“Taking content strategy to people who already think they have one"

Martin BelamContent Strategy Forum, September 2011

Lead User Experience & Information Architect,The Guardian@currybetEssay version of this talk available at: bit.ly/q9tzJ5

I joined The Guardian full-time in 2009

This is best description I’ve ever seen of what I do

1. Write newspaper

2. Print newspaper

3. Wrap fish‘n'chips in newspaper

1. Write newspaper

2. Print newspaper

3. Wrap fish‘n'chips in newspaper*remember to have sent the British Library a copy

**and our own library

***and send the front page to @suttonnick in advance

*****and sub-edit it, check it with legal, write the headlines,clear the rights for the images, make late changes, re-sub it,

syndicate the best bits, and get the files packaged up

****and publish it all to the web

1. Write newspaper

2. Print newspaper

3. Wrap fish‘n'chips in newspaper*remember to have sent the British Library a copy

**and our own library

***and send the front page to @suttonnick in advance

*****and sub-edit it, check it with legal, write the headlines,clear the rights for the images, make late changes, re-sub it,

syndicate the best bits, and get the files packaged up

****and publish it all to the web

Oh. Did I say “web”?

There are more and more platforms to come

Not all content works for all mediums

Getting it wrong sends the wrong signal

Our content now lasts longer than a day

And we are looking to extend that life cycle

You get some metadata and “furniture” in print

but there is so much peripheral digital content

Teams of people agonise over the words on the left

The words on the right? Not so much...

And to extend our range of content sources

We now have to manage other people’s content

Our CMS is some homebrew called “R2”

Workflow? Permissions? Meh.

Tags are magic!

Every article has tags to tell us...

PublicationContent typeContributor

SectionTone

Subject keywords

Tags govern where stories appear

And we can combine them (however unlikely)

We can segment content from our contributors

And we can sometimes get over-enthusiastic

We can “batch tag” and edit content

If tags are magic, then an API is wizardry

It is like a glorified advanced search. For machines.

!Those of a nervous or non-technical

disposition may wish to look away now

The Guardian API architecture (simplified)

Main Oracledatabase

R2 CMS

In Copy

Solr instance

Client libraries

Apps!

Create once. Publish everywhere.

Create once. Publish everywhere.(-ish)

We also use our website API on our website

And incorporate apps other people have made

The golden rule is “get the model right”

Photo by TheIguana - http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035797337@N01/3012247640/

1 Don’t patroniseEvery person and every organisation starts fromsomewhere.

2 A portfolio of errorsShow someone where other traditional publishers have failed, rather than simply criticise their own e!orts.

3 Don’t start with articlesDemonstrate your worth by tackling all the bits of content that a traditional publisher won’t be thinking about.

4 Never use ‘hipster ipsum’Leave that to the UXers.The value you will bring is in dealing with content, so always highlight the content.

5 Don’t forget your IAI heard a lot of talk yesterday about tasks, navigation and labels. Learn (and please improve) on prior art

6 Build APIsWell, don’t build them.That bit is really hard.But persuade people why they need them, and then help them to get theircontent models right.

The future

Thank you.Tweet questions to @currybet