The Content Pool: Leveraging Your Company's Largest Hidden Asset

By Alan J Porter

All companies, no matter what industry they are in, or what product or service they create, do four basic things. Offer something for sale, sell it, collect money for it, and create content about what they do. Product development, Marketing, Sales, and Finance are all essential to the organization and are typically managed at the VP or CXO level, yet a company's content, which contains all of its intellectual property, is often overlooked. The Content Pool: Leveraging Your Company's Largest Hidden Asset makes the case for placing content creation, management, and distribution on a par with other core strategic business activities.

Inside the Book

• Identifying Your Content
• Organizing Your Content
• Managing Your Content
• Leveraging Your Content
• The Case for a Chief Content Officer
• Bibliography and Index

• Language: English
• Publisher: XML Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781457182624

Alan J Porter

Alan J. Porter is a recognized industry thought leader, balancing both tactical and strategic knowledge and a gift for storytelling. He is a regular contributor to various industry sources, webinar host, and podcast guest, as well as an in-demand speaker for conferences.

Book preview

The Content Pool

The Content Pool

Table of Contents

ForewordIntroductionI. Identifying Your Content1. Why Is Content So Important?1.1. Stale information1.2. Content creation inefficiency2. What Do You Produce Now and How Do You Use It?2.1. What content do you produce now?2.2. How do you use that content?2.3. What does it cost to produce and distribute?2.4. Summary3. Identifying the Audience: Today and in the Future3.1. Who is my intended audience?3.2. Who is my actual audience?3.3. How do they find my content?3.4. How do they consume content?4. What About the Language You Use?4.1. Liability and language4.1.1. Localization4.1.2. Customer service4.1.3. Legal action4.2. How does it happen?4.2.1. Mistranslations4.2.2. Cultural errors4.2.3. Ambiguity4.2.4. Low quality4.3. What’s the solution?4.3.1. Vocabulary 4.3.2. Types of controlled language4.3.3. The benefits of controlled language5. The Global Language5.1. Representational graphics5.1.1. Iconic abstraction5.1.2. Symbolic usage5.1.3. Combining techniques5.2. Understand the userII. Organizing Your Content6. Gain Through Collaboration6.1. Collaboration6.2. Content development silos 6.3. Knowledge sharing6.4. Basic reuse 6.5. Intelligent content 6.6. Collaborative platforms7. Consistency Saves You Money7.1. Clarity7.2. Consistency7.3. Honesty7.4. Findability8. Where Are Your Pain Points?8.1. Potential pain points8.1.1. Content design8.1.2. Content development8.1.3. Content distribution8.2. How to identify pain pointsIII. Managing Your Content9. Styles and Standards9.1. Why we need standards9.2. Content standards9.2.1. A strategy for picking standards9.2.2. A process for picking a set of standards9.3. Company style guides9.4. Don’t forget ripple effects9.5. Conclusions10. Rewrite and Reuse10.1. Independent content10.2. Naming conventions10.3. Structured content development10.3.1. Topic-based structure10.3.2. Task-based structure10.3.3. Minimalism10.3.4. Reuse10.4. Content management10.5. Managing the change11. Answers are the Answer11.1. How to find the How12. User-Generated Content12.1. The myth of inaccuracy12.2. Defining user-generated content12.3. Managing the new content12.4. Managing content ownership12.5. Incorporating feedback12.6. Round-tripping12.7. Independent user content13. The Technology Question13.1. Choosing different tools13.2. Planning for future technologyIV. Leveraging Your Content14. Content as a Revenue Source14.1. Two scenarios14.1.1. Company A – Documentation included14.1.2. Company B – Documentation separate14.1.3. Indirect revenue impacts.15. Quality Content15.1. So what is good content?15.1.1. Answer questions15.1.2. Inform15.1.3. Add value15.2. Mamet’s three rules15.3. Unhappy customers15.4. The customer experience 16. Finding Things17. Develop a Content Strategy17.1. Defining content strategy 17.2. The ripple effect 17.3. Proven benefits of a content strategy 17.4. Keeping afloat in the Content Pool18. The Case For A Chief Content Officer18.1. Five ways to make executives love content18.2. Why you need a CCO18.2.1. 1. Create something18.2.2. 2. Tell people about it18.2.3. 3. Get people to buy it18.2.4. 4. Collect money for it18.2.5. 5. Create content about it.A. AcknowledgmentsBibliographyIndexB. Copyright and Legal Notices

The Content Pool

Leveraging Your Company’s Largest Hidden Asset

Alan J. Porter

XML Press

Foreword

A couple years ago, I created a presentation intended to give some insight to our newer employees on what makes Caterpillar great, and what we need to do to sustain our position as the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives. I thought a lot about products. They are the most tangible thing we do. Plus, in many cases they are huge, powerful and are used to build the world. What more could you want?

But, our success is about far more than product. It is about the Caterpillar brand and all the attributes of the company that make it one of the most recognized and respected brands in the world. Our success is driven by how we present ourselves to our customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers, competitors – everyone. At Caterpillar we call that yellow blood. It is the pride that comes with consistently delivering value – no matter what form that may take.

Product is the most obvious form of value or content that we deliver. It is a tangible representation of an idea, presented to the market for consumption. In a way, it is not any different than a quarterly report for investors, a competitive bulletin for a potential customer or a piece of service information for a technician. Anything that we do, anything that bears the Caterpillar design mark, says something about us. It shapes the image our consumers have about us. It drives their decision making process. It creates our success.

My particular area of responsibility lies with the creation, distribution and support of technical information needed to support customers during the lifecycle of their product. The content we deliver has an immediate and apparent impact on the value proposition for both customers and the dealers who support them. It impacts their efficiency, effectiveness, Profit & Loss statement, balance sheet and arguably most importantly, their safety.

Caterpillar has a long, rich history of exceptional product support. It is a key differentiating feature. The content of our product support is the information and the context that enables a consistent, valued customer experience. Content is a strategic asset that is foundational to that competitive advantage.

The Content Pool very effectively elevates content to its appropriate status – a strategic asset that should be managed with the same care and feeding as the tractors, engines or engineering blueprints that we at Caterpillar deliver. Alan provides the reader with simple, compelling logic that is highly valuable when putting together and selling the business case to improve the way we manage one of our most important assets: content.

Leslie Paulson

Manager, Technical Information Solutions

Caterpillar, Inc.  

Introduction

Introduction

What does your company do?

It’s a simple enough question, yet in all my years of consulting I’ve found that it is often the hardest one to answer. Ask seven people in an organization and you will get as many different answers; sometimes you will get more as people often supply two or three definitions of what they believe a company does. And despite mandated mission statements, employee briefings, elevator pitches, and other types of corporate messaging, I often find that the view of what a company does is very different between the shop floor and the executive suite.

The thing is, there is no wrong answer to the question What does your company do? Every response is a valid one. People’s perceptions of what a company does are colored by what their day to day tasks are.

But if there is one response that is more prevalent than any other, it is that we make X or we sell a product that does X. This is no real surprise as most enterprises are judged by the product or service that they offer – yet this is rarely what they are actually in business for.

Consider this often cited example: Let’s look at a company that currently offers a range of drill bits for use in power tools. What would you say they are in business for? To make drill bits? Not really. Most businesses are started to either help solve a problem or fulfill a need in the market. A company that makes drill bits is actually based around a need to make holes. What they sell is the ability to make those holes, the drill bits are just the current technology for doing that. It may be that in the future they will manufacture a laser device or supply thermic lances. What they produce will have changed, but what they are in business to do won’t. They will still help people make holes.

One side effect of such a change in technology can be that while the basic business need remains unchanged, companies that fail to adapt to a change in the way the task is achieved can easily lose a dominant market position. Consider the changes in long distance public transport infrastructure in the twentieth century. The need to move people across long distances was always there, but companies that built a business around the idea of being a railroad faltered, while airlines that positioned themselves as first and foremost being in the transport business, prospered.

A friend of mine who is the chief financial officer of a cable TV company in the UK, has always maintained that every company is in business to do the same thing – make a profit. See what I mean about your role in a company reflecting your opinion of what it does? But, all joking aside, I believe he has a valid point; but I don’t believe he goes far enough in his holistic viewpoint.

I actually believe that no matter what product or service your company or organization provides, or what need it is trying to fulfill, that every one, from one-person consultancies to multi-national mega-corporations, does the same five things:

1. Create something

Every company does something. They either create or improve on a product, or they develop and deliver a service. But these things don’t just happen. They are often the result of extensive research and development efforts. Even if you don’t have a formal R&D lab thinking up the best new mousetrap, as a business owner of any size you need to be constantly thinking about where your market is, and how you can adapt to meet the needs of your current market and hopefully move in to new ones. Development is an essential part of any company’s operations.

2. Tell people about it

Once you have developed that thing that you do, it doesn’t matter how great or revolutionary it is, you won’t grow your company if you don’t tell anyone about it. At one company I used to work for we used to joke that our new products weren’t released, they just escaped. As a result revenue growth was flat. If you don’t tell people about what you do, they won’t be able to use your products. You need marketing.

3. Get people to buy it

If things are working well, when you start telling people about how great your mousetrap is and how it will solve their problem and make their lives better, they will want to own one, or preferably several.And of course, you would like them to keep buying newer versions of your mousetrap as you continue to develop them. This is where sales comes in. Whether you are a solo-business operator working the phones, or you have a multi-national team of highly compensated sales executives, you still need to close the deal.

4. Collect money for it

Once you have developed, marketed and sold your mousetrap, I can imagine that you would really appreciate getting paid for it. Whether you work on an instant payment retail basis or a credit-based invoicing method, you need the money to flow. Money is the oil that lubricates any enterprise. You need it to cover your expenses, pay your staff, and if you manage things correctly, hopefully you will, as my CFO friend would put it, make a profit.

5. Create content about it

Every step of the way while doing those other four things, you are also creating content about what you do. Everyone in your organizations does it. From the simplest email message, to complex policy and operation documents, to legal notices, to training courses, technical manuals, design specifications, manufacturing and servicing instructions. From websites to market collateral, sales brochures to proposal responses.The content you create about your product or service is often as essential and influential to the brand image of your company as a commercial or advertisement would be. The collateral and content that support your product or service are an important part of customer interaction, satisfaction, and overall customer experience.Content is pervasive throughout your company and essential to every aspect of your business strategy and growth.

The first four activities outlined above are usually overseen by someone with executive level (CXO or VP) authority, yet content creation is ignored as a core strategic activity – why?

The Content Pool

The first step to answering that question is to consider what we mean by content?

Dictionary.com[Dictionary.com][1] offers 11 different definitions of the word content, but the ones that concern us here are:

con·tent

[kon-tent] – noun

something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing, or any of various arts.

substantive information or creative material viewed in contrast to its actual or potential manner of presentation.

Much has been written over the last twenty or so years on how we are now drowning in a sea of information. More information is being produced now than at any other time in human history. Information is all around us and is available to us in ways that just a few decades ago would have seemed like the wild imaginings of a science fiction writer. In many ways we take it for granted, but it is amazing that most of us can access almost unlimited resources of human knowledge and information with just a few button clicks or by running our fingers over a touch screen. We are becoming used to having vast amounts of information available and having the answer to any question be resolved almost immediately. We are all creating information, and content, every time we interact online.

I have often heard the lament that no one writes any more. The fact is that we are writing more than we ever have, it’s just that the medium and mechanism has changed from pen and paper to bits and networks. The explosive growth of social networks and the switch to texting as a primary source of communication have changed the landscape. With such changes in everyday life comes an expectation that the equivalent model also exists in the business world.

The lines between home and work are blurring, a shift that is also driven by the increase in virtual teams and the work anywhere mobile workforce; particularly in knowledge based industries where physical co-location may not be necessary and more people are transitioning away from the traditional office environment.

While we all have access to this sea of information, within a particular organization we need to contribute, collaborate, and have access to a set of information that is relevant to that organization.We all create, as well as consume, a collection of information that I refer to as The Content Pool.

Why the Content Pool is important

Your content is where all your company’s intellectual property resides. Everything about your company, the products you produce, the way you operate and your plans for the future are captured in the content you produce as an everyday activity. From the simplest email, to internal policies and procedures, to technical manuals, marketing collateral, and websites, it’s all valuable information. And don’t forget your customers are also creating information about the way you and your products work (or don’t) on social networks, online forums, and various other collaborative venues. All that content is useful and needs to be identified, captured, and managed.

The cliche that everyone is replaceable is something of a truism, but it doesn’t apply to your content. Your content will outlast even the most loyal employees, but if you don’t