And it’s gonna be fuuuuun.

Why?
Because we here at Brain Traffic love content strategy even more than we love cake. Because we’re dizzy with excitement about the way interest in content strategy is exploding. Because we love you and would like to meet you in person.

So! We thought it would be a great idea to host a great big content strategy get-together.  Content strategy can radically improve the way our companies plan for, create, deliver, and govern our content. Doesn’t that sound like something worth celebrating?

What?
It’s a conference! Oh. I said that.

You’ll hear from passionate, pragmatic speakers who are recognized for their expertise in the fields of user experience, CMS, marketing, media/publishing, social media, and SEO. We’ll have authors and folks from agencies, small businesses, and enterprise-level organizations.

Both days will feature two keynote speakers and four breakout sessions. We’ll also be throwing a killer party or two. Of course.

Who?
Are you a marketer? Web manager? Publisher? Media strategist? Web strategist? Enterprise content manager? User experience designer? SEO strategist? Social media strategist? CMS consultant? Writer? Editor?

Yes?

Then you should come to this conference. Because everything you do involves a common, critical asset: content. And your content deserves strategic consideration beyond the standard reactive, last-minute, wild west content we usually end up publishing.

Where? When?
The conference will take place at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis, MN on May 9-10, 2011. When there is no snow. Usually.

How?
The conference website will launch sometime this fall. You’ll be able to register right away to take advantage of early-bird rates. We’ll announce the launch on Twitter (just follow @braintraffic); we’ll also announce via Facebook, LinkedIn, and several other locations. Just stay tuned!

What next?
Watch this space in the coming weeks…we’ll reveal more about the conference as the website launch gets closer.

In the meantime, guess what? …

What’s it called?
WE DON’T KNOW YET.

Hahahaha! No, uh, seriously. "Brain Traffic Content Strategy Conference" just kind of lacks that POW! ZAP! ZING! you usually like to see in a conference title. You know?

We'll figure it out soon enough. But, please, feel free to brainstorm below.

Questions?
Email us, and we'll do our best to get your questions answered.

Who's excited? WOOOOOO!!

I tend to appreciate that less-is-more approach with regard to more than just my dinner. That’s why I shop at my neighborhood co-op instead of the megasupermarket across town. It’s why I like wearing dresses instead of trying to assemble a pants-shirt-belt outfit every day. Life is complicated enough, already, jeez.

The same don’t-bite-off-more-than-you-can-chew, quality-vs.-quantity sensibility factors into many of the recommendations we make to our clients as they undertake the complex task of planning for content on their website.

Your content can’t please all of the people all of the time. (Sorry.)
It’s common for publishers of web properties (large ones, especially) to feel the pressure of becoming all things to all people. After all, different departments within a company have different priorities and different ideas about what the end user really needs.

But without clear rules and a solid decision-making process about what should stay and what should go, the situation can quickly devolve into a “too many cooks in the kitchen” scenario (ahem).

Pretty soon your users get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information on your site, and they leave feeling frustrated, but still hungry for something substantial. The information they wanted may have been there all along, but it was hiding behind a bunch of stuff they didn’t actually need or care about.

But with a content strategy in place, it can please some of the people most of the time.
So how can you satisfy your users by giving them only useful, usable, information that’s also easy to navigate and search? A strategy is necessary. That’s all there is to it.

Whatever form that strategy takes, it should cover the whos, whats, whens, wheres, whys, and hows of everything you serve up. For example:

• What are your users’ goals?
• What content do you offer to satisfy those goals?
• Who makes the content?
• Who fixes it when it’s broken/outdated?
• Where is the best place on the site to share the content?
• Why would your users choose you over another organization?
• How can you use your site content to build on those competitive differences?
• How do your users find you when they find you? How long do they stay when they get there? 

If you can’t keep tabs on all your content in these ways, make less of it for a while. Minimize the content elements you can’t easily govern … until you have the resources or the budget to do so.

The key is to set standards your organization can easily support and routinely evaluate.
Most importantly: Set standards (and a schedule!) for evaluating quality. Make a plan for adding/subtracting content elements to reflect current demand while innovating in your area of expertise. (If you’re the bomb at slow-cooking meats, make that your thing. Then whip up a few side dishes to give that carne some context.)

In summary, make sure the content on your site helps your users accomplish a task. Ditch everything that gets in their way. Bam!

After spending some quality time with our pal Jonathan Kahn at Web Content Chicago 2010 in June, we convinced the fellow content strategy evangelist to make a trip to sunny Minneapolis. Jonathan is founder of London-based web design agency Together London, author of the blog Lucid Plot, and an all-around smart cookie. We like him.

Amidst his whirlwind of tourist activities and an intense round of bar trivia (we won third place), Jonathan obligingly sat down with me to talk shop. I can’t wait to revisit the podcast myself: I was too entranced by his charming accent to pay much attention at the time. (Kidding!)

Listen in to hear this brilliant Brit wax poetic on:

• How he came to the practice of content strategy
• How to fix a broken web development process
• Content strategy: A job for one or many?

The best part, though, is where I make him say something Minnesotan. (You won’t be disappointed.)

You may also download the mp3.

James Mathewson (Editor-in-Chief of ibm.com and the co-author of Audience, Relevance, and Search) graciously invited me to do a four-part podcast series on the topic of curation best practices. Interviewer Mike Moran (author of Do It Wrong Quickly and Search Engine Marketing, Inc) did a great job shaping each ten-minute conversation, and I enjoyed chatting with both of them.

Listen in as we talk about the opportunities obstacles associated with content curation online. Each podcast is ten minutes long and available to download for free on iTunes (links can be found in the embedded player).

Part 1: Companies around the Web are struggling to present the content their users seek from the social sphere. Is content curation the answer?

Part 2: What are some of the approaches companies are taking to aggregating social content? Which ones are most effective?

Part 3: How can we preserve a great user experience when delivering curated content?

Part 4: Are there instances in which content curation is really the only viable solution?

And hey, if you're interested in content curation, you really need to be following Erin Kissane's five-part series on content curation. I'm fairly sure there will be no need to ever write anything about content curation again once she's finished with it. Which may inspire in you a sigh of relief. Perhaps.

Enjoy!

Be proactive about non-text content maintenance.
In an ideal world, all website maintenance decisions happen as a result of your own company’s preferences, and on a reasonable timeline. But even if you’re not living in that ideal world you can still protect yourself. Here’s how:

• Retain source and working files from content partners
• Consider hosting options carefully, and make a contingency plan
• Build a third-party content revision path into your content workflows

Retain source and working files from content partners.
Anyone with a computer can edit a text file, regardless of its source. By contrast, editing audio, video, and Flash-based elements requires access to the original files and the sophisticated software used to create them.

It’s harder to guarantee that access if you’ve outsourced the content. Unless you make sure to get a complete handoff of all original source files you can get stuck editing these elements in other programs, to the detriment of file quality. (For example, video and graphics are best edited at the highest resolution, then rendered/exported/converted to the resolution at which people will ultimately use it.)

Consider hosting options carefully and make a contingency plan.
To complicate matters, content producers often choose to host their content on third-party platforms. Third-party video hosting services (e.g., YouTube) attract content producers by offering APIs, advanced embedding features, HD quality, and free bandwidth.

Using such providers may streamline your process initially, but also requires handing over a certain amount of control. (Companies get acquired, business plans evolve, etc.) If a change is made to the initial agreement, the API, or even the display/delivery of your content, you may be forced to take your content elsewhere.

Disruptions resulting from external partners take time and resources away from your day-to-day business functions. They also affect the user experience. (Think of a video-centric page missing its videos. Yikes!)

Concerns about hosting problems can be easily mitigated by retaining those high-resolution versions and their attendant metadata. With those in hand, upload to other suitable hosting services will be a snap.

Build a third-party content revision path into your content workflows.
Content workflows need to take into account the complexities of editing non-text content.  This flowchart illustrates the steps involved in successfully making both pre- and post-publishing changes to non-text content:

(click to enlarge)

Incorporating these guidelines into your site maintenance plan will help ensure your non-text content is working as hard as it can to keep users engaged and coming back for more.

I doubt the Bear Center has a name for what they are doing. But, what they actually have is … you guessed it, a content strategy. It’s simple: Give Hope fans what they want, then ask them to give money to help bears.

It’s working. Donations have increased exponentially. Even better, loyal readers are out there rustling up fundraising opportunities for the Bear Center. On their own. Without being asked. I’ve never seen such a captive and engaged online audience.

Why their content strategy works
For starters, they’ve got the cute, cuddly bear thing going for them. But there’s more to it than that. The Bear Center:

♦ Stands for something people can get excited about- Their mission is to protect bears in the wild through research and education.

♦ Takes a stand- They aren’t afraid to justify their decision to intervene in Hope’s life. Rather, they welcome conversation on the topic.

♦ Has a clear call to action- “Donate to the Bear Center” comes through loud and clear.

♦ Makes content a priority- Their researchers write daily updates. Even on weekends. After spending all day in the field studying bears.

♦ Inspires people to join a community- More than a million people “like” their Facebook page and hundreds visit it daily to talk to each other.

♦ Re-uses content- The same updates are posted to their website and their Facebook page, helping to increase their reach.

How content strategy can work for you
So what if you don’t have a cuddly orphaned bear to attract and retain an audience? That’s okay. You have stuff to say. And there are people who want to hear it.

Now for that content strategy thingamajig. Here are four things you can do now, on a limited budget, without an army of staff to find your very own orphaned baby bear:

♦ Start small- Pick one piece of your website. The section that gets the most visitors. Your blog. The home page. Whatever. Then, do the following three things:

♦ Identify your point of view- Content marketing guru Joe Pulizzi said at Web Content 2010, “It’s not what you sell. It’s what you stand for.” That one remark was tweeted about a bajillionty times. Cuz it’s true. Figure out what you stand for, make sure it’s different from what everyone else stands for, and then tell people who care.

♦ Define your core purpose- Before you go creating content, spend some time outlining the purpose of the content to make sure everything you publish is on-target. One way to do this is to answer a few questions, such as:

•  Who is the content for?
•  Does your audience care about your message?
•  Does it make sense for you to talk about it?
•  What are you trying to accomplish?
•  What do you want people to do after they read or experience it? 

♦ Be bossy- Okay, you’ve got your point of view and you’ve got your purpose. Now you need the content. Set a publishing schedule—something you can realistically adhere to—and assign roles and responsibilities for creators, reviewers, editors, and publishers.

Now, go forth and create content people care about.
 

It's our very first podcast! Wooo!

Recently, Kristina (our fearless leader) and Joe Pulizzi (author, content marketing evangelist, and self-described “poster boy for content marketing”) met up to discuss some similarities and differences between content marketing and content strategy.

Not only will you be captivated by their insights and insults (ok, no insults), you'll learn how to identify the One Thing that really sets your company apart from the competition. Bonus: find out how content strategists and content marketers can join arm-in-arm to sing "Hands Across America." 

Download the mp3

About Joe Pulizzi
Joe co-authored "Get Content, Get Customers" with Newt Barrett. He is the CEO of Junta 42, where he maintains his blog of the same name. Joe evangelizes content marketing worldwide and maintains the popular content marketing blog Junta42. Follow Joe on Twitter: @juntajoe

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.

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

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

• Content Strategy for the Web, by Kristina Halvorson
• The Web Content Strategist's Bible, by Richard Sheffield
• Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, by Steve Krug
• Killer Web Content: Make the Sale, Deliver the Service, Build the Brand, by Gerry McGovern
• Building Findable Websites: Web Standards SEO and Beyond, by Aarron Walter
• Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning, by Dan Brown

Community

• Content Strategy Google Group
  
• Content Strategy Meetups
  
• LinkedIn Content Strategy Group
  
• Content Strategy Knol
  
• Twitter:

#contentstrategy

BrainTraffic/contentstrategy

Blogs
Check out our blog roll for our favorite go-to blogs. (Blog roll, to the right.)

Other Stuff & Junk

• 1001 Content Strategy Links
• Content Strategy on Wikipedia
• Content Strategy SIG

STUFF CONTENT STRATEGISTS SHOULD KNOW
Books

• The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, by Barry Schwartz
• The Necessary Art of Persuasion, by Jay A. Conger
• The Accidental Taxonomist, by Heather Hedden
• The Elements of User Experience, by Jesse James Garrett

WEB WRITING FTW
Books

• Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works, by Janice (Ginny) Redish
• InterACT with Web Standards: A holistic approach to web design, from Voices That Matter (Specifically, see the web writing chapter written by our own Erin Anderson.)
• The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White

Blogs
From Jakob Nielson’s Useit.com:

• Be Succinct! (Writing for the Web)
• Inverted Pyramids in Cyberspace
• How Users Read On The Web
• Information Pollution

What did we miss? Please add your favorite content strategy books, blogs, and links in the comments.