Creek Content

End content chaos. Communicate clearly.

How to Fix Communication — Learn From My Mistakes

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How are you at communications? Chances are, if you read this blog, communication is a critical part of your job. But we’re all overwhelmed and too busy these days — and if you’re like me, that leads to lots of communication problems. For years, I’ve worked on strategies to help myself avoid snafus that pop up when I don’t pay attention to the details. I hadn’t thought about sharing my ideas with anyone else — they were just principles I used to manage my own life.

Earlier this week, I spoke at the Rutherford Cable organization’s breakfast meeting. Cable focuses on women’s leadership and professional advancement. (And full disclosure, I’m the chair-elect of the Board of Directors of the Nashville Cable chapter—but that was actually unrelated to my speaking at Rutherford Cable!)

I speak a fair amount, usually at industry conferences around the country, but this was a general business and civic audience, so I figured they were unlikely to all want to hear about the nuts and bolts of content strategy. However, I know we all face communications challenges, so I put together my thoughts on how to manage those details that trip us up.

In some recent conversations on Twitter, I’ve begun to realize there’s probably a bigger audience for these kinds of ideas. We all struggle with information overload, being pressed for time, and managing multiple streams of communication.

Here are my tips — what’s your best secret for effective communication?

What to Know Before Buying a New Technical Solution

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For years, we’ve worked with marketing or other business-side clients who are trying to solve a problem. Often someone will suggest a new technical system as a solution. You need a new content management system! You need a better database! You need a social media management platform! You need…you need…you need….

Really? Really?

I will say, we have worked with a number of clients who really did need a technical solution. If you don’t have a content management system [CMS] and you’re managing a sophisticated website [or one that needs to be sophisticated], well then yeah, you’re gonna want a CMS. If you’re dealing with legacy systems that can’t talk to each other, well, then, yeah, you really might have to upgrade something. And a whole lot of us need to figure out how to make separate technical systems talk to each other.

But y’all. We find much more often that the systems themselves aren’t the big issue. Using your systems effectively — operations and governance — will eat you alive, though.

Before you even think about considering a new technical system, please figure out how you’re going to support your ongoing content operations. It doesn’t matter what your goals are: You need people and tools and real strategy to make them happen. Buying a new piece of software isn’t going to help without the people and money to support ongoing operations.

World IA Day — This Weekend!

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I’m headed for Ann Arbor, MI, this weekend, to attend one of the 14 locations hosting an event for World IA Day. The event, organized by the Information Architecture Institute [disclosure: I’m on the board of directors], is a fabulous, world-wide opportunity for people to celebrate and learn more about the field of information architecture.

What is information architecture?
Information architecture is a discipline and practice that focuses on making information usable. Information architects organize information and figure out how to best share it to help others find and use the information they need. Day to day, that means we do things like create wireframes, website navigation, develop metadata and taxonomy, and evaluate user’s needs and their responses to our work.

Let me know if you’ll be in Ann Arbor for World IA Day, as well. If you can’t make it in person to any of the events on Saturday, watch #wiad on Twitter to follow along!

Laura Creekmore Elected to Information Architecture Institute Board of Directors

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The Information Architecture Institute this week announced the addition of two members to its board of directors. One of which is our very own founder and principal strategist, Laura Creekmore!

A global organization with more than 2,000 members worldwide, the IA Institute focuses on education, advocacy, service and social networking to demonstrate the value of information architecture to both individuals and organizations.

“I am deeply honored to have been selected, and I’m excited to get to work,” Creekmore said. “The IA Institute is a great resource for our discipline, and I’m looking forward to working with the rest of the board, staff and members.”

Congratulations, Laura! We wish you the best with your term on the board!

Navigation, Metadata and Taxonomy

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You’ll sometimes hear navigation, taxonomy and even metadata used interchangeably, but to the information architect, these three different concepts work together to make your content work for you.

The navigation is what we all see on your website — the tabs across the top or down the side that direct users to sections of the site. We’ll quickly point out that we’ve never seen an org chart that made a useful navigation, no matter how many times we’ve seen it tried. Your customers don’t call your stuff the same thing you call it, and if you want to be successful, you’ll use the terms they prefer on your website. Need help figuring out what they think? We can help with that.

The taxonomy is often a hierarchy, as well, but it’s the hierarchy where you store your information. It’s not always the same as what you show your customers in the navigation. Usually, it’s more complex and multi-faceted. For a starting point, think of your taxonomy as a directory of every single kind of information on your website. Rarely is your navigation so complex, but you need a way to categorize everything so you can find it and render it correctly to your customer. Your taxonomy is the framework on the back end. Your taxonomy may be a place where you use your own terms, instead of your customer’s terms.

Metadata is a catalog of the information about each content item. Metadata is information about information, right? So it’s the information about each piece of content. For an image, the metadata might include width, height, orientation and file type. For an event, it might include start and end times and dates. For a news article, it might include the city and state, or the topic, or the section of the site. Perhaps you’d mark an age range or location that indicates the intended audience.

Metadata is also a place where we get into data interoperability. There are a number of standard metadata schemes, and if you want your content to be re-used and syndicated, you need to ensure you’re using universal standards for your metadata, at a minimum.

Because so much of this is on the back end, it’s frequently neglected. If your content isn’t working hard enough for you, this may be a place to evaluate carefully. Learn how Creek Content can help improve your information architecture for better business strategy.