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Report on last CM Pros meeting (Sydney, Australia)

We had a lively meeting of the CM Pros Australia group in Sydney on 11 May 2006. A facilitated discussion format was used, which allowed everyone to contribute to the exploration of content authoring challenges and processes. (PS. join the mailing list to hear about future meetings in both Sydney and Melbourne.)

Here are the rough (unedited) notes from the evening:

What are the challenges in creating good content?

• Need professional writers
• What does it mean in practice?
• Consistency
• "Consumption is invisible"
• Must be maintained
• Happy talk
• Temporal issues (content dates!)
• Content may only last a day!
• People must be trained to write for the web
• Need to realise it's needed and read
• Recognising the value
• Historically, published by other means
• Cultural change
• Not all content is equal
• Different to print
• Approval, workflow
• Editing
• Audit trails
• Decentralised?
• "Bucks per tag"
• Rest of content/info out there
• Line between communications and IT?
• Role of IT in content today?
• Need for executive champion?
• Align with revenue/profit
• Content processes add more overhead than value of content
• Does good content connect you to people?

Role of technology in creating good content?

• Reduce the _cost_ of delivering content
• Automating
• Storing
• Tracking
• Publishing to multiple points
• Smart reporting, analytics
• Replacing ink & paper
• Displace costs
• Real usage known
• Managing repetition:
  • compliance
  • consistency
  • style/guidelines
  • templates
• Redundancy check (CRC check by system)
• Audit trail
• Risk mitigation
• Helps to demonstrate value

Centralised vs decentralised

Centralised:

• Consistency (sort of)
• Enhances user experience
• More relevant
• Takes too long
• Can be more disengaged from use?
• Ownership of site, not content
• Just final edits?
• Overall perspective
• Web strategy

Decentralised:

• Greater spread of output
• Disparate
• Subject matter expertise
• More relevant
• Harder to control
• Immediacy
• No clue about web audience?
• Inconsistency
• More authors
• Content ownership

Hot topics for future meetings

• Workflow
• Transition into a CMS
• Governance
• Reuse
• Accessibility
• Data mining
• Personalisation
• Integration
• WCM vs CM

Posted by jamesr on May 21, 2006 06:28 PM
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