Yesterday around lunchtime, I decided I was in the mood for some green curry. There’s a Thai restaurant called Ginger Hop that’s just down the street from our office. I keep forgetting it’s there. But yesterday, I remembered. Deliciousness.
I went to the Google, searched for, and immediately found Ginger Hop. Went to their website, and wow! Is it beautiful!
The graphic captures the spirit of our neighborhood perfectly. Love the colors. Love the rickshaw and the dude in the boat. Love the photoshopped Grain Belt sign. The whole thing made me happy.
Now. Because there isn’t any real navigation system—only a few icons—I intuitively didn’t expect additional content pages on the site. So when I clicked on “Menu,” the PDF file that appeared didn’t surprise me. I read the menu, I ordered the food. And then I was done. It was fast, it was easy, and I enjoyed the experience.
In the moment, I also thought it was sort of funny that I’d had such a great experience on site with no copy. So I tweeted about it.
I didn’t think much of it. But half an hour later, when I went to check my Twitter replies, there were a LOT. Many were surprised—even disappointed—that I liked the site.
I couldn’t argue with any of these points. What’s worse is that the site actually is missing some really important, valuable content…for example, their live music schedule (which they post on Twitter, which how would I know that unless I clicked on their Twitter icon):
Conclusion? This site, while lovely and simple, is actually a bit of a train wreck when it comes to content. So why did I tell my entire Twitter audience—the majority of whom look to me for content strategy guidance and insights—that this was a standout restaurant website?
Because I assumed everyone else’s needs were exactly the same as mine.
Don’t do that.
Do user research (even if it's just talking to a few of your friends who like to eat out). Be diligent about conducting stakeholder interviews. Tool around on competitor websites. Don't just go straight to the exciting pow! of your visual design.
Doing content-focused research (considering product, process, and people) early in any design process—or as an ongoing activity to support iterative content improvements—will keep you from becoming fascinated by your own navel. Because at some point, we all mistake subjective opinions for objective analysis. And, inevitably, you’ll end up alienating some portion of your audience whose needs and preferences are much different from your own.
In closing, I will say that the green curry was quite good.
Posted in Uncategorized
Curation! O hai, new buzzword.
Content strategists, you’re likely already talking about curation. If you’re not, here’s the general premise:
1. There’s too much content out there.
2. Aggregating everything in one place—the “more content = more information = more value” formula—has been an unmitigated disaster.
3. Somebody—or something—needs to filter results to ensure that the content that’s being delivered to an individual or audience is relevant, useful, and satisfying.
4. Enter curation.
Great. We get that. This is a much better formula: curation = something or someone reviews a bunch of content (or apps) and finds the good stuff so I don’t have to.
But is that actually curation? Let us discuss.
Here’s how Dictionary.com defines it:
Late 14c., from O.Fr. curacion from L. curationem , noun of action from curare "to cure" (see cure)
Oh. Well. That’s not very helpful. Let’s try Oxford Dictionary for the verb, “curate”:
To select, organize, and look after the items in (a collection or exhibition).
Ah. I like where this is headed.
Lots of people have lots of ideas about content curation. Here are a few ideas I've curated (or something) from around the interwebs:
Curation works differently than simple search aggregation. Through advanced data tracking or human intervention, or both, content can be refined so as to be more pertinent to a given search. Rather than returning all the results, curation helps to build a collection of the most valuable results. – Mike Dilberto, Curation: It’s Not Just for Museums Anymore
If you think, as I do, that the mere act of editing adds value, does Google’s new test of human selection vs. algorithmic feed pass from the realm of “mere” aggregation into curation territory? How much value do we have to add before we call ourselves curators? – Ian Greenleigh, Am I Curating Yet?
The curator is an information chemist. He or she mixes atoms together in a way to build an info-molecule. Then adds value to that molecule. – Robert Scoble, The Seven Needs of Real-Time Curators
(I have no idea what Scoble is talking about, but as I’ve never had the opportunity to quote him in this blog before, I thought I’d jump on it here.)
If you're into curation and you want to make it a regular thing, there are some really interesting platforms in place (and more popping up) to support everything from individual to social media to enterprise content curation. And I understand why: if we’re going to invest time and energy in culling through all this content, we might as well invest money in smart tools to help us do it.
Now. There are some folks who believe that content creation "may not result in measurably better content than content curation.” Still others believe the idea of “curation” is a huge copout that allows us to continue to ignore the content mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. Or, as Mike Kane says in his post, Curation: A Dead Idea of Dead Thinking:
“Curation” and “curator” are the new buzzwords the dying dinosaurs of oldthink print publishing are clinging to just like overboarded Titanic passengers clung to skimpy lifebuoys in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic.
(Mmmmm. Delicious mixed metaphors.) Oh, also? You are not a curator:
You are, at best, a filter. You may make a name for yourself by excelling at some kind of selection process, but you are not a curator. “Curator” does not mean “I have good taste”. That just makes you some kind of fleshy gauze for the rest of us. The good come to us whilst all the pus and snot that came through your information media streams stay on your side. You are a makeshift step before a more advanced algorithm is invented.
Dude.
As usual, our position here at Brain Traffic is this: we don’t care what you call it. If it’s needed, just do the work. And I think this activity of content curation is much needed.
As content strategists, it is in fact our job to sort through the wasteland of content—both online and within the organizations we serve—to find the really valuable assets, to organize them in meaningful ways, and to ensure they’re properly cared for over time.
That’s my take on this whole curation situation. What’s yours?
Follow Kristina on Twitter: @halvorson
Posted in Uncategorized
You know that saying about the cobbler’s kids having no shoes? Yeah. We’re the cobbler, this blog is our shoes. Sorry for the long absence. There are no excuses. However, we’d like to blame it on spring.
One of the things we’ve been lucky enough to do this spring is speak at various conferences around the country. We’ve talked to a TON of great people—from content strategy newbies to CS experts alike. You guys are awesome. And you’re doing great work. Really great.
Many of you have asked us for our list of go-to content strategy resources. So to thank you all for coming out to see us speak, and to facilitate more awesome content strategy work, we’ve compiled this handy list. Enjoy!
CONTENT STRATEGY, STRAIGHT UP
Books
Community
#contentstrategy
BrainTraffic/contentstrategy
Blogs
Check out our blog roll for our favorite go-to blogs. (Blog roll, to the right.)
Other Stuff & Junk
STUFF CONTENT STRATEGISTS SHOULD KNOW
Books
WEB WRITING FTW
Books
Blogs
From Jakob Nielson’s Useit.com:
What did we miss? Please add your favorite content strategy books, blogs, and links in the comments.
Posted in Content Strategy, Resources, Uncategorized
