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FeedXS
Does Syndication Without A Site
Users of FeedXS can create RSS feeds to populate with content by directly posting
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A
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A long-time entertainment columnist with the Honolulu Star Bulletin plagiarized
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Scientific Content Management
Management is the pursuit of the best way. Content is an increasingly important
resource and activity within organizations. It is time it was professionally managed.
In the past fifteen years we have had a revolution in organizational behavior.
We have had email, the Web, and an explosion in print reports and PowerPoint ...
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01.24.06
Get Smart About How You Manage Your Content
 By
Gerry McGovern
Bringing more science to content management is in no way dumbing down. Rather,
it is about getting smart.
Many content professionals shoot themselves in the foot by presenting what they
do more as a craft than a profession. The same view pervades much of the web profession.
There is a huge resistance to bringing rigor, discipline and strict measurement
to bear.
It was long accepted in tennis that players roll the racket over the ball when
they hit a forehand. Then sophisticated video analysis showed that the best players
almost never move their wrist at the point of impact. (Even though the same players
would have repeatedly stated that they did roll their wrists.) For years, students
were being trained to roll their wrists. Conventional wisdom.
There is so much conventional wisdom pertaining to content. Either it is treated
as some low-grade commodity or else it is talked about in hushed tones. The Web
is the greatest laboratory that content could ever hope for.
If you are a content professional, you should embrace this laboratory with enthusiasm.
The more rigor and science you can bring to content, the more respect you will
get. Content management will be one of the key disciplines of the 21st Century.
But it must earn its respect.
Start off from the position that everything you know about how to manage content
is wrong. Everything must be questioned. Everything must be tested. At all costs
you must avoid a blind faith in tradition.
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"I always cut the roast in two before cooking it because it was a tradition
in the family," Aunt Sally told Tommy Sands, which he later recounted in his excellent
book, The Songman. One day Aunt Sally asked her mother why the roast was cut in
two at Christmas. "Because your granny always did it like that," came the reply.
So, Aunt Sally decided to ask her grandmother. "Child dear, I cut it in half because
the dish I had was too small, that's why."
Tradition is a powerful thing. We are programmed to repeat something and if that
something works, we keep repeating it. Even when we get a bigger dish, the urge
is strong to keep cutting the roast in half because that's the way we've always
done it.
Managers ask why. They constantly ask if there is a better way. They don't assume
that just because something was the best way last year, it is the best way today.
Scientific Content Management is not about coming up with a rigid set of rules
that must always be obeyed. It is about a relentless focus on the reader, and
understanding their behavior better than they understand themselves.
There is a big difference between a constant pursuit of the best way, and a blind
embrace of a best way. A tradition may bring comfort but in an age of relentless
change, traditions need questioning, just like the "best way" always needs questioning.
It is incredibly exciting to be a content professional in an era where content
is becoming a critical resource. Today, the world runs more on content than it
does on oil.
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