Monday, April 27, 2009

Content Strategy Mind Map

I was looking at Jeffrey MacIntyre's Knol on Content Strategy and really liked the back-of-the-napkin mind map he did about the different components of Content Strategy. That seemed like an interesting project so I decided to take a few minutes and take a stab at how I think about the various parts of Content Strategy.

Well if something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing - so I eventually came up with this. I tend to think about Content Strategy as having four basic components:

  • Technical

  • Creative

  • Process
  • Design
So I built my map around those nodes. Of course, I already see many things that I could change so I'll probably be messing with this forever, but it's a start. I'm hoping that you guys have some ideas too. I'm sure there is a ton of stuff I've missed.

Here is an easier-to-manage PDF version of the Content Strategy Mind Map that you can download.
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5 comments:

  1. Jeffrey MacIntyreApril 27, 2009 at 8:02 PM

    Very nice, Richard--this is a nice keeper.

    Is there another wing, called Business, wherein our consultative work on licensing and syndication might apply, or on other aspects of product development (such as paywalls/models, archives, other premium content offerings)? Or would you see that fitting into Creative instead? Or what about evaluating/ingesting third party content? Is that a matter for migration or platform development, or business, or...?

    If mapping this were easy, it'd be no fun.

    Cheers,
    Jeff

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  2. RichardApril 27, 2009 at 9:09 PM

    Thanks Jeff... and YES! Business should be there. Great idea. We do a lot of "business" functions besides just managing writers and projects. How could I forget monetization :) I'll work on that.

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  3. UnknownApril 28, 2009 at 1:01 PM

    Richard - amazing!!

    I have two questions for discussion:

    1. Is there a better word for "design"? Is it "structure"? I know our community considers design as creative problem-solving, BUT the marketing/advertising community sees it much differently.

    2. Where can we plug in analysis of internal/external factors that have impact on content? - Melissa Rach talks about the "content ecosystem", and I think examining it is an important part of the audit/analysis phase of any project.

    Great work!!

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  4. amber simmonsMay 6, 2009 at 8:09 AM

    This really is one of the cooler diagrams I've seen in a long time. I love the way you've broken down the many interconnected components of CS. I've been emailing this post around, hoping more folks will come to appreciate the work that needs to be done.

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  5. RichardMay 7, 2009 at 2:35 PM

    @amber - Thanks! I was just trying to find a way to connect all the things I do under the title oc Content Strategy. It's just a start.

    @kristina - I like "structure" a lot and made the change. Thanks!

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