Author archive
Posts by Rick Yagodich on transclusion, content modelling, and the role of context in enterprise communication.
A response to Sorin Pintilie’s article of 25 August 2014 on The Pastry Box Project, which described a mechanism for transcluding content into a web page by applying an href attribute to a paragraph tag. Transclusion is the inclusion of a small element of content from one source into other material, by reference.
Notes on the idea of a world with fewer walls, and what it means for how content and information move between systems.
A workshop on adaptive content modelling, focused on how structured content can support experiences delivered across multiple channels.
A presentation from ICC2014 on the biological imperative, considering how living systems and technology relate to each other.
Reflections on a session from ICC2014 about removing the barriers that hold organisational silos in place.
Michael Sadler writes on the enterprise as the context for communication, reviews from the Content Strategy Forum, and foundational content topics.
View Michael Sadler’s postsTransclusion is the practice of pulling a piece of content into one place while leaving the original source intact and authoritative. The idea sits at the heart of how structured information can be reused across channels without duplication or loss of provenance. Rather than copying material into every system, a transcluded reference carries its own context, so the reader can trace where a statement came from and how fresh it is. For organisations that publish across web, mobile and internal tools, this approach reduces the maintenance burden while keeping a single, shared source of truth for the underlying message.
Content modelling gives that transcluded material a shape. By describing content in terms of meaningful structures, intent and function, a model lets the same source serve different presentations and audiences. A model is not simply a storage scheme; it is an agreement about what a thing is, how it relates to other things, and how it should behave when moved into an unfamiliar context. Designing such models is painstaking work, but it is what allows content created by one team to be published reliably in spaces that team never directly touches.
Context is what separates a useful model from a rigid one. Enterprise communication, publishing and digital experiences all depend on understanding who is reading, where they are reading from, and what they already know. The surrounding context determines whether a message is understandable, actionable or simply noise. This is why adaptive and multi-channel systems tend to succeed: they treat the reader's situation as a variable input rather than an afterthought, adjusting structure and delivery to match the moment in which the content is actually encountered.
The wider mission of exploring the information space is to make content creation more deliberate and less repetitive. Structured, reusable material allows people to focus on the substance of what they are saying rather than on the mechanics of re-saying it. That shift changes the working relationship between authors, editors, designers and the platforms that carry their words, and it raises questions that remain genuinely open: how much structure is enough, where does freedom live, and how should content evolve as the contexts around it change? These conversations are ongoing, and they continue to shape how this site and its archive approach publishing.