Think Info
Exploring the information space
Category Archives: Context strategy
Separating content from presentation
Just about every CMS vendor claims to separate content from presentation. While I cannot claim to know every CMS out there, I have yet to encounter one that truly divides these aspects of communication.
What is content?
Content is a somewhat vague catch-all term. It refers to the information available to be presented. It may be words, images, video. Any granular element of communication is content; it is in this definition that the problem so often occurs: how granular is a granular element?
Is this post an element of content, or is it an aggregation of content elements? It contains both text and image; it has a defined order to the flow of headings and paragraphs. One content? Two content? More?
What is presentation?
Presentation is the wrapper around content: the structure that holds the elements in place so their sequence makes sense to the audience. Presentation is the container. But how deep should our definition of what is a container go? How pedantic should we be about what is presentation layer, and what elements are part of the content? That line above that asks “What is presentation?” – should the fact that it is a heading, that renders as an <h3>, be a part of the content, or is that the presentation layer?
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Dependency awareness (content’s identity crisis)
Is your content having an identity crisis? Does it know what it is?
When elements of content become individual entities, separate from the environment in which they are presented (which is the whole point of a CMS, but that’s another story), the need for awareness of these dependencies becomes critical to the “management” part of the CMS.
Most vendors will tell you that their systems are aware of content dependencies: if you create a new page, with an image in it, publishing the page will also publish the image. Hey, the page is aware of what its dependencies are; what more could you want? Read more of this post
Double standards in the Google Empire
Google is big. Google can do pretty much anything it likes; with a code change – justified by its vision of what the web should be – Google can change the fortunes of companies of all sizes. As such, it sets the rules everyone else must operate by. It is accountable to no one but outdated laws. Google hates contextualisation of the internet; a practice it refers to with the shady term of “cloaking.”
What, though, are we to make of Google employing double standards?
While this post is about cloaking, the thought process was triggered by Google’s announcement that, in the name of security, search query data will no longer be included in referrer strings for logged-in users; this information being critical contextualisation (as well as SEO) data for site owners.
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Bubbling knowledge in business
Businesses have a problem: there is a disconnect between the people with knowledge, and those in customer-facing roles. Whether the communication is pre- or post-sale, those charged with providing customer interaction are, by and large, operating half-blind. The salesman lives in the sales silo; the customer service rep lives in the service silo; the technician with the answers lives in a dark cellar.
So what? We know our message.
“Marketing departments know the customers, they have product spec-sheets to educate them; they can craft appropriate messages.” “Service centres have customer profiles, case histories, and Q&A filtering methods that allow monkeys to find the right answer; what more does the customer want?” Somehow, this model is still hanging on. Read more of this post
The Enterprise as the Context
Rick Yagodich asked the question: How do we manage this Context thing, anyway?
He identifies that context has two main purposes:
- to provide a baseline for understanding, the assumptions of meaning
- to make the choices to communicate the appropriate message to the other party, in the best possible way
By focusing on the latter, he identifies a gap in current CMS technology and suggests how we might begin to deal with this problem. It’s an excellent starting point, but I would like to throw the net much wider; I would like to suggest that context is so important that it requires us to rethink the entire enterprise.
We are only at the beginning of the digital age; postulating about the digital future is much like asking a monk (in the Middle Ages) what the impact of the printing press will be on ecclesiastical affairs. Enterprises are faced with a similar question: what does all this mean? What will all this mean?
Ultimately, what Enterprises are dealing with is an explosion in the variety of people, experiences, products, services, geographies, societies, and markets they must cater for simultaneously. Compounding this is the accelerating emergence of new markets and communications channels. Context management is critical, and will only become more-so in determining the success or failure of enterprises online. Read more of this post
How do we manage this Context thing, anyway?
When people discuss content, another word is bandied about with impunity: context.
context [kon-tekst] n. the set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event, situation, etc.
dictionary.com, based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2011.
Everyone is in agreement that we want and need it. When we communicate with others, it is vital that we take context into account. Context serves two purposes:
- to provide a baseline for understanding, the assumptions of meaning
- to make the choices to communicate the appropriate message to the other party, in the best possible way
I am going to deal here with context in the second of these forms: the process of determining how to communicate with another party. Most people do this instinctively in person (a salesman reads his customer’s body language and responses, and adjusts his pitch accordingly). But when we move context management into the digital realm – when we have to hand these decisions over to a computer – things get tricky.
It’s complicated
Context is a big problem; it is convoluted.
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Content Strategy Forum 2011 in review
London, 5-7 Sept 2011, CS Forum came to London in its second incarnation. A lot of attendees (I couldn’t count) from 20+ countries descended on the Mermaid Centre (near Blackfriars). Talks, parties and workshops were the disorder of the day.
I am not going to try giving a talk-by-talk breakdown of what happened. With multiple streams, I couldn’t be everywhere at once. For an assortment of slides and published notes, see http://lanyrd.com/2011/csforum/coverage/. Instead, I’ll cover the general themes that came out of my own notes.
Content Strategy is bigger than that
Content Strategy is – in many people’s perception – a new field, especially when referred to within the digital realm. Eric Reiss (@elreiss), however, pointed out that content strategy has been around for just about as long as we have been communicating; the only people who seem to have trouble with implementing the concept are those on the digital bandwagon.
Lisa Welchman (@lwelchman) made the point that content isn’t a something in its own right. Content is everything (as in: everything is content). What you view as content in your particular situation, and the needs surrounding it, depend entirely on how that something-being-seen-as-content is described by those who own or deal with it.
Diana Railton (@dianarailton) demonstrated how content strategy is a pillar supporting communication strategy, which itself supports business strategy. A digital content strategy cannot be divorced from other parts of the communications agenda. Read more of this post
Optimising navigation
When you are on a web site – or using some other information dissemination media – where do you want to go next, from the page you are on?
OK. I admit it. That was a loaded question. Two people on the same page will want to do different things. Some will have finished on their current subject and leave. Some will want to look up something related on the same site. Others will want to check something related on another site – corroborative information. Some may want to provide feedback. A few may want to look at something different on the same site. Read more of this post
Rick Yagodich
Michael Sadler
