Content is a fierce beast to wrangle. I’ve experienced this after years of managing marketing content. Writing engaging, high-quality, accurate content — whether it’s from scratch or using AI as a starting place — is hard. Pile on revisions, production schedules, publishing tools, industry changes, and more, and you create a massive, wild creature.
In episode 150 of The Content Strategy Experts Podcast, Alan Pringle and special guest, Patrick Bosek of Heretto talk about choosing a content model, factors to consider, and when you should think about customization.
“There’s a valid use case for almost every approach that’s out there. There’s no way around that. I think what it really starts to come down to is making sure that you’re matching the 18+ months [ahead] to the decision you’re making now.”
— Patrick Bosek
In episode 149 of The Content Strategy Experts Podcast, Sarah O’Keefe and Christine Cuellar discuss the unique challenges, opportunities, and considerations of content operations with elearning content.
“As an instructional designer, as a person who’s creating this learning content, you start thinking about, How do I deliver this effectively? How do I ensure that learning actually takes place? That’s our goal here. We want the people to learn the thing.”
— Sarah O’Keefe
When system maintenance is removed from your content experts’ workload, your team becomes a powerhouse for producing dynamic content.
In episode 147 of The Content Strategy Experts Podcast, Alan Pringle and Christine Cuellar continue talking about how teams adjust when content processes change, and tools you can use to navigate the question, “Why do I have to work differently?”
This is part two of a two-part podcast.
“We had a client a few years ago refer to us as content therapists, and that’s not far off. […] We provide a sounding board. We’re a sympathetic ear. We help give you the opportunity to bounce off concerns, problems, issues, and offer feedback. It’s a relationship where we are going to listen and give guidance, because again, we’ve been through this before with other people. Let’s apply that knowledge and make your life as easy as possible during, frankly, what can be a very tumultuous time.”
— Alan Pringle
Whether you’re in education, manufacturing, finance, healthcare, or otherwise, you work in a learning organization. It’s critical to ensure that your employees and customers understand how to do their jobs. If your products affect health and safety — medical devices, industrial equipment, and so many more — you need effective learning content to prevent injuries or even death. Providing training through a variety of learning options leads to success.
In episode 146 of The Content Strategy Experts Podcast, Alan Pringle and Christine Cuellar talk about how teams adjust when content processes change, and how you can address the question, “Why do I have to work differently?”
This is part one of a two-part podcast.
“One of these kinds of business drivers can be a merger or an acquisition. When you end up combining two companies, you can have two separate workflows. Both of them are not going to win — they’re just not. […] But again, I mean, I have a lot of sympathy for these people. A lot of times they are asking this for legitimate reasons. ‘Why is this happening?’ ‘Why am I having to do this?’ That’s when you’ve got to help them step back and look at the bigger business situation.”
— Alan Pringle
Updated July 31st, 2023 by Sarah O’Keefe.
We are now in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Everyone is talking about AI and its impact. Scriptorium is focusing on AI’s effect on content operations, and the impact of ChatGPT and other generative AI engines means rethinking the entire content lifecycle.
From May to September, here’s where you can connect with the Scriptorium team.
Have you met our experts? Get to know the Scriptorium team members who structure your content operations and position you for success.
If you didn’t see our team in action at ConVEx this year, here are the highlights from our sessions.
In episode 142 of The Content Strategy Experts Podcast, Gretyl Kinsey and Christine Cuellar discuss balancing the implementation of a content management system (CMS), and component content management system (CCMS). This is part one of a two-part podcast.
“When you have two types of content produced by your organization and different groups in charge of that, and maybe they’re in two different systems, that it’s really important to get those groups working together so that they can understand that those priorities don’t need to be competing, they just need to be balanced.”
— Gretyl Kinsey
Whether you’re looking into a component content management system (CCMS) for the first time or maximizing the value of what you already have, this collection of insights will help you choose what’s right for your organization.
In episode 141 of The Content Strategy Experts Podcast, Alan Pringle and Christine Cuellar discuss the story behind LearningDITA, the free DITA training created by the Scriptorium team.
What we are trying to do with this site is give people a free resource where they can go and, at their own pace, learn about what DITA is and how it can apply to their content and their content processes. It’s a way to take some of the technical mystique out of it, to bring it down and help you learn what it is and how it works.
– Alan Pringle
If you’re reading this post, you’ve been hearing about — or have at least heard of — a component content management system, or CCMS.
You’re probably dealing with increasing amounts of customer-facing content and localization requirements, and you’re wondering if a CCMS could help. Almost all of our projects involve CCMSs and scaling content operations to address these challenges.
When you start looking at your content lifecycle and the content systems needed to support it, you’re going to end up with a decision between buying a suite of products from a single supplier or piecing together your environment with individual components.
That made me think about baking a cake. Perhaps this merits further explanation.
There is interest and excitement building around the potential of knowledge graphs (“interlinked descriptions of entities [that] also encod[e] the semantics”) to drive content operations. I believe that knowledge graphs and content management systems (CMSs) that sit on top of knowledge graphs have a critical part to play, but I also have some concerns.
We had an amazing lineup of guests and topics on our podcast in 2022. Here are some short highlights to help you figure out which episodes you might want to catch up on (the links take you to the individual episodes, where you will find the transcript and a link to the audio file).
How on earth is it already December?
My brain is unable to process how fast this year has gone by—yet we have a whole year’s worth of content on our blog for 2022. Here’s a roundup of posts and podcasts on content strategy and content operations.
A wise woman recently said, “replatforming structured content is annoying and expensive.” This is doubly so when it comes to localization.
Replatforming nearly always involves content change—the new system may store content differently or require a different format or structure. Although the changes may affect your existing localization process, some of these changes may be for the better.
Setting up an efficient factory requires planning. Where do you put the building? How will you bring in raw materials? How does work flow along the assembly line and how can you optimize the work? Given that my expertise in actual factory operations is limited to Factorio, it’s probably best to set that analogy aside and refocus on a digital equivalent—the systems that make up your content operations.
Scriptorium is doing a lot of replatforming projects. We have customers with existing structured content—custom XML, DocBook, and DITA—who need to move their content operations from their existing CCMS to a new system.
These transitions, even DITA to DITA, require a solid business justification. Replatforming structured content is annoying and expensive. Most often, the organization’s needs have changed, and the current platform is no longer a good fit.
Note: This post focuses on transitions into DITA. There are surely DITA to not-DITA projects out there, but they are not in our current portfolio.
