For the operational side of Web governance, the following three models are compared side by side in chart format. Some of the details are generalizations, but nonetheless help illustrate the differences between fully Centralized, Decentralized and Federated (Distributed) models for larger organizations.

Download: Comparison Chart of Web Governance Models

   What does “Contentology” mean?

In this Manifesto, Contentology is a coined word that, in its strictest etymology, could mean “the science of content” or “the study of content”. The word “Contentology” is supposed to make people stop and think for a moment, and if it sounds absurd, then we have to ask ourselves why it sounds absurd.

Most people presume that the word content means ‘something that is within something else.’ Yet this popular definition creates a tautology: “Content is content that’s inside something that seems to be content.”

Before the Internet became a tool for the masses, “content” or “contents” were simply vague terms for printed copy in a book or a magazine, or the food products inside a can of soup. The popular meaning usually referred to something that was being packaged for consumers, or something that was simply being stored or moved within containers.

Visit the Contentology site

Dlownload Contentology Manifesto

View full-size diagram 

1. The content strategy determines the function of the etext (how it will be used, read, etc).

2. The function of the text determines how the etext should be designed.

3. The eText design impacts the how the etext can be experienced. (along with other factors such as physical environment, type of screen, etc)

4. The user experience impacts the publisher/user loop and helps determine how content is developed and maintained.

Copyright 2007-2009 Garth A. Buchholz | DigitalPractices All Rights Reserved

For free reprint permission, contact Garth@DigitalPractices.com

If professional communicators want I.T. professionals to give them a little more respect, and quit calling their work “fluff”, they need to start adhering to some clear standards and technical rigor. Yes, communications is also a “technical” craft, even though it’s more often included under the heading of “arts” rather than “science”, and as someone who has been a communications professional, I know what kind of discipline, experience and skills it requires.

When I put on my “Web” hat, though, I have to say that I am disappointed at how many communications professionals are making excuses about why they don’t understand the Web, or how they don’t have the skills to develop content for the Web. Maybe some of our older colleagues (50+ years old) who worked in communications before the Internet era can say they haven’t developed the skill set to do Web communications, but it seems that many of our younger communicators (even those in their 30s) should be highly skilled in Web communications by now…yet they are not.

At the risk of offending many of my colleagues in the Communications field, here is an urgent call for the reform of our practices:

• Don’t be intimidated by those in information technology roles who hold highly specialized technical skills - the principles for developing good Web content are the same no matter what technology is used. Learn about what IT people do. Learn the jargon. Keep up on new developments in technology, even if it’s only at a superficial level. 
• Don’t relinquish control of communications work to people who are not communications professionals – whether you know it or not, there are standards and techniques for what you do, and if your colleagues or clients aren’t aware of them, document them and then follow them faithfully. If your communications practice doesn’t demonstrate rigor and discipline, you will never gain the respect of I.T. professionals or senior managers.
• Learn information design. Learn information design.  Communications has become more than just writing, speaking and presenting – it’s also about business, design and technology, all channels for communications. Learn about information design for the Web so that you have a more holistic understanding of everything that impacts Web communications.
• Don’t write for Web the way you write for print. Above all, learn the differences between print and electronic communications, and demonstrate superior skills in creating communications for both media. There is simply no excuse – no excuse – for not having the skills to write for online media. The Web is not a recent phenomenon anymore, it’s a cultural pillar, a leading arrow for change in the way we live our lives and communicate with each other. When it comes to the Web, don’t be a broken link. 

You take your car into the shop every couple of years to get its front end aligned every couple of years, so why not do the same for your Web? In large organizations where departments and divisions develop and manage Web content on their own subsites, some of the greatest challenges are:

1. How to maintain compliance with a consistent look-and-feel across the entire corporate Internet presence

2. How to ensure that users coming into the front end of the site (the homepage or topsite) can find a consistent navigation model, even though each subsite may have very different content and navigation models, and

3. How to periodically undertake design and navigational changes/improvements without having to force the entire organization into a costly and resource-intensive redesign cycle.

As a corporate Web presence grows, all the content management technology in the world isn’t going to save you from content growth issues (“content cramming”) if you don’t have a sound content strategy to govern standards and development of the site.

What do users care that you have new bells and whistles to streamlined content management and document management? Without a content strategy developed by a team consisting of business leaders, communications managers, Web managers and IT managers, your Internet presence can sometimes become a large, confusing cluster of content.

It happens innocently enough. Each subsite continues to develop new content and publish it to their own homepage with little or no governance from a content strategy to tell them how to align with the front end of their site. Pretty soon the entire corporate site starts to look like a home renovation disaster — you know, where someone keeps adding new rooms and wings and features to their home haphazardly until it becomes a monstrosity. You can improve the whole by looking only at one part of the whole.

On the other hand, each subsite within an organization’s Internet presence has to have autonomy to develop and publish content based on its own business drivers and its own content objects. Your shipping division might not be able to use the same kind of navigational cues for its subsite that, say, the accounting department would want to use. Even some aspects of the look and feel need to be different for each to reflect their different functions and makeup within the organization. If you try to universalize everything within the corporate Web site, you’ll have to bring everything down to the lowest, blandest common denominator, and that won’t help your end users. At all.

As many organizations and usability experts are learning, the key is a corporate content strategy with strong executive support, “front end alignment” to make your homepage and other topsite pages consistent for the end user, and a centralized/decentralized content management model that allows content control and scalability, both corporately and departmentally.

If the homepage and other topsite pages are managed centrally by a corporate Web team, these pages can provide a kind of sitemap or guide or index of content to the end users (who usually start with the homepage anyway), while allowing the departmental and divisional subsites to manage their own content in their own way based on their own business drivers. That way, if users can do their wayfinding at the front end or topsite level, they don’t have to worry about knowing how to navigate the many different subsites to find what they want. This also allows you to create a user navigation model that takes a more “outside-in” rather than “inside-out” view.

As well, maintaining key global navigational panels that are applied globally through server-side includes, for example, can help ensure that all pages throughout the site show consistent navigational labeling. This also helps with partial redesigns or refreshes to the site — you can change these panels (such as a header row) centrally and apply them globally without having to require any effort from the departmental subsites.

The front end or homepage is the most important page in terms of its function as a gateway and a guide to all content within the site. It also serves as our visual paradigm for everything else we expect to see beyond that point. While periodic redesigns and revised content strategies are essential as our business evolves, our technology changes and our content expands, sometimes all you need to do is re-align the front end to make sure your corporate Web vehicle is sailing down the highway and not pulling you off the road.

You’ve said that Web designers should think of the Web as a publication and think of themselves as editors. What about those who are trained to think more in terms of application development and database-driven content rather than the front end?

I think there’s obviously a strong role for application development on the Web. However, I feel that overseeing everything should be a publishing approach. Someone needs to ask the question about whether we need this application in the first place, whether anyone is interested in reading this piece of content.

How can organizations develop a Web publishing strategy, and who should champion it? Traditionally this was within the purview of the IT folks, but should it now be led by a Web manager, a communications manager, a business manager or an IT manager?

Developing a web publishing strategy is really about figuring out what content you have that can drive value for your website. It’s about focusing on content as an asset, not a commodity.
I think there’s a big trend away from IT having responsibility for the Web. The intranet is coming under the responsibility of communications, and the public Web site tends to go to marketing.

How can teams of people from different backgrounds learn to work effectively and collaboratively on a Web team?

Web teams are no different than other teams, except that then tend to be a bit rudderless. I think there’s a relatively simple way here: put someone in charge. Nobody is really in charge of a great many Web sites I come across, and that results in all sorts of delays and compromises. Somebody needs to be able to make decisions that stick.

You wrote an interesting article called Words Come Before Looks in Web Design. In spite of the old maxim that “content is king”, an interesting study done at Stanford University in 2002 found that the “look and feel” of a Web site was the prime factor participants used to assess the credibility of sites. Do you think people are drawn more to content or to functionality, e.g. Google?

I think that graphical design is important but good functionality is far more important. Why is Google worth 25 billion? Because it has a nice logo or because it has a great search? Examine the homepage of eBay. It looks like it was designed for a kindergarten audience, but it is very simple, very straightforward: “Find, Buy, Pay”. First and foremost, Web sites need to be useful.

What’s the best strategy for creating metadata? Should you have a Web editor assigned as a metadata specialist to summarize content for search engines and browsing, or should there be a more distributed approach whereby you train Web publishers and SMEs how to create effective metadata?

Depending on the size of the organization it could be a combination. I do think that writers should be trained in creating quality metadata for their own content, but there will also be required an editorial oversight.

Let’s play futurist for a minute. How do you think content will change/evolve as we draw towards the end of the first decade of this century? How will content management improvements in technology change the art/science of information design? Any predictions on what kind of networked environment we’ll be living in?

I think the Web will get smaller. There’s been an awful splurge of content on the Web over the last 10 years, and most of it is useless content. I think by the end of the decade we’ll see less content of higher quality. The future is about back to the basics: learn to write compellingly, clearly and concisely.

I have been developing unified content strategies for about 15 years and working with content management systems for about the same period of time. The unified content strategy came about as I realized that there was no clear strategy for creating multiple documents or learning materials for products and services for a company. They were often created by different individuals and inconsistent. Often I was asked to create multiple documents on a very tight budget and short timeframe. The only way to do this time and cost effectively was to develop a unified content strategy then develop the materials to support the strategy.

My experience with content management began when clients had more and more information to manage (ranging from 10,000 pages to more than 100,000 pages) and as I began to develop materials in SGML. SGML databases enabled me to manage elements of content, not just documents. It was a perfect fit to use content management to support the unified content strategy.Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy came about as a result of our work with our clients. The book answers the questions that each client asked as they started to work with us. Now when we start to work with a new client the client already understands the basic concepts and process so we can “hit the ground running”. The Rockley Group works on each project as a team, drawing on different skill sets at different times to most effectively address the client’s requirements. It was a logical step to draw on two of our senior consultants to develop the content of the book. The book also answers the many questions we get from participants in our conference presentations, webinars and workshops. The book provides a solid foundation for anyone hoping to improve the way they create, manage, and deliver content.  Many companies tend to leave the content strategy to the IT developers, and many IT developers tend to shy away from serious discussions about content.

In your opinion, how can companies ensure that a unified content strategy will be developed?

A business case for a unified content strategy should always be presented from the business perspective. That is, issues surrounding content are not merely technology problems. Rather, they are complex business challenges that affect a company’s bottom line, and should be addressed as such. The IT and the business side should be partners in a unified content project, with both sides responsible and accountable for process and quality improvements, reduced costs and ultimately, greater customer satisfaction.

In your book, you talk about separating form and content. It’s one thing doing that for structured content, but is there any risk in doing that with unstructured content?

The goal of a unified content strategy is to define structure for previously unstructured content. So, once you’ve analyzed and modeled your materials, the content is no longer unstructured. With content that is left unstructured, for example documents that are not broken down further than a title, subheadings and document body, you can still separate the form from the content.

The content is in fact structured, just to a very high level of granularity. If your authors create content using stylesheets or templates, the style tags can still be “mapped” to different formats for different media. However, if authors do not use styles or adhere to a template, you cannot easily separate format from content.

As you’ve written, creating metadata can be difficult and time-consuming. How can organizations learn to consistently create metadata across the enterprise for retrieval, tracking and assembling for re-use? Should there be a set of Internet standards for creating controlled vocabularies, etc?

Internet standards for creating controlled vocabularies would be helpful, but individual organizations don’t need to wait for these types of standards to go ahead and create their own guidelines and controlled vocabularies internally. Many sectors and industries already have terminology standards that can be adapted and used to create metadata guidelines.

To be successful, a unified content strategy should be considered as an enterprise-level endeavor right from the start, even if not all areas in an organization are participating right away. Participating departments should define their own metadata with the entire organization in mind. They should solicit information from, and share it with, other departments to make sure that the metadata can be universally applied when the time comes.

Can you tell us about some of the content-related issues and challenges you’ve seen many organizations face, either on the development or the management side of things?

The most common content-related issue, and often the indicator that drives organizations to seek help in defining a unified content strategy, is the inability of either internal users of the content, or customers, to find the information they need. This manifests in many ways, including redundant content creation, increased costs due to inefficient content creation processes, and lost revenue due to customer dissatisfaction or content inconsistencies.

Organizations sometimes have a hard time getting buy-in from management, which is why they need to present a business case that demonstrates how these issues are affecting the company’s bottom line. IT and business need to work together to build a strong business case for a unified content strategy, and to select and implement the proper tools to support the solution. Too often, organizations have already committed to a particular tool or technology, without properly analyzing content-related business requirements ahead of time. It’s like going out and having a suit made without first taking your measurements.

In the near future, what kind of technology solutions do you see as having a powerful impact on content management in large organizations?

The move to adopt XML by many vendors has been the most significant breakthrough to date affecting content management, and will continue to benefit the content management industry moving forward, as new ways to apply its versatility to content-related issues are developed. In future, better native integration between authoring tools, content management systems and delivery systems are likely to emerge, as content management vendors gain a greater understanding of the issues and requirements of authors and publishers. Industry-specific content management solutions for areas such as health sciences and other regulated industries are being developed now.

Another area that vendors are beginning to address is the translation of content, and the integration of authoring, translation memory, content management and globalization management tools.

How do you see the Internet changing? Do you think it’s becoming a more proprietary and less open-source environment in terms of information, culture, commerce?

The Internet has been moving towards more proprietary and less open-source for years as vendors have created tools to assist people in creating and managing content on the web. As these tools have gained acceptance their proprietary focus has been overlaid on the Internet. I don’t see this changing though there will always be a role for open-source.

The Internet moved very rapidly from a tool for the academic and scientific community to the primary marketing and sales vehicle for many companies. This has dramatically changed the orientation of the Internet. However, it has continued to grow and support knowledge in more effective ways than traditional libraries and this will continue. Education, learning, knowledge, and knowledge sharing have changed for the good and it can only continue to grow.

Finally, do you have any other interesting books in progress or other projects you’d like to tell us about?

The Rockley Group is currently focusing on content/information modeling and metadata design for content reuse and management. Little or no literature exists on this topic and it is critical to the effective design of a unified content strategy. We are developing methodologies, techniques, and strategies in this area to optimize reuse, content structure and optimize the support for the models in authoring, content management, and delivery tools. We have recently developed workshops for our clients and the public on this topic. At some point in the future this may become a book.