As referenced in my last blog post, here is the podcast embedded below…I didn’t realise that I sounded so Devonian 🙂
A very open account and it comes from the heart as you’d expect..a good edit considering we spoke for just over an hour…for those who know me, getting me to shut up isn’t that easy…
Thank you to Allison for the opportunity to share some thinking and the conversation.
Enjoy….
Back in January at UKGC12 Sarah Lay and I said we would create an online community space for those interested in Content Strategy for people in and around government.
It has taken some time, for which we make no excuses other than we have been reflecting on which platform to use to best suit the immediate and future needs of the group. We considered a range of options but have settled for the Knowledge Hub.
Please join and sign up if you are interested…Sarah and I will be facilitating the group, but if others wish to help out then let us know in the group itself.
Digital Content Strategy Group
The ‘digital content strategy’ group has been created as a community space to discuss issues around delivering digital in local government and specific practice around web and digital content creation, curation, delivery and governance. This may include issues around web content, user experience design, content across different platforms, search, social media and methods of delivery and governance such as Agile working and devolved authoring.
In previous posts I’ve talked about developing a content strategy for the council and shared my thoughts on what it might include, i’ve shared an example of how its already informing our development as well as sharing my thinking on the kind of support I believe web teams and local government in general need to improve the overall quality of our web estate.
There is a huge amount of work to be done moving forward and my team have essentially been delivering against this strategy already since last summer, as we have been reviewing and auditing our content.
The key point to outline is that in terms of how our web estate will actually look in 4-5 years time, we broadly see an Amazon style site emerging where our web domain acts as a trusted access point over a hybrid marketplace of services, some provided directly by us, some provided by voluntary / private sector and some provided by partnerships.
The content strategy’s primary purpose is to outline an approach and shift the current thinking around how we design, develop and manage our web estate.
I’m not going to republish the whole thing here as it is quite long, so I’ll include a few bits and pieces from the 4 year strategy and if you want to see the full version then please get in touch and I can email you a copy along with a Powerpoint presentation which helps to explain and illustrate it further.
There are 3 documents in total – in my view the background makes excellent bedtime reading when I struggle sleeping 🙂
The content strategy aims to fundamentally change the way we think about our web presence, to reposition the user at the forefront of how and why we create content and services. It intends to exploit the social web and social networks to ensure our content reaches its intended audience.
The main aim is to ensure that users can access content where they need it and not have to rely on accessing and navigating their way through a council website to find critical or timely information and services.
If the strategy is successful then we will have a hybrid web presence with content being managed once and reused and shared where appropriate. A large proportion of our content will reside in social platforms and social networks directly targeting the primary audience, for example all of our content for parents should also be available directly via Mumsnet (if practical), or aspects of our content for people from different cultures in Devon should be directly available via Devon Grapevine.
However we would also have a strong and clearly branded presence providing core information which would act as a central hub. In maintaining a single domain this ensures that our content is accessible and findable via google which is essentially the majority of users starting point on the web.
“We will have a public facing web domain that reflects and supports the diversity and agility of the organisation, reaches out and extends our presence across the web whilst providing a framework for consistency, accountability and quality around the content we provide”.
The content strategy is also an enabler for a number of other county council strategies for example:
This strategy aims to provide specific, well-informed recommendations about how we’re going to get from where we are today – bad content and too much content – to where we want to be – useful, usable content people will actually care about and in places that make sense to them.
To ensure the delivery of the strategy, we need to think differently and adopt a set of approaches which will provide the foundations for success – these are explained in further detail below.
Our web domain will be an ecosystem or network of solutions all governed by a set of rules (a global experience language, or GEL ) so they look, talk and behave like part of the core and are also searchable and indexed from a single (federated) search facility.
The GEL itself will be developed using feedback and evidence around the use of our web domain and will be constantly reviewed and updated to ensure that it stays current and in line with significant changes in web delivery.
Taking the GEL further it will include standards such as:-
Using web-based analytics is essentially about looking at how your website is being used. It gives you a feel for how many visits your site gets over a given time period, how many of these visits are unique, what the most popular pages are, as well as a whole range of other information.
In order to measure and evaluate our content effectively we need to adopt a blended approach which uses traditional web analytics along with additional sources of information/data. These would include
It is important to acknowledge that the council will not be able to deliver and implement the content strategy in isolation or alone. In order to achieve the aims of the content strategy we need to ensure that the GEL is consistently applied whenever county council content is being presented online whether via a website, mobile phone app, digital TV service etc.
The content strategy requires a new way of thinking about our domain and website and for these reasons we should adopt a more agile approach to development. The main reason for this is that the web is a dynamic, constantly changing environment and subsequently drove a large number of our “microsites” to be developed outside of our corporately provided systems.
The content strategy also plays a key role in shaping and informing the web architecture as part of the ICT Corporate Business and Solution Strategy as well as the emerging Application Strategy.
You know when you start to see or read more about a topic as soon as you start focusing on it…well I’m getting that feeling with content strategy and in particular content strategy in local gov and the public sector.
I’ve come across 3 great posts today, one of which was highlighted via my content strategy partner in crime @sarahlay on twitter…
When I picked this tweet up I was actually already reading and digesting this post on Creating Content that serves a civic purpose… and what made this seem more than a coincidence was the related link at the bottom of the article that Sarah linked to (see image below) – was actually a link to the article I was already in the middle of reading.
Anyway, moving beyond the strangeness that happens in the social web and onto some of the interesting points that are highlighted in these posts.
One of the most basic levels which I think we often forget is this list provided in the Civic Purpose article
To make sure the content you create in the public interest fulfills its responsibilities, there are a few standard rules you should follow:
Use plain English and avoid jargon, as the diversity of the audience will likely span the socio-economic spectrum.
Focus on what the consumer needs to know, and how the particular services or information offered on the site can help. Limit information about why or how the government entity achieves its goals, as this extra information can confuse or frustrate people who visit the site looking for answers.
Format content in a clear, compelling way. Government websites must compete with consumer websites that offer similar information (and all the bells and whistles they offer such as compelling graphic design, widgets, social media icons, and content rich blogs).
Check — and double check — your facts. For many citizens, information shared by the government has an innate relevance and gravity, while others automatically doubt information from any level of government, and dismiss it as self-serving. To gain the trust of both audiences, it is critical that the content be factual, accurate, have transparent input, and be beyond reproach. It may also be appropriate to have your content reviewed by experts to ensure accuracy.
Information needs to be easily accessible and relevant, even though government services rarely compete with private sector services.
A .gov (or equivalent such as gov.au, gouv.fr) extension provides an air of authority, so be sure to reserve these URLs for your content, if possible.
The last point about the domain providing an air of authority rings true for me right now, as one of the key outputs of the content strategy that I am writing is that we aim to create a “Single Domain” and this in local gov terms may not be a single technology platform either. But the key point is that we should recognise that our content has a level of trust already and we should be able to build on this and ensure that wherever our content is pulled or pushed across the web the trust and authority remains, otherwise it may lose its purpose and meaning.
Moving onto the post that Sarah linked to written by Rahel Bailie – the examples of how engagement of content should be seen is a great way to explain how traditional local government webpages should evolve and reuse content from across the wider website as well as incorporate other relevant content. Rachel suggests:
….Encouraging engagement means presenting content that presents opportunities to get involved, at opportune places on the site. To do that, the architecture of the website needs to be well thought out, and the content should always appear in consistent ways and in consistent places. In the case of home owners recycling, a home owner interested in a greener community should be able to find information about how the recycling program fits into the larger sustainability initiative, and ways they could get involved, from participating in a neighborhood initiative to sitting on an advisory committee. The logical places to show these opportunities is not only on a community advisory page, but in the places where interested constituents might go for other information such as on a neighborhood page, on a page with other recycling-related information, in a Facebook post that links back to information on the site, or in a sidebar on a page about green communities….
….The decision of whether or not to engage with a government organization is a choice on the part of the constituent; providing that opportunity is the responsibility of the organization…
The last post which I found really interesting was primarily aimed at “how non-profits can profit from content strategy“. It highlights some key areas when thinking about content strategy which are equally applicable to localgov in my view…I’ve not copied the whole post but have simply listed the headings below.
- You’ve gotta start somewhere
- Document what you have and what’s working.
- spend time on workflow
- Know your audiences
- Pay attention to your business model
- Use your money wisely.
- Keep hope alive
The first and last points for me are probably (right now anyway) the most important to keep hold of, as it is very challenging for many people to unlearn what they know about local government web management.
A journey through life - Carl's Notepad 