For some time now i have been thinking that we need to create a content strategy. As an idea it was reinforced by a post i read a while ago by Tim Davies relating to his post “6 things thinks I learnt from BarCampUKGovWeb” which stated as point 5:
We need to be thinking about content strategies, not web strategies.
Citizens want information. Government wants to get content to citizens. Websites are only one platform. And platforms are just a small part of the process.
It made even more sense to me today as i attended a demo of “BEA Aqualogic“, i’m not recommending this as such but the demo struck a few chords with me in relation to content strategies.
I started to think about these questions and started to build a basic framework for what a content strategy might look like here. (If anyone has created or published one, i would welcome a look)
Basic questions
- Where does content/knowledge come from and who contributes to the creation process.
- customer services
- residents themselves
- staff
- business applications
- partners
- What are the types of content (these are often layered or combined to create meaningful chunks of information for people)
- text
- picture
- photo
- link
- video
- audio
- document
- maps
- How do we manage the content
- what software we use to create it
- what systems we hold the content in
- what level of access/authentication should it have
- retention and review policies
- accessibility of content
- How do we publish and present this content
- web
- mobile
- pda
- mash-ups
- ditv
- socially (we share it out)
It will be important to get this strategy reflected in other strategies such as customer data strategy, information management strategy, access strategy, communications strategy, i also think it will be important to shift the focus of a web strategy to services and online take-up. Perhaps reflecting organisational challenges through intranet as well, although for me this is “desktop 2.0”
But my journey is just beginning in this area and i will continue my thought process.
A journey through life - Carl's Notepad 
Love Barcamps! Looks like the start of a good content strategy to me. Don’t go easy on number 3. Editorial process is huge.
A really worthwhile journey… look forward to hearing more about it as it progresses…
Thanks for the comments guys
@Richard – interesting book, i might need to get a copy to pass around others in my team and in the council
I’m working on a content strategy for my department (communities.gov.uk) – glad I came across this post, it’s a great starting point. Carl if you’ve made any progress I’d love to see it…
Thanks Neil, This was early draft stuff, i pulled it together because of multiple projects in this area and felt that an overarching framework would give us much more focus.
Happy to chat about stuff in the future, I am not anticipating starting any formal work around this until later September.
Carl