Evolving as a Content Strategist
The Age of Information is here. The economic, political, and global landscape is changing quickly. As web programmers and information developers (or those with shared skills), we search for a way to survive and prosper. We know that we need to recreate ourselves to be self-sustaining, innovative, and adaptable. We fight fears of corporate downsizing and fewer resources shared by expanding and cheaper labor markets. We want to know how to fight back.
Social groups in Web 2.0 are pervasive and promising for the creative information developer, but how does one make money? Open-source programming taunts the Web developer with its promise of free services and open functionality. Mashup applications, real-time web, semantic web, and other new cloud computing strategies abound. Our skills are needed somewhere but how do we fit in? And how long will we stay with the staid, proprietary domains and skill set demanded by our current employer? Thinning down seemingly superfluous content providers is in fashion for everyone from CNN to local newspapers to IBM.
It’s time to make a stand. As content providers we need to evolve from simple programmers and writers to personalized content aggregation providers, focused on delivery of usable content to high-traffic sites where customers virtually congregate in the 21st century. We need to take control of our expertise and domain of knowledge in independent careers as content and communication experts. We are not scribes, word processors, or one-way blog posters. We are the creators and broadcasters of new ideas and the independent genius behind new innovative, interactive products. We are the Content Strategists. And this is our time.
Quick Note: This posting is the first of four articles that explores some of the major changes and opportunities in the ecosystem for the content strategist. Your criticism, reality checks, pushback, and all-around input is appreciated.
A new breed of communicator
What is a Content Strategist? And why do you lump writers and programmers together with a shared job and a common fate?
As to the first question, let me give a brief introduction from my own experience and beliefs.
My definition of a Content Strategist: The designer and arbiter of valuable content and disseminator of knowledge for a corporation or online audience with shared interests. One who expedites, filters, and manages access to all types of high-value information from personal, internal, and web resources to give information context as usable knowledge for selected audiences.
I also like the overview of a real-life Content Strategist, Rachel Lovinger: “…to use words and data to create unambiguous content that supports meaningful, interactive experiences. We have to be experts in all aspects of communication in order to do this effectively.” Kristina Halvorson adds to Rachel’s posting with additional definitions and comments. But while both do a great job of describing the Content Strategist from a writer’s perspective, they do not go far enough in identifying the emerging role of the web programmer joined with the traditional writer. Both need to deliver germane data and integrated online functionality for content and knowledge delivery.
Web programmer and technical writer share same feeding grounds
I believe the combination of technical and creative skills shared by the modern technical writer and the web programmer put these two skill sets on on a collision course. Technical writers have always needed technical skills, but now push into other technical areas of semantic tagging, XML, linked data techniques, and high-level scripting. Meanwhile, web programmers suddenly realize the power of JavaScript, ActionScript, PHP, and other simple scripting languages to create advanced products for sale directly to select audiences. Think iPhone apps, MS SilverStream, Adobe AIR, and their competitors.
Both jobs require taking advantage of open cloud resources to provide aggregated functionality and integrated, contextual content from the web. Web programmers are now able to mash together different data sets and web functionality to form new online applications from the cloud. Think Housingmaps.com.
Likewise, writers can embrace linked data methodologies and semantic web markup to deliver real-time content to meet the ever-changing needs of their readers. Think how you could re-use open-source content if topics were stored in dynamic repositories as is being done at dbpedia.org and linkedgeodata.org.
Together, the web programmer and technical writer will need to bring together disparate pieces from the cloud to reach their audiences and form new products. Writers and web programmers will be sharing the same feeding grounds in the near future.
Why do I group web programmers with information developers?
Basically both disciplines are moving together at a quickening pace as providers and strategists of personalized knowledge. The advent of the Active Server Pages (ASP) and Java Server Pages (JSP) in the nineties combined coding with information on the same Web page. The user interface and textual content became one. This continues to happen.
For me, there is little difference between the PHP, JavaScript, AJAX, .NET, or Python developer and the information developer writing technical documentation, training guides, technical copy, or product-specific best practices. All provide new content for a base of readers or users, whether inside an organization or directly to interested groups. The web coder faces the same challenges and opportunities with cloud computing, mashups, and linked data trends as the writer bent on pulling content from disparate sources on the web. Both are creative and customer-savvy and can see change in the air.
Proprietary development is fading away. Current cloud computing initiatives and social networking challenges continue to bring these disciplines and professionals even closer together. Both need to adopt open platforms and furnish users, companies, and Web audiences with dynamic data and collaborative knowledge.
Both web and information developers are looking for better human interaction and automation of services brought directly to Facebook (using Facebook Connect), Google docs (using Google FriendConnect), or other integrated social networking in the cloud where the customer/user/reader resides and calls the shots. Both disciplines should realize that customers don’t want a proprietary application or a pre-built user interface. Customers of today and tomorrow want personalized functionality and real-time knowledge delivered to their doorstep in a way that fits their unique needs. The times they are a changin’ and no one is going to your website. You need to go to them.
But most importantly, I believe that both the Web and information developer share a common fate of planned obsolescence in their near future. Both types of professionals need to adopt the belief that they are not in the “coding” business or “writing” business, but in the business of aggregating and directing knowledge to users where they live.
I am not haphazardly categorizing together these two disciplines. It is moving technology and the marketplace pushing these jobs together. However, that doesn’t mean that most established companies are catching on quickly.
Then why do companies continue to hire only traditional web programmers and writers?
Touché. Good point. For the most part, traditional programming and technical writing jobs are all you see advertised. The idea of a corporate Content Strategist is far down the executive’s range of vision and priorities. Here’s a few reasons why.
New ideas don’t survive in Big Business. Are we really going to count on large corporations to make the break from their cronyism, bureaucratic decision-making, and stale attempts at forced innovation? Before you answer, think Enron, Tyco, and Global Crossing. Then think Lehman Bros, Bear Sterns, and AIG. Isn’t it time we take the reins away from these supposed experts and leapfrog to the more democratic mercantilism of the Information Age? Then think Novell, Sun, and Symantec. Do you really think they will change before they all end up in the scrapheap of yesterday’s technology and the executives jump off with their golden parachutes? I don’t think so. The small, nimble businesses that supplant these behemoths will prevail long after the slow-moving giants fall into the tar pits.
Lowered quality of knowledge. Let’s be completely honest. Most companies who are currently advertising for experienced writers and high-level programmers are either looking for cut-rate entry level positions or moving jobs to low-cost labor markets. Or maybe they are still giving jobs to their brother-in-law who once took English 101. All content professionals—from the web designer to the information designer to the SQL scripter—notice that companies are taking less responsibility in delivering useful information. Companies are repositioning as simple vendors. Call our consultants if you want real-world knowledge, but it’s going to cost you.
Think of Home Depot, a big-box home repair retailer in the U.S. They hire young and inexperienced workers to stock shelves and ask, “Can I help you?” But these inexperienced workers have not actually replaced a drain trap or fixed a missing roof tile on their own. How can they have any idea of my needs? The sage, experienced owner of the small hardware store has been replaced with low-cost products and a “you’re on your own” attitude. Who is going to stand in for the experienced craftsman and craftswoman? That would be you and me.
Corporations actually do want to hire a content strategist. They just don’t know it. Executives are not deaf to the possibilities of expanding social networks and free cloud computing promises. They know that an offhand comment from a blogger or forum participant carries more weight than their whole marketing department. Companies want to “game” the system to allow for free marketing and product interaction on social networks but still want to control messaging. They think customers can open wikis or visit forums and write their own documentation and APIs for each other, thereby reducing their needs for paid content providers. But this is an unsustainable model. Eventually the reader will demand honest information and the author will need to comply in order to build a loyal “downline” of users and readers.
That means giving up proprietary content and priming the discussions with real-world knowledge before expecting the reader to offer up their own hard-won knowledge. It has to be a quid pro quo arrangement between the author and the reader and social group. One for all and all for one attitude is the only way to keep people involved voluntarily. It is a symbiotic relationship. The rainforest of knowledge.
And somewhere along the line the executive will question the costs and overlapping effort of shotgun communication that occurs each time a product or service is released. But here is what the executive will hear: Complaints about high training costs for products undermining sales from the sales field; researchers and engineers spending all their time publishing or hoping for published materials across disciplines; and products deemed too abstruse and complicated. How the left-brained overachieving executive will respond will most likely follow this pattern: Outsource it > let R&D open a new secluded wiki > hire my brother-in-law with an anthropology degree.
Regardless of the name applied to the content strategist, it is a position that every organization needs. Whether in entertainment, science, software, healthcare, or engineering, all left-brain organizations need a right-brain Content Strategist to impart information, make connections, and communicate value and services.
A changing environment
All trends seems to encroach on the traditional territory of the software coder and technical writer. Corporations continue to play the game of short-sighted decisions based on short-term returns, leaving the software and information developer at the mercy of downsizing plans and defensive about roles, value, and jobs.
But on the other hand, opportunities abound in the new world of functional mashups and real-time web computing using open APIs and knowledge integration through Linked Data and personalized delivery. Interest in open cloud computing ascends as the world gets flatter and the Web provides accessible open source opportunities, allowing the individual to offer new types of collaborative Web services and information sources. This is especially true for the innovative and creative among us.
It’s time to get back on offense. We need to change from the techno-toadies of the past at the mercy of bean counters and greedy executives, and evolve into our rightful positions as independent Content Strategists. Freedom of the press used to be only for those who owned a press. Now a baseline web infrastructure is built and the tools assembled to allow each of us to publish content quickly and easily. We can now compete with larger organizations based on value to the reader, delivery of quality knowledge, and nimble processes.
A Company of One
You don’t make the rules. You can only exploit them. You need to take advantage of the opportunities and changing landscape. That means that you need to brand yourself and become an expert for hire. I like the ideas presented at New Grad Life for new graduates who need to brand themselves, but I think the idea needs to be taken beyond a job search to a new environment where each professional sees themselves as their own business—whether paid by a weekly paycheck or through a personal LLC using invoice payments. Each professional serves in their own company, a Company of One, regardless of how they are paid.
Trust me. The company employing you will only stick with you until the money runs out, or until they find a lower wage earner. It is the law of business to always lower costs. They will let you go when it serves their purpose, not when it serves yours. In turn, you need to look out for yourself. Content providers traditionally attached to software, engineering, medical, or scientific teams living symbiotic existences can now be liberated to prosper on their own. We all share the same fate of obsolescence if proprietary, in-house information development continues down this road.
The only way to survive is to be a threat to or an alliance with larger companies (or both). You can compete in the same feeding waters by finding your own audience or be the pilot fish attached to the larger predator. Both a sustainable living, But regardless of the strategy, you need to have your own business path, expertise, and marketable skills.
Your current company won’t last forever, and handing out resumes and begging for a job will give over to new environment where a working relationship can be established between companies. To that end, you need to start branding yourself, become a domain expert, and create your own self-supporting company.
Turn into a Company of One. Be an amalgam of a small businessperson, creative designer, accountant, publisher, and salesperson for Me, Inc. It is time to move into your rightful role as a Content Strategist using your multiple communication skills and vast experience as an information developer so needed in the marketplace of ideas and talent.
Brave New World of content strategists
Many questions need to be answered, but here is what I know about this changing world:
- Knowledge is king of the jungle. Much of the writing tools and web infrastructure is already built. Not to say there won’t be improvements and new technologies, but the need for real content and usable knowledge is on the upswing. We have 900 channels on our cable TV, but still need entertainment beyond reruns of Star Trek and Gilligan’s Island (I hope these old reruns are only being seen on U.S. TV and Hulu.com). Content is resuming its rightful position as king in driving traffic and attracting customers. Now we just have to make it pay.
- Content providers are moving up the food chain. The change from technical capability to provide information in new and unique ways is giving in to a real need for usable content. But who will provide this information in a way that leads to real knowledge? Certainly not the technocrat of yesterday.
- Join a Company of One and work with tribal communities. Writing, publishing, researching, and collaborating as writers, web developers, editors, and subject matter experts holds many possibilities, but also many questions. Experts have been saying for years that we are moving to a project-based, independent contractor employment model. I personally don’t want to wait until the rivers dry up before I migrate.
As information and web developers evolving to Content Strategists in this brave new world, we have great opportunities and all the skills necessary to adapt. So do I dare say it? Yes I do:
BRING IT ON!
November 30, 2009
Posted in: Cloud Computing, Content Strategist, Information management, Knowledge management, Linked data, Mashups
9 Responses
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My comments:
1. I think the trend toward decreasing the amount of proprietary product information that product developers/creators publish is very key and is gaining in momentum and significance. This may be the true driver of the destruction of the roles of many technical writers.
2. Product developers are moving in this direction because an increasing share of the logic found in today’s (web-based) apps resides in layers built from open-source software, thus allowing developers to outsource/defer/ignore documentation of those parts of their products.
3. Product developers also know, and know expect, that today users have their own tools and systems for self-organizing to find and share relevant product deployment and “real world” usage information.
4. At some point I predict there will be a massive blowback from technology users at the costliness of dealing with the fragmented web app landscape and the necessity to navigate among waves of consultants to achieve satisfaction from product/service deployment.
Reality check: I don’t have time to “evolve” as a Content Strategist, take advantage of the “change in the air,” or hope something happens “in the near future.” The company employing me for ten years found that my services no longer served their purpose and liberated me to prosper on my own. I need a source of steady income (and medical benefits) immediately, and there are many writers and information developers out there just like me. It’s a wonderful thing to discuss the future of our profession and the ways it must adapt to survive in this world. I totally agree. But many are simply trying to survive with current marketable skills, talents, creativity, and innovation we own now.
@Corda: I hear what you are saying. I am in the same position. I just don’t see those jobs coming back. That is also a reality check. So now what? I am going to try to answer some of these questions for myself the next few months. I would like to share our situations if you want to contact me at michael@mashstream.com and try to see if there is an answer.
I have been thinking about Paul Sholer’s comments and I like his reasoning. Here’s a few comments:
PS: “I think the trend toward decreasing the amount of proprietary product information that product developers/creators publish is very key and is gaining in momentum and significance. This may be the true driver of the destruction of the roles of many technical writers.”
MH: Yes, I agree that the amount of information is decreasing, but I also see customers in dire need from my anecdotal experience. The customers are just used to not having information or finding it themselves.
PS: “an increasing share of the logic found in today’s (web-based) apps resides in layers built from open-source software”
MH: Developers are relying on functionality from the web and can wash their hands of deep dive information. One point: then why can’t writers do the same? Why can’t writers take from open source content and publish as the programmers are doing? Another point: Are developers providing best practices from the customer’s perspective? Or just documenting their top layer of functionality? Feature-based doc is pretty worthless at that level.
PS: “users have their own tools and systems for self-organizing to find and share relevant product deployment and “real world” usage information.”
MH: I know users are put in the position to write their own doc, but most I talk to really hate it and don’t have the time. They have other duties to attend to. If a writer isn’t doing it, then the developer, IT, or managers has to do it, leaving other duties unattended. And they probably do it badly.
PS: “there will be a massive blowback from technology users at the costliness of dealing with the fragmented web app landscape and the necessity to navigate among waves of consultants to achieve satisfaction from product/service deployment.”
MH: Amen.
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