Content Strategy Insights

Technical documentation of software products is critical work that needs to accurately inform end users, regardless of how quickly and substantially the software might be changing. Manny Silva has created Docs as Tests, a system that integrates a set of well-developed practices and a collection of engineering tooling, to help technical communicators streamline and constantly improve their software documentation work. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/manny-silva/

Modern content systems are complex and abstract, presenting problems for managers who want to understand how their content is performing. At Autogram, Jeff Eaton and Karen McGrane have developed a content observability framework to address this complexity.  Their framework evaluates the composition, quality, health, and effectiveness of content programs to help enterprises measure the return on their content investment. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/jeff-eaton-2/

Aligning and orchestrating product content for complex business use cases is much easier when you have a framework to structure and guide your efforts. Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire and his business partner developed the "value map" framework to structure and organize product marketing information. This helps them to align internal stakeholders on strategy and messaging and to efficiently deliver the right content to both business and technical users of the product. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/jam/

Experience design for readers of online content gets a lot of attention. The authors who create the content and get it ready for publication aren't as well served. In his new book, Designing Content Authoring Experiences, Greg Dunlap addresses this situation, showing content-system creators how to design better interfaces, streamline workflows, and otherwise improve the lives of content authors and managers. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/greg-dunlap-2/

Sarah Johnson asks, "If a digital experience is a conversation with a user, how can you have that conversation if you don't know what the words are?" Sarah addresses the crucial role of content in her new book, "Content-first Design," tackling both the pragmatic aspects of a content-first approach to design as well as how to advocate for content practice. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/sarah-johnson/