taking content strategy to people who already think they have one
DESCRIPTION
How the Guardian’s custom CMS & API helped take content strategy to a traditional publisher, presented at the 2011 Content Strategy Forum in London. Essay version available at http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2011/09/csforum11-martin-belam.phpTRANSCRIPT
“Taking content strategy to people who already think they have one"
Martin BelamContent Strategy Forum, September 2011
Lead User Experience & Information Architect,The Guardian@currybetEssay version of this talk available at: bit.ly/q9tzJ5
I joined The Guardian full-time in 2009
This is best description I’ve ever seen of what I do
1. Write newspaper
2. Print newspaper
3. Wrap fish‘n'chips in newspaper
1. Write newspaper
2. Print newspaper
3. Wrap fish‘n'chips in newspaper*remember to have sent the British Library a copy
**and our own library
***and send the front page to @suttonnick in advance
*****and sub-edit it, check it with legal, write the headlines,clear the rights for the images, make late changes, re-sub it,
syndicate the best bits, and get the files packaged up
****and publish it all to the web
1. Write newspaper
2. Print newspaper
3. Wrap fish‘n'chips in newspaper*remember to have sent the British Library a copy
**and our own library
***and send the front page to @suttonnick in advance
*****and sub-edit it, check it with legal, write the headlines,clear the rights for the images, make late changes, re-sub it,
syndicate the best bits, and get the files packaged up
****and publish it all to the web
Oh. Did I say “web”?
There are more and more platforms to come
Not all content works for all mediums
Getting it wrong sends the wrong signal
Our content now lasts longer than a day
And we are looking to extend that life cycle
You get some metadata and “furniture” in print
but there is so much peripheral digital content
Teams of people agonise over the words on the left
The words on the right? Not so much...
And to extend our range of content sources
We now have to manage other people’s content
Our CMS is some homebrew called “R2”
Workflow? Permissions? Meh.
Tags are magic!
Every article has tags to tell us...
PublicationContent typeContributor
SectionTone
Subject keywords
Tags govern where stories appear
And we can combine them (however unlikely)
We can segment content from our contributors
And we can sometimes get over-enthusiastic
We can “batch tag” and edit content
If tags are magic, then an API is wizardry
It is like a glorified advanced search. For machines.
!Those of a nervous or non-technical
disposition may wish to look away now
The Guardian API architecture (simplified)
Main Oracledatabase
R2 CMS
In Copy
Solr instance
Client libraries
Apps!
Create once. Publish everywhere.
Create once. Publish everywhere.(-ish)
We also use our website API on our website
And incorporate apps other people have made
The golden rule is “get the model right”
Photo by TheIguana - http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035797337@N01/3012247640/
1 Don’t patroniseEvery person and every organisation starts fromsomewhere.
2 A portfolio of errorsShow someone where other traditional publishers have failed, rather than simply criticise their own e!orts.
3 Don’t start with articlesDemonstrate your worth by tackling all the bits of content that a traditional publisher won’t be thinking about.
4 Never use ‘hipster ipsum’Leave that to the UXers.The value you will bring is in dealing with content, so always highlight the content.
5 Don’t forget your IAI heard a lot of talk yesterday about tasks, navigation and labels. Learn (and please improve) on prior art
6 Build APIsWell, don’t build them.That bit is really hard.But persuade people why they need them, and then help them to get theircontent models right.
The future
Thank you.Tweet questions to @currybet