Taming the Content Beast: Content Strategy and Modeling for IT Professionals

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Taming the Content Beast Content Strategy and
Modeling for IT Professionals

• Bob Boiko
• President, Metatorial Services
• Affiliate Professor U. Washington iSchool
• Bob_at_metatorial.com

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Bob Boiko

• Consultant
• Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, Honeywell
• UN World Food Program, Edgerton Foundation
• Author
• CM Bible
• Laughing at the CIO
• Teacher
• iSchool, University of Washington
• The iSchool CMS Curriculum
• MSIM Program
• Business Man
• CM Pros
• Metatorial Services
• Programmer
• Database and XML systems

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Workshop Methods

• Modules
• Slides
• Workbook
• Follow Along exercises
• End exercises
• Round and round we will go through the same
  terrain, but always deeper

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Day 1 Mostly Strategy
Introduction to the Workshop Your CM Context ----
Morning Break (1030) ---- Information
Strategy ----Lunch (1230) ---- Content
Types Templates ----Afternoon Break (1500)
---- Competitive Analysis
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Day 2 Mostly Modeling
Review Your CM Context Information Systems
Design ---- Morning Break (1030)
---- Information Modeling and XML ----Lunch
(1230) ---- Collection Modeling Taxonomies and
Access Structures ----Afternoon Break (1500)
---- Publication Modeling Where to from Here?
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Module Your CM Context

• Bob Boiko
• President, Metatorial Services
• Senior Lecturer U. Washington iSchool
• Bob_at_metatorial.com

7
What are you here to do?

• Create systems
• In the context of projects
• In the context of a wider strategy

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Content Projects
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Some Typical Content Projects

• eBiz Web site
• Brand Web site
• Portal
• Department intranet
• Enterprise intranet
• ERP or CRM support
• Workforce automation
• Department or enterprise publication system
• KM system
• BI/CI system

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Whats Your CM System?
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Module Information Strategy

• Bob Boiko
• President, Metatorial Services
• Affiliate Professor U. Washington iSchool
• Bob_at_metatorial.com

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Content Systems
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What is Strategy?

• What should we do to meet our goals?
• Business
• Financial
• Personnel
• IT
• Communication
• Information

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Content Strategy
If we deliver the right information to the right
people in the right way, it will help us meet our
goals.
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Enterprise Information Strategy
If we deliver the right information to the right
people it will help us meet our goals.
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Enterprise Questions

• What are our goals?
• Which are served best by information?
• Who do we need to communicate with most?
• What do we need to say to them?
• What value does our information hold?

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Information Department Strategy
Channels
Sources
Staff
Workflow
Structures
Publications
Technology

• If we develop the right channels, people,
  processes, and technology, we can implement the
  strategy.

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Information Department Questions

• User centered questions
• Which audiences prefer which channels?
• How do they look for information?
• Contributor centered questions
• What tools do our authors need?
• How can we acquire information?
• Team centered questions
• What people do we need?
• What workflows do we need?

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Strategy Summary
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Strategic Triples

• What Information to which Audiences to meet
  which Goals
• What Information to which Audiences to in
  which Publications
• What Information from which Authors and
  Sources to which Audiences
• What Workflow for which Information to produce
  which Publications

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From Projects to an Information Factory
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Exercise
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From Naught to Strategic Projects
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Module Modeling Your Domain and Types

• Bob Boiko
• President, Metatorial Services
• Affiliate Professor U. Washington iSchool
• Bob_at_metatorial.com

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What is a content model?

• The content domain is the overall universe of
  content.
• Content types are major categories of content.
• Elements are the major information constituents
  of a content type.
• Element types and allowed values specify what
  information is allowed to go into each element.
• Access structures specify how you want the
  content you manage to be organized.

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Content vs. Data models
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What is a content domain?

• Differentiates Does it belong or not?
• Clarifies Knowing your domain, your range of
  content should be immediately understandable
• Confines Prevents content creep

What one or two sentences fully summarize and
capture the nature of the content in the types?
What few questions clearly put a piece of content
within or outside the domain?
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Narrowing Down your Domain

• Narrow by goal
• If all the information that supports a goal was
  in one big encyclopedia, what would it be called?
• Narrow by audience
• If all the information these people wanted was
  in one big encyclopedia, what would it be called?
• Narrow by publication
• For one Web site or other publication, what name
  captures all of its content?

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Content Types

• A type is
• One kind of information that you need to provide
  that
• An audience wants
• Serves your goals
• You can manager to collect
• A model for creating that kind of information
• A set of rules
• A template for creating content
• A model for delivering that kind of information
• Knowing what you have
• Putting process to information
• Putting parts on pages

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Content Types are the basic units of CM

• You are working with types whenever you
• Create new content
• Move existing content into your system
• Store content
• Archive or delete content
• Create a publication page
• Gather statistics

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Content Types Contain Content

• The type defines the content
• One type can have lots of content
• One Article type 1000 articles
• The type is the model the content fills the
  model
• The type is the class the content is the
  instance

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What does Content Look Like?
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What is a Content Element?

• Elements are the subparts of a content type

• Name
• Required
• Min and max number
• Constraintson the what you put in it

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Seeing a content type on a Web page
Date
PDF Link
Title
Location
Contacts
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Session Exercise

• Model one content type

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Module Content Templates

• Bob Boiko
• President, Metatorial Services Inc.
• Affiliate Professor U. Washington iSchool
• Bob_at_metatorial.com

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What is a Template?

• A fancy mail merge
• A way to separate design from content
• A way to create a system of publication and reuse
• A bridge between the world of the content and the
  world of the publication

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A Fancy Mail Merge
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Separating Design from Content
Build Global Nav Here
Build Local Nav Here
Build Content Here
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A System of Reuse

• One content component, many presentations
• One content presentation, many locations
• Templates within templates

Layout Template
Sub Tpl
Sub Tpl
Sub Sub
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A Bridge Between Worlds

• The content world
• Query the repository
• Use the content model
• Use the access structures
• Retrieve content
• Link to other programs

• The publication world
• Create the right context
• Create the right formatting
• Create the appropriate navigation
• Personalize

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How Does A Template Work?

• Early render and late render templates
• A template has static and dynamic parts
• A template has content and navigational parts
• A template is a program

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Early, Late and Immediate Render
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Static and Dynamic Areas
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Content and Navigation Areas
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Templates as Programs
Templates have processor programs that read them
and form an output page.
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Types of Content Templates
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Types of Nav Templates
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Seeing Templates on the Web
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Seeing Templates on the Web
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Seeing Templates on the Web
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Session Exercise

• Model some templates

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Competitive CM Analysis

• Bob Boiko
• President, Metatorial Services
• Affiliate Professor U. Washington iSchool
• Bob_at_metatorial.com

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What is it?

• Create a set of best practice content types and
  templates based on an analysis of your Web site
  and those of your peers or competitors.
• With this information, you can determine what
  kinds of content types, taxonomies, and templates
  are most respected and work best for your
  organization.

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Why do it?

• Executives and other sponsors love the
  objectivity of the analysis
• Many organizations don't know where to begin
• It solidly positions you within the world of your
  peers
• It gives you a more objective way of arguing for
  one approach over another
• It establishes a terminology of content types

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How to do it

• Find a set of peer publications (sites) that
  serve the same content types and audiences as you
  do.
• Assume they are all constructed automatically by
  a CMS (even if they are not).
• Take them apart to discover their templates and
  content types.
• Compare and contrast the approaches to find a set
  of best practices.
• Build your business case around keeping up or
  exceeding the competition.

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Session Exercise

• Size up your competition

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Resources for Going Further

• http//www.metatorial.com/pagea.asp?idpeeranal
• CM Bible (second edition)
• First course of CM sequence
• About Content Types
• Content Type Analysis
• About Templates
• Template Analysis
• Samples you can use to get started with your own
  analysis

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Burning questions we have covered, or have we?

• How can I have an impact? How can I go from
  reacting to acting?
• How do I create structure from the chaos?
• How do I create Intra vs. Internet integration?
• How do I future-proof my systems?
• How do I rank content?

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Module Information System Design

• Bob Boiko
• President, Metatorial Services
• Affiliate Professor U. Washington iSchool
• Bob_at_metatorial.com

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What is Information System Design?

• Information system
• A body of information
• Well organized and presented
• Delivered to important people
• Through the most appropriate channel
• Design
• To imagine a solution
• To understand constraints
• To find a compromise

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Physical Design
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Process Design
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Logical Design
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Goals
The reasons why you are creating the system

• Names
• Descriptions
• Measurements
• Values

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Audiences
The people the system will serve

• Demographics
• Attitudes
• Comparisons
• Profiles

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Publications
The delivery channels of the system

• Publication qualities
• Templates
• Audiences
• Navigation

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Authors
The people who will create content

• Content types
• Tools
• Relationship to the system
• Relationship to audiences

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Acquisition Sources
The places you will get content

• Content types
• Conversion and tagging tools
• Relationship tothe system
• Relationship to audiences

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Workflow and Staffing
The processes you will use to build and maintain
the system

• Work objects
• Tasks
• Staff members
• Triggers
• Durations

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Access Structures
The methods you will use to organize content

• Hierarchies (outlines)
• Indexes (keywords)
• Cross-references (links)
• Sequences (next and previous)

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Content Types
The information you will deliver

• Creation
• Quantities
• Lifecycle data
• Elements

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Metadata
The glue that holds the system together

• Boils down meaning and context
• Adds automation handles
• Encodes your decisions

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Exercise
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Module Content Modeling and XML

• Bob Boiko
• President, Metatorial Services
• Affiliate Professor U. Washington iSchool
• Bob_at_metatorial.com

79
What is a Markup Language?

• A meta language
• A way of representing content elements and
  components
• A tagging syntax

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Markup Carries Meaning in the Form of Context

• The Sky Is Falling
• The ltigtSkylt/igt Is Falling
• The Sky Is ltigtFallinglt/igt
• ltLIEgt The Sky Is Fallinglt/LIEgt

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Why XML is Cool

• Has an X in its name!
• As strong as its also ran parent SGML
• More flexible than its superficial cousin HTML
• Its accepted

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The Gross Anatomy of a Tag
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The Micro Anatomy of a Tag
White Space is for Your Eyes Only ltTABLEgtltTRgtltTD
COLSPAN"2"gtHere is the pictureltIMG
SRC"ngo.jpg" BORDER"1"gt lt/TDgt lt/TRgtltTABLEgt   

• Shorthand tag names stand for real words.
• Every tag "inside" is contained by that tag.
• Parameters tell you what the tag has.

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XML Tagging
No Tagging Dodge DurangoSport Utility432000
miles18000Yes YesRadio/Cassette/CDYesYesFul
l/PartialVery clean 
Complete Tagging ltVEHICLESgt   ltVEHICLE
inventory_number"1"gt      ltMAKEgtDodgelt/MAKEgt 
    ltMODEL model_code"USA23"gtDurangolt/MODELgt 
    ltYEARgt1998lt/YEARgt      ltSTYLEgtSport
Utilitylt/STYLEgt      ltDOORSgt4lt/DOORSgt    
 ltPRICEgt18000lt/PRICEgt      ltMILESgt32000lt/MILESgt 
    ltOPTIONSgt         ltPOWER_LOCKSgtYeslt/POWER_LO
CKSgt         ltPOWER_WINDOWSgtYeslt/POWER_WINDOWSgt 
       ltSTEREOgtRadio/Cassette/CDlt/STEREOgt    
    ltAIR_CONDITIONINGgtYeslt/AIR-_CONDITIONINGgt 
       ltAUTOMATICgtYeslt/AUTOMATICgt       
 ltFWDgtFull/Partiallt/FWDgt      lt/OPTIONSgt    
 ltNOTEgtVery cleanlt/NOTEgt   lt/VEHICLEgtlt/VEHICLESgt
 
Minimal Tagging Name Dodge DurangoType Sport
UtilityDoors 4Miles 32000Price
18000Power_Locks YesPower_Windows YesStereo
Radio/Cassette/CDAir-Conditioning
YesAutomatic YesFWD Full/PartialNote Very
clean 
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XML and Content Management

• XML is good technology for CM
• Collect
• Manage
• Publish
• More importantly, XML can model your information
• Content Types
• Access Structures

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Review What is a content type ?

• A named model of a type of information
• Course, requirement, FAQ
• A set of rules
• Must have parts, can have parts, etc.
• A template for creating content
• A way to create regular and standardized content.

87
Review Content elements

• Elements are the subparts of a content type
• Name
• Required
• Min and max number
• Constraints on the what you put in it

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A Simple Content Type

• News
• Headline
• Story
• Submit Date
• Publication Date
• Submitter

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Dog Simple Content Type

• ltNewsgt
• ltIDgtlt/IDgt
• ltCreateDategt lt/ CreateDate gt
• ltPubDategt lt/ PubDate gt
• ltContributorgt lt/Contributorgt
• ltHeadlinegt lt/Headlinegt
• ltStorygt lt/Storygt
• lt/Newsgt

OR
OR ltNews Id CreateDate PubDate
Contrib gt ltHeadlinegt lt/Headlinegt ltStorygt
lt/Storygt lt/Newsgt
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A More Complex Content Type

• ltNews Id CreateDate PubDate ContribId
  gt
• ltHeadlinegt lt/Headlinegt
• ltStorygt lt/Storygt
• lt/Newsgt
• ltContributorsgt
• ltContributor Id email PostStop gt
• ltFnamegt lt/Fnamegt
• ltLnamegt lt/Lnamegt
• ltPositiongt ltPositiongt
• lt/Contributorgt
• ltContributorsgt

OR
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How to Complicate it Even More

• Increase the body elements
• Tag line, image, original source, etc.
• Add management elements
• Status, owner, first run, rights, etc.
• Extend the Story element
• Header, image, lists, quotes, etc.
• Add access structures
• Subject matter
• Keywords
• Related items
• Coordinate this model with all the others you
  have created (i.e., create a full content model)

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Schemas

• What keeps you from making typos?
• What enforces
• Name
• Required
• Min and max number
• Constraints on the what you put in it

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Transforms
Taken from http//www.zvon.org/xxl/XSLTutorial/Out
put/example1_ch1.html
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Exercise
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Module Collecting Content

• Bob Boiko
• President, Metatorial Services
• Affiliate Professor U. Washington iSchool
• Bob_at_metatorial.com

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The Content Management Process
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Overview of the Collection System
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Burning Q Engaging authors

• Review
• Who are your allies?
• Where does the benefit of contribution acrue?
• Buy-in
• On the value of your system to the org
• On the value of your system to the contributor
• On the change in workload
• On the change in toolset
• On the change in mindset

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Authoring

• Provide an authoring environment
• Provide a clear purpose and audience
• Provide authoring aids
• Provide input templates
• Provide workflow, status, and version control
• Provide for localization

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Acquisition

• Get a source agreement
• Provide a conversion process
• Provide for additional tagging
• Provide for human oversight
• Provide workflow, status, and version control
• Provide for localization

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Conversion

• Map elements (direct, indirect, ambiguous, no
  correspondence)
• Create automation tools
• Create human process
• Provide for quality control
• Provide workflow, status, and version control
• Provide for localization

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Aggregation

• Create an editorial process and guidelines
• Create a metatorial process and guidelines
• Provide for human oversight
• Providing workflow, status, and version control
• Provide for localization

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Module Access Structures

• Bob Boiko
• President, Metatorial Services
• Affiliate Professor U. Washington iSchool
• Bob_at_metatorial.com

104
Two Reasons to for Access

• Management is for you
• Effective collection
• Effective storage
• Effective publication
• Access is for them
• What is in here?
• How do I get to it?
• These two are not the same!!

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4 Ways to Access

• Hierarchies
• A system of phrases that classifies and
  sub-classifies information.
• Indexes
• Maps that you lay over your information.
• Cross references
• Paths through the information
• Sequences
• The set of preferred paths through the
  information

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What Do Access Structures do?

• They aid access Help you find a piece of
  content.
• They organize Put boundaries around, and markers
  in, a body of information to make it more
  coherent.
• They relate Relate one piece of content to
  another.
• They structure They are a form of metadata that
  names, relates, and organizes content.
• They depend on content components They need
  discrete chunks of content to relate to each
  other.

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Its all about naming

• Have you noticed?

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Access Structures are Hard to Create

• You must really immerse yourself in the
  information You need a special talent for
  organizing and categorizing, a great attention to
  detail and a vast ability to keep a lot of
  information in your head.
• Access structures are expensive to create
  Organizing information takes a lot of time and
  effort. Most of this effort results in benefits
  that you don't immediately realize.
• Access structures are expensive to maintain
  Imagine a kitchen with dozens of new kinds of
  dishes coming into it each day. Structure is a
  never-ending battle against entropy.

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Hierarchies

• a.k.a.
• Taxonomy
• Outline
• TOC
• Tree
• Nested List
• Class Structure
• What does it represent?
• The proper names of things
• Their pedigree
• Management
• A proper place for everything
• A way to see gaps
• Organization at a glance that you can expand
  indefinitely
• Access
• Many items few clicks
• Whats in here?
• Knowledge of the proper terms

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Indexes

• a.k.a.
• Keywords
• What does it represent?
• A map to the information
• From the many aspects of the information one to
  focus on
• Management
• Slicing the information by useful qualities
  (e.g., author)
• Targeting info based on its qualities
• Access
• Quick access to the middle of the information
• Sliced by attributes you care about

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Cross References

• a.k.a.
• Hyperlink
• Link
• Association
• What does it represent?
• If you are here you might want to be here
• Possible paths through the information
• Management
• What ought to be inside and what ought to be
  outside
• What do people want next?
• Access
• Im following a scent
• There is a logical next step for me in this
  context

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Sequences

• Managed within your
• Hierarchies
• Indexes
• Special sequence structures
• Represented like cross references

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Seeing Navigation on a Web Page
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Module Publication Modeling

• Bob Boiko
• President, Metatorial Services
• Affiliate Professor U. Washington iSchool
• Bob_at_metatorial.com

115
CM Process
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What is Publication About?

• The collection system belongs to authors and
  sources
• The management system belongs to the CM team
• The publication belongs to the user

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Publication as a Process
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Web Publishing
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Publication as Communication

• A publication is a tangible communication that
  has (or should have)
• A purpose
• A known audience
• Authorship
• A content domain
• A set structure and format
• Publication cycles

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The Turing Publication Test
Turing Sez If a person of average intelligence
asks a machine questions and can't tell whether
the answers are from a computer or a person, the
machine must have the intelligence of a person.
http//www.turing.org.uk/turing/
Bob Sez If an average member of the audience of a
publication cannot tell the publication was
produced by a CMS, the publication has been
produced artificially with intelligence
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The Old Way to Publish
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The New Way to Publish
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Designing Publications

• Decide on the name, purpose, audiences,
  publishers, authors, and importance to your goals
• Find use cases for the publication
• Craft messages to each of the publication's
  audiences
• Decide on a format
• Channel
• Style, layout, branding
• Voice, arguments, reasons
• Structure
• Content
• Navigation
• Cycles for the publication
• Localization

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Messages
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Designing Publication Systems

• Cross audiences with content types
• Cross audiences with preferred channels
• Cross information with channel constraints

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Exercise
127
Workshop Wrap-up
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From Exercise to Reality
So, how do you keep this from getting out of
control?
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Keeping Control

• Always start from triples
• Do a complete analysis and then prioritize
  triples
• Find the most important audiences and content
  types first.
• Start small and build
• Make sure every system serves at least one triple
• Aggregate based on common
• Audiences
• Information
• Sources
• Be prepared to change
• Adding and changing types
• Adding and changing metadata

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Want More?

• Metatorial Services (metatorial.com)
• CM Courses
• Design Tools
• White papers, Presentations
• Workshops CM Poster, CMS Planner
• CM Bible and Laughing Books
• CM Professionals (cmprofessionals.org)
• Member lists
• Discussions
• Events
• iSchool (www.ischool.washington.edu)
• Courses (distance program)
• Events

131
Un-Covered Issues?
132
Feedback?