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Just fill in the blank?

by Meghan Casey on September 16th, 2009

A while ago, our fearless leader blogged about how technology can’t fix your content problems. Of course, I agree.

Sure, the CMS is important – the right one makes content publishing easier and the published pages more consistent. But it can’t ensure that your content is useful and usable. Only a person or team of people can do that.

Consider this smaller-scale example:

I just read a blog post by Ben Parr on mashable about an online resume builder tool – JobSpice – that he describes as shockingly simple to use.

It does look pretty darn easy to use, making it a great way to create a dapper dandy resume. It’s as easy as filling in the blanks. Cool. It’s sorta like a CMS. Just enter your content, check some boxes, add some parameters, and ta da: Content. Published.

But, the person building the resume still needs to think about what content goes in the blanks. Right? The shockingly simple tool can’t do that. Neither can a CMS. A person has to determine:

    • Who is the resume for?

    • What kind of job am I looking for?

    • What will the employer care about?

    • What do I want them to do after reading my resume?

Real, live people are the key to content that meets users’ needs and drives results. And that’s where content strategy comes in. It answers the questions that help ensure your content – however it gets published – hits the mark.
 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 16th, 2009 at 7:27 am and is filed under Content Strategy, User Experience, Web Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • I used to build resumes for executives when I was starting out as a writer. Your thoughts on ease-of-creation vs. value of content is key.

    I once re-wrote a resume for a sales executive that perfectly demonstrates the need you describe. His current resume was fine. Grammar was correct, it had an acceptable structure and appearance, it accurately described his duties and skills.

    After talking to him a while I asked, "So, I see that you speak to your duties and skills, but have you ever been credited with a major accomplishment?" He didn't quite understand. I explained. He thought a bit. "Uh, well, I mean I lead a division that I created and accounts for 40% of the company's overall revenue. You mean something like that?"

    Uh, yeah, something like that.

    A CMS robot probably couldn't have gotten there for him.
  • Yes, I couldn't agree more. We've spent years and countless dollars on a content management system that allows writers and clients to easily create, revise and track content. But the CMS doesn't produce anything. It only collects and organizes what people put into it. The value is in the skill of the writers, editors and SEO specialists who use it. Garbage in, garbage out!
  • larryheard
    I don't any advance computer program could do quality check on contents anytime sooner, maybe in Japan but you knows. As <a href=" http://www.theresumebuilder.com/">how to write a resume? Just keep it clean and professional. No grammar errors, no I and me statement, and use specific figures when you can. Keep your qualification relevant to the position you're applying to.
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