryc15
Kalbach, James and Aaron Gustafson. Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User
Experience. Cambridge: MA: O’Reilly Media, 2007.
Plowman, Kerry J. Five pitfalls of requirement writing. Pragmatic Marketing. Web.
12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/RWKbUY
Sehlhorst, Scott. Writing good requirements—the big ten rules. Tyner Blain blog.
Web. 12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/13Y7t0
Thompson, Rachel. Stakeholder management: Planning stakeholder communication.
MindTools. Web. 12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/8UnUdj
115. IBM Digital, Integrated Content (IC) Center of Excellence (CoE)
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References
Ames, Andrea and Alyson Riley. Strategic information architecture: The information
user experience. Intercom (October 2012). 28-32.
Ellerby, Lindsay. Analysis, plus synthesis: Turning data into insights. UX Matters (27
April 2009). Web. 12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/C2vQ6
Ellis, David. (1989). A behavioural model for information retrieval system design.
Journal of information science, 15 (4/5): 237-247.
Johnson, Steve. Writing the market requirements document. Pragmatic Marketing.
Web. 12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/SiTrF2
Kalbach, James. “Designing for Information Foragers: A Behavioral Model for
Information Seeking on the World Wide Web.” Internetworking, Internet Technical
Group newsletter. Web. 20 April 2013. http://bit.ly/11Ryc15
Kalbach, James and Aaron Gustafson. Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User
Experience. Cambridge: MA: O’Reilly Media, 2007.
Plowman, Kerry J. Five pitfalls of requirement writing. Pragmatic Marketing. Web.
12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/RWKbUY
Sehlhorst, Scott. Writing good requirements—the big ten rules. Tyner Blain blog.
Web. 12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/13Y7t0
Thompson, Rachel. Stakeholder management: Planning stakeholder communication.
MindTools. Web. 12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/8UnUdj
116. IBM Digital, Integrated Content (IC) Center of Excellence (CoE)
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References
Bhapkar, Neil. 8 KPIs Your Content Marketing Measurements Should
Include. Content Marketing Institute. Web. 12 April 2013.
http://bit.ly/Wnb7Cy
Klipfolio. The KPI Dashboard—Evolved. Web. 12 April 2013.
http://bit.ly/LhzeL9
Muldoon, Pamela. 4 metrics every content marketer needs to measure:
Interview with Jay Baer. Content Marketing Institute. Web. 12 April 2013.
http://bit.ly/X8IvMJ
Thompson, Rachel. Stakeholder management: Planning stakeholder
communication. MindTools. Web. 12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/8UnUdj
117. IBM Digital, Integrated Content (IC) Center of Excellence (CoE)
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References
Bhapkar, Neil. 8 KPIs Your Content Marketing Measurements Should
Include. Content Marketing Institute. Web. 12 April 2013.
http://bit.ly/Wnb7Cy
Carliner, Saul. Ten tips for building a business case. Intercom (June 2012).
Klipfolio. The KPI Dashboard—Evolved. Web. 12 April 2013.
http://bit.ly/LhzeL9
Molisani, Jack. How to build a business case. Intercom (July/August 2008).
Muldoon, Pamela. 4 metrics every content marketer needs to measure:
Interview with Jay Baer. Content Marketing Institute. Web. 12 April 2013.
http://bit.ly/X8IvMJ
Thompson, Rachel. Stakeholder management: Planning stakeholder
communication. MindTools. Web. 12 April 2013. http://bit.ly/8UnUdj
118. IBM Digital, Integrated Content (IC) Center of Excellence (CoE)
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References
COPIS/SIPOC on iSixSigma—instructions and template:
http://bit.ly/yz9mtc
How a RACI Matrix Can Help Your Project Succeed by
Shannon Navin from Cardinal Solutions blog:
http://bit.ly/QuaWOi
Editor's Notes
Only 10% of total mass above water; 90% underwater is what ocean currents act on and what creates the iceberg’s behavior in the 10%
Just below the water line, start to see patterns or recurrence of events, which indicate that an event is not an isolated incident
Deep beneath the patterns are the root causes that create or drive the patterns
At the base of the iceberg are assumptions and worldviews that created or sustained the structures that are in place
In solving problems, the greatest leverage is in changing the structure--applying deep ocean currents to move the iceberg, which will change the events at its tip
“[T]he leading edge of the economy in developed countries has become driven by technologies based on knowledge and information production and dissemination. … We define the knowledge economy as production and services based on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to an accelerated pace of technological and scientific advance as well as equally rapid obsolescence. The key components of a knowledge economy include a greater reliance on intellectual capabilities than on physical inputs or natural resources, combined with efforts to integrate improvements in every stage of the production process, from the R&D lab to the factory floor to the interface with customers.” From The Knowledge Economy, Walter W. Powell and Kaisa Snellman, Stanford University, 2004. http://www.stanford.edu/group/song/papers/powell_snellman.pdf
“[T]he leading edge of the economy in developed countries has become driven by technologies based on knowledge and information production and dissemination. … We define the knowledge economy as production and services based on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to an accelerated pace of technological and scientific advance as well as equally rapid obsolescence. The key components of a knowledge economy include a greater reliance on intellectual capabilities than on physical inputs or natural resources, combined with efforts to integrate improvements in every stage of the production process, from the R&D lab to the factory floor to the interface with customers.” From The Knowledge Economy, Walter W. Powell and Kaisa Snellman, Stanford University, 2004. http://www.stanford.edu/group/song/papers/powell_snellman.pdf