This Sunday all-morning pre-conference workshop is subtitled "Building Cross-Functional Unified Content Experiences and was presented by Toni Mantych, Senior Director of Product Content at ServiceNow, and Kim Viano, a Content Strategist at ServiceNow.
The workshop will touch on why a unified content experience, common challenges, and more.
What is content experience? Something we design & deliver or something a user perceives & feels? It's both, and we have to think about both. It's not just about doing the work, but about research to see how the work is received.
Components of content experience include:
- Appearance
- Interaction
- Capabilities
- Value
What is unified content experience? What are we unifying? Unified doesn't mean uniform. Good experiences are the ones where people have the right expectations. "A meaningful system of content offerings that provides value to customers throughout their customer journey in a consistent (but not necessarily uniform) way."
"A whole that is greater than the sum of its parts." It's an ecosystem.
A unified content experience does not (necessarily) mean a single interface or pathway, abandoning distinct content types of channels, or a single set of tools or publishing systems. But it does mean having a strategy.
Unified content experiences come in all sizes, including teams, departments, multiple departments, and enterprises. Sometimes it's good to start at a smaller scale. Larger scale usually requires working cross-functionally across content and other groups.
When you have to deal with people in other functions, understand what moves them. And it helps to prep for these discussions or presentations.
Obstacles & Challenges
- Lack of a common goal
- Lack of ownership
- Competing priorities
- No research & data
- Missing core competencies
- Overwhelming scope
- Stakeholders & partners not prepared, incentivized, or willing
- Organizational bias
A lot of companies have research about customers, but not customers using content. We don't teach people and incentivize people to collaborate. Collaboration is hard. Especially hard for content people. Content is a personal thing.
When you get into a system of content reuse, you have to learn to let go of your content.
Start with a focus on the customer, then align with corporate strategy, then validate assumptions with research and data.
Increase cross-functional integration through communication, coordination, and collaboration.
Guiding Principles
- Content is a valuable asset & should be treated as such
- All content is n service of the customer
- Collaboration should be a form of strategic diversity
- A good content experience varies by audience and context
- Unified content experience does not mean uniform content experience
- Seek common ground, but understand where difference in meaningful
- Respect expertise of all content leaders (and everyone)
Tactical Ideas
How does your company think about content? What would it mean to think about content as a product? Product, design, and content all have people in common.A product mindset helps discover the necessary roles for content development.
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