On Friday I spoke at the Intelligent Content 2009 Conference in Palm Springs, CA. Earlier in the fall I responded to a request for speakers with a proposed topic of building hybrid content acquisition strategies. I piloted this approach with an online journal I published for four years—I had zero budget to spend on hiring authors and did not have an in-house staff beyond the few colleagues who wrote articles periodically. This is also a strategy I saw turned up a notch while at Microsoft working as an acquisitions editor for the Work Essentials website.
What I did in a grassroots sort of fashion while on my own took on an added layer of complexity with contracts, multiple authors, technical writing agencies, and metrics. At Microsoft we reported on the usual (unique users, page views, top entry points, etc.) as well as implemented a few specific surveys to gauge our content as well as the intent of our audience. Those combined with small one-off usability sessions helped my team to create a substantial consumer-focused website. Unfortunately, that website did not last as we couldn’t justify any lift in revenue with our audience.
However, those principles of creating a hybrid approach to sourcing content for consumer-based websites stuck with me. So I pitched it to the organizers at IC09 and wouldn’t you know it…they invited me to speak. From the feedback I’ve received so far I did well—of course it was a small gathering and I managed to meet most of the conference attendees before my session. Nevertheless, people were interested in approaching content development from multiple sources.
In addition to a great conference—the other speakers were amazing. I always enjoy meeting other folks within my discipline (content management) who are passionate about their jobs and their ideas. I’m excited to attend next year and hopefully be asked to speak again.
Ann Rockley, of the Rockley Group, was the primary sponsor along with the Content Wrangler, Scott Abel. And in Ann’s opening remarks she mentioned that she wanted to offer a conference in the dead of winter at a boutique hotel someplace warm. We stayed at the Parker Hotel in Palm Springs. Talk about cool…this hotel was amazing and full of character. I did have a few issues with the hotel, but nothing that ruined my stay. (One major issue…my room did not have a bath tub, only a shower. And the shower head was installed low enough on the wall that the stream of water hit my neck…I did squatting showers the two days I was there.)
I also met the fabulous Scott Abel, the Content Wrangler—his session certainly enlivened the IC09 crowd and I spoke with him at lengthy on Friday afternoon. I do hope to work with him again as his passion for good content management is palpable and sincere. His AT&T customer service story is a hoot. I do believe he posted it to his blog.
