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by Kristina Halvorson on April 29th, 2010

Yes. Hello.

So, I had a super great post written for you with all these detailed, inspired thoughts about the traveling I've done and the people I've met, but when I tried to do a final save, WordPress ate it. No, my dog did. No, WordPress did. Wait, what?

(You type it in Notes/Word/Notepad, the formatting is wonky when you cut/paste. You type it in WordPress, it eats it. Blogging is dumb.)

Anyhow. Let me get to the point. But before I do, please ignore everything you just read. Because YOU NEED TO BLOG.

Everywhere I go, I'm hammering on people to go after public speaking gigs. Now I'm hammering on you to start writing (or, writing more) about content strategy.

You don't need to have all the answers. You don't even need to have a single answer. Here's a list of what you need:

  1. An interest in content strategy

(That's it. There is no "2".)

So that I may straightaway crush all of your brilliantly-crafted excuses, here's a long list of questions to get you started. I collected these from my Content Strategy Forum workshop participants. The questions range from the tactical to the philosophical. Pick one, and get busy.

I'll do the same.

•  How do you see the relationship between a creative director and a content strategist?

•  "Content strategy" is such a broad term. Do you think we would be better served by breaking it down further, e.g. "editorial strategy" and so on?

•  What's my elevator speech when someone asks me what a content strategist is?

•  How can we partner with global colleagues to create consistent content?

•  Is editorial strategy a subset of content strategy? Or are they the same thing? If not, what's the difference?

•  What are some talking points when building a business case for taking a more strategic approach to content planning?

•  What should we be thinking about when working to implement a content strategy in a multilingual environment?

•  What are some of the most important methods, tools, and templates to know about when developing and executing a content strategy?

•  How can we convince stakeholders to invest in the audit and analysis phases?

•  How can content strategy begin to resolve ownership issues between print content creators and web content editors?

•  How can we sell content strategy as an integral part of the project planning process?

  • You've inspired me! I'm taking up the challenge :)
  • I'm in the same position as bencurnett below. And I accept your challenge! Where's my notebook...
  • bencurnett
    web writer who's moving toward content strategy here.

    Just want to come out and say that I butchered -absolutely butchered- an elevator speech about CS last weekend. Except at dinner. With people I so wanted to impress.

    Instead, I probably set myself and CS as a whole back (sorry abt that) a good long way.

    So I'll be writing about point #3 now. Ugh.
  • Heather Kernahan
    I was in your workshop in Paris and definitely heard your message about getting out there and speaking. I am definitely new to the world of content strategy but taking baby steps on bringing this into my organization. I can certainly start by sharing my experience and hopefully you'll see me on the speakers circuit soon1
  • chdennison
    Thanks for this list of ideas! I am blogging on content strategy (and other content-related stuff in general) at http://www.balanceinteractive.com/blog.
  • Dang - Halvorson with the elbow from the sky! We need a word like schadenfreude to describe motivated shame (makes mental note of potential blog name.)
  • Great grist for thought - especially since hammers seem to be the only things in stock at the social media hardware stores.

    Dunbar's Number isn't just about the number of sites people visit -- every occasion naturally has only so much bandwidth. Building the foundation with a strong content strategy (and I'd include having uniform licensing for content uses in your list) means future growth opportunities are less likely to be hamstrung by mechanical rights issues (see also: newspaper unions).
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