A Practical Guide to Content Strategy in Six Steps

A critical question you must ask yourself: what is your content strategy? Further, what do you plan to do with content assets you have and how do you take full advantage of that data?

There are many types of content, of course, and each group of assets may have a different strategy entirely. Let’s look at how you can identify that content, organize it and execute a strategy to handle it.

Step One: Identify Our Content

Let’s first start by identifying your content assets. What content do you have? How and why is it currently being used? Start by asking these kinds of questions to assess the content assets so you can later evaluate and organize that information into groups used in taxonomy (categorization of your content) and so forth.

Identifying your content is an important first step because, obviously, you have to know what you are working with before you can actually develop a plan to organize and use that available data to your advantage as an organization. Try to create some type of outline as you work through this.

For instance, you will likely want to look at all of your marketing content, employee policy content, customer and financial data and business operational data all separately. Find where all of this content lives (in the cloud, data center, computer hard drives, network drives, social media, email, wikis, etc.). This will help you move into the next crucial step of the content strategy process, which involves organizing all of your content and grouping it into categorical context.

Step Two: Organize, label, categorize

So now that you have identified all of the content within your organization’s hard (such as those in a file cabinet) and soft files (such as those in the cloud or stored on a computer), you can begin the critical steps of organizing, labeling and categorizing your content. This process involves creating an outline, hierarchy or taxonomical system for your content assets.

You will first want to start with a plan that outlines your organization’s goals for the content, with your overall mission in mind, so you will be able to develop a useful system of organization and taxonomy. Group your content assets within these groups and subgroups to create cohesion and transparency. One of the goals of your content strategy should be to make data easier to access for those with the proper access privileges. Each layer may have different privileges or added layers within. It is kind of like baking a complicated cake, using data for our ingredients.

Step Three: Develop targeted plans for each layer

Because you have these different layers of content, it only makes sense that you must plan a slightly or even widely different approach to each of those layers. For instance, your strategy for delivering employee policy and conduct information surely would not use the same approach as delivering customer marketing material to the public. They must be implemented with the user in mind.

Part of this is about identifying the user or audience in mind, but much of that process should have been already taken care of during the organization phase.These layers of taxonomy (content that is tagged or categorized for use in a particular context or definition of terms or navigation) can become increasingly complex and overwhelming, even for the most seasoned content managers, so be vigilant and stay focused on the overall strategy.

There are two good ways to do this. One is to make sure that you audit your content for consistency, accuracy, relevance (outdated information should be archived), mechanics, usability and design. The next is to conduct usability testing through each phase of the content management overhaul.

Step Four: Find a content management system that works for you

There are many different content management systems (CMS) that have varying levels of efficiency, complexity and advanced features for editing and managing your content. Each one is different and has a different learning curve.

Your job should be to find the one that works best for the purposes intended. Possible CMS include Drupal, WordPress, Joomla and several others for content like blogs, web portals and basic (or complex) websites. Sharepoint helps to manage document files. There are a number of different options depending on a particular need. You just want to make sure that your chosen system will allow you to categorize content effectively and make search easier.

Step Five: Employ good user design or user experience principles in design and navigation

It can’t be stressed enough. Make finding content easier for members of you organization. Make sure your content strategy involves looking at both form and function of content. A good information designer or graphic designer should not be underestimated. The work they do helps people navigate complicated websites or applications easier.

Designs should be clean and clear of clutter and complicated imagery. Icons and images should be displayed in the proper format so they don’t appear distorted. They should be easy to read, easy to find and easy to digest. Web users typically have little patience when it comes to looking around the page. You literally have seconds to grab their attention. Make it count.

Navigation structure and page elements should also be displayed logically and in a clean and clear manner to avoid confusion and congestion on pages. Also ensure that all navigation leads to relevant content that is useful for the intended audience.

Step Six: Employ analytics to make the most of your content

Lastly, when developing a content strategy and after all the other five steps have been completed (this is an ongoing though), you will be able to analyze your data. Using analytics tools to access insights about information can be critical to making your content strategy work for the organization. Look at how users clicked, where they clicked, what content was most accessed, how it was accessed and why. These insights will allow you to be nimble and make gradual changes over time to continually tweak the content management process.

Social Media Management and Information Governance

The social media landscape today has ballooned to include several different types of platforms from video or photo sharing to microblogs to short posts and activity feeds for all. With all of this newly introduced communication software, there becomes an increasing amount of data and data risk.

There are three layers of information governance involved with social media use within official organizations. Read on to learn what these layers are and what can be implemented within your organization to keep data compliant with legal, organizational and regulatory policies and procedures, as well as keeping data safe and free of risk.

Social Media Security

Organizations, including small and midsize businesses, non-profits, corporate enterprises, even governments, are no doubt being inundated with automatic cyber-attacks, hacks, spam, phishing scams, DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks and other forms of electronic malware. Much of this malware also no doubt comes from social media use. Interestingly though, many organizations are not prepared or putting effort into scanning this content for malware stemming from social media use.

Short links distributed through tweets, wall posts and other forms of communication are generated by bots that are designed to appear human online, though they are not. The information gathered through deploying these bots can be devastating for an organization. Imagine that employee clicks on one of these links and critical business information becomes vulnerable to automated information harvesting.

This information can be used in a variety of ways including business or government espionage, theft of important customer or internal financial information, theft or distribution of important trade secrets like research or prototypes and illegal or compromising use of other critical data.

There are tools that can scan this content and monitor user behavior to ensure secure communications. One of the tools that can manage social media is HootSuite.

Social Information Archival

The archival of information is obviously important for any kind of enterprise or organization. Data can become stockpiled or deleted immediately on social media sites, depending on their own policies for data retention.

If an employee or member creates a piece of content that was deleted, there must be a way to retrieve when and why the content was removed. It may come up in a legal matter at some point (continue reading to see Social Media Information Policy).

Screenshots of content or documentation of social media activity are a couple of ways that this information may be monitored or recorded. Some kind of record needs to exist. A simple log may not suffice, depending on policy or regulations. Businesses with a supply chain, product or other third party scenario may need to refer to this information for business practices or other reasons effecting third parties or partners.

Social media insights can also be gained through tracking content and activity over long periods of time. Research into social use over time can enable organizations to become adaptable to market conditions, laws, disruptions, customer expectations, business practices and a broad range of other areas important to organizations using social tools and sites.

Social Media Information Policy

Organizations are more heavily burdened by legislation, regulation and threat of legal action or litigation than ever before. To complicate matters, the amount of information is growing ever more rapidly. As old data becomes archived, exponentially larger volumes of data are being produced. This trend is not going to slow down anytime soon. Just take a look at the massively growing market of cloud storage and computing services on the market. So how can we ensure that social media use follows guidelines?

It starts with auditing content, campaigns and procedures to ensure legal, regulatory and organizational compliance. Look at content to see if there are vulnerabilities. You don’t want users posting content that can lead to insider trading, for example. Trade secrets and confidential customer or supplier information must also not be distributed to the public, for another example.

These are just a couple of ways that this kind of media use can harm or injure the credibility, profitability and even viability of an entire enterprise. Information handling policies must be both set in stone for things that will not change (corporate responsibility, for example) and things that will change or evolve over time (product marketing, for example). Some things will in fact change quite rapidly, while others will be a little slower moving.

After the audit, the next step is to ensure enforcement. Not only management, but every single member of the organization must first understand that these policies are important and then see to it that they are being followed. Monitor all onsite or virtual network use and the use of social on those systems. Let users know that their activity is being monitored to dissuade them from engaging in the risky behavior to start with. Remember that the average employee spends nearly an hour engaging in social media use at work.

There are various risks associated with this activity. Employees must both know the risks associated but also understand that there will be no tolerance for non-compliance with these policies. Disciplinary action is at the discretion of each organization.

Implement the Layers Proactively

Remember that the sooner your organization starts implementing these layered tasks, the better. You don’t want to be comfortable today and sorry tomorrow for not realizing the mistake of complacency. Make sure that everyone is on-board at all levels to ensure the smoothest possible transition into security protocols, policies, procedures and use of tools and software.

People are often afraid of change or resistant to do things that require patience or more work on their end. You may be able to alleviate some of those pains from them, but ultimately everyone must be responsible for the information they produce, gather and distribute.

All this being said, social media is a great tool for boosting productivity as well as marketing efforts for most organizations, so don’t be afraid to use social media, just use these precaution measures first.

Converting Knowledge Into Content

Many of us have grown accustomed to referring to our work email accounts to find that bit of information that we received from one colleague or another. Now you discover you need that information quickly to finish a project.

Where is it? If you have faced this similar situation, it means that the amount of data and its applications have grown more complex. It also likely means that you and your organization are too loosely exchanging important information and have lazy knowledge management practices in place. This is not meant to be insulting, of course. It is simply a way to understand how to improve the process.

As mentioned in previous blog posts, big data has come to encapsulate the work we do now. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a place to cleanly and robustly organize all of the information that we come across. Well, content and knowledge management policies and programs will help you to achieve this. Read on to learn how.

Where is knowledge?

Knowledge is everywhere. In your business or organization, it is likely fostered through learning and growing and experiencing the flow of the market and the culture. Each member, employee, manager, stakeholder and so forth has a different level of that experience, giving each of them unique knowledge. That knowledge is usually transferred through the relationships among staff via verbal exchange and electronic (email, memos, research notes, etc.) and hard (paper documents) means.

This is where our knowledge lives. But as it lives in the minds of the personnel and in fragmented pieces in various formats, how easily are organizations able to attain that knowledge and deploy it efficiently to achieve goals? It must be converted, therefore, into unified content and implemented with policies, procedures and strategies. So how do we do this?

Identify knowledge and outline a plan for documentation

Now that we know where our knowledge lives, we must formulate some type of plan to extract this information. At each layer, the process may be different. It might depend on your industry, your culture and things of this nature. In any case, the main point is to identify the information, record it and put it somewhere, preferably into a centralized system that makes use of taxonomy (see blog posts on taxonomy).

At some stage, this may require you to hire a technical writer or some other documentation specialist that can interview subject matter experts in your organization to get the detailed information that will serve as your organizations knowledge base. This person can identify with processes, components, procedures, policies, records, archived data, intellectual property, financial data, secure data and a broad range of other information that must live in an environment where the appropriate members or users can access it later.

In terms of legal matters or legal information, many regulations have information handling requirements that are rigid and may require that you have certain pieces of critical information readily available to audit. Knowledge management and content management are more important in this scenario than ever. Information audits can be done to sift through organizations’ data including email, memos and other documents to make sense and make use of them.

This process of making an audit of information and knowledge is an important first step, but the next step is just as important. You must now organize the information that you have so that it can be easily found by the right people.

Centralizing your converted knowledge and content

Documents stored as files in a simple network drive will no longer suffice as the volume and complexity increases. It is also a security problem. In the cloud environment, there are backups and options to monitor and distribute storage and speed. This makes converting knowledge into content easier when a content management system is deployed to quickly and efficiently handle all of that incoming information.

The type of content management system your organization will or should deploy depends very much on how the information will be used. It might turn out that you don’t use just one CMS. You might end up using multiple CMS options or configurations for different types of content or information. Of course sensitive information and information meant for the public should be handled differently and therefore should be managed differently.

Popular newsfeed or blog platforms include Drupal and Joomla. Oracle handles various IT and other types of content systems. There are systems like SharePoint that help users collaborate on word processing, spreadsheets, charts, presentations and other kinds of documents. There are hubs where users can go to find or share information with other colleagues within the company or organization.

Of course it is always important to take some time to think about security and access privileges and develop information handling policies and procedures within the company.

Make content searchable and organized

After the information has been properly disseminated and you found the right vendor to store and manage that content, you can begin the critical process of organizing it. Usually, within a content management system, we talk about taxonomy. Taxonomy is the process of categorizing or “tagging” content to make it searchable and displayed properly in results or views for the user. Tagging content within a content management system is an integral part of enabling the user, whoever that might be, to quickly locate bits and pieces or entire batches or wholes of information quickly and efficiently.

You must ultimately decide how to organize content in terms of how it will be used. Web content for the public, for example, may need to be audited for its SEO quality (how easily can it be found by search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, AOL, etc.). Your internal search systems, glossaries, thesauruses, style guides, policies, manuals and so forth will only be as good as their databases and program functionality as defined by the organization. Try to audit these systems for usability and continually try to improve the way information, both simple and complex, should be handled by internal systems.

Collaboration Tools

Project management, idea generation and content organization is becoming an important element of general business practice in today’s information economy. There are several tools to get the job done and here we look at several different options but each has its own unique feature sets and configuration options for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and large enterprises.

Project Management Meets Information Handling

Businesses need tools that will help them in their never ending quest for relevant information. Whether it is a small business with a small network, a midsize company with growing sets of data or an enterprise with both growing data and archived data, collaborative tools, apps or other software can help organizations meet the demands of handling complex or large volumes of information sufficiently. Project managers need tools that will help them enable their team or teams to work efficiently. An efficient workflow for that team might mean that they will need tools to communicate, share files, work from different locations in real time or analyze data in some way.

The cloud and big data have evolved over time together and they will continue to do so. Ensuring that your organization is employing a carefully constructed set of security policies and procedures, using cloud apps and other non-cloud or software configurations within your network (maybe a hybrid) will allow your organization to be flexible and powerful enough to grow revenues because an efficient workflow will allow you to save time, money and resources.

You may eliminate the need for paper, for one. But the real benefit for your organization is the need to improve the information handling ability. Finding content easier within a content management system (CMS) certainly helps, but finding the most relevant material and being enabled to put that content to use immediately is the real benefit.

When members of your organization are enabled to perform these tasks quicker, easier and more collaboratively, that is when the real work takes place. In fact, you will also notice more innovation, success and overall team involvement once that essential workflow is improved within your CMS and within your information governance policy (another topic discussed within this blog and website). Project managers will be happy. Those working on the project will be happy. All other stakeholders will be happy with the results you can now bring to the table.

The Right Collaboration Tools and Solutions for the Job

As previously mentioned, there are many tools to get the job done, but the focus here is on the best in collaboration and workflow management solutions that will help to move your business in the right direction – toward profits!

So, let’s take a brief look at what is currently available on the market to collaborate on projects. We will start with the paid big enterprise systems and move our way down the shelf to the options for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). Some of the least expensive and free options that are on the market may be sufficient but will lack the functionality, reliability, and support that paid project collaboration solutions provide.

Huddle

It is well worth watching the two minute video on the Huddle website. The Huddle collaborative system for project management, workflow and communication in real time is an industry leader for enterprise apps of this kind.

Huddle is a cloud-based app that allows users to work on various types of documents, track progress and delegate in a modular, modern interface that can update in real time so multiple users can work on a project at once. Huddle offers a secure space to distribute workloads.

SharePoint

SharePoint is by far the most widely used tool for collaborating on complex enterprise projects. SharePoint is a Microsoft product so it does have good support and can be used on a wide variety of machines, devices and networks and also works in the cloud. It can be extended with Yammer, a social network that allows your organization to create a social network or hub where users can connect and share ideas and plans with one another. It also integrates with OneDrive, Microsoft’s flagship cloud storage. There are also other apps to extend SharePoint for more configuration, functionality, and customization.

With SharePoint, users can administer projects and easily integrate content from their Microsoft Office apps. Like Huddle, SharePoint users have a secure environment to work and collaborate. The maintenance is automated for minimal downtime.

SAP

SAP seems to a bit different. Still an enterprise solution provider of collaborative apps for business, SAP tailors their solutions for specific industries such as aerospace, defense, banking, consumer products, engineering, construction, technology, energy and others. Their software comes pre-configured based on their professional evaluation of various industry needs. They also provide solutions for SMBs. Some of their solutions include analytics, cloud, big data, customer relationship management (CRM), security and others. Their business suite helps organizations deal with their content, share with others and create custom workflows for their operation. Pricing seems to be tied to the specific solutions provided by SAP.

Smartsheet

Their motto is “coordinate anything” and that is what you should be able to do with great project management and collaboration tools for your business. They offer their product to companies of any size but the enterprise will find many solutions tailored to their needs. They use an easy to understand dashboard with plenty of toolbars and customizable viewing and working options. It also integrates with other common platforms, making it a perfect fit for most corporations.

Google Drive and other cloud platforms

There are a number of different options for cloud storage including Google Drive, but that is not all these options offer. You can also connect a number of free (usually limited but upgradeable) apps designed to collaborate on projects. If you are using databases, spreadsheets, documents or other commonly available software, you could also design your own project management systems for use in the cloud. Make sure you use plenty of security precautions and set permissions. You should have a secure and private data policy for this. Google also offers Apps for Business and integrates its tools for use with companies.

By using any of these tools, you will help your company become more efficient. Take your time to look at each one of these software options with your IT department to ensure compatibility, proper cost to benefit ratio and other factors. Using a consultant to help you to navigate this new road of information security, inter-operability, and shared access is a logical step to ensure policies, procedures and programs are implemented properly.

Records Management Necessary for Organizations Small and Large

Records Management (RM) or Electronic Records Management (ERM) has become a more important system and solution for companies of all sizes, small and large, non-profits and other organizations. In the world of big data and the cloud, many small and midsize businesses are now facing the same kind of struggle that, at one time, only large enterprises faced: trying to wrangle entangled web of records. 

Record-keeping can be a nightmare, especially if it involves a lot of paper documentation. Document scanners have been introduced within the market to make the process of digitizing those documents easier, but a robust system of keeping digital records is still necessary to provide security, efficiency and consistency throughout the organization.

Business Objectives and Records Management

Records management objectives are related to achieving something the organization has set out to do or to save money and time. It could be both. Effective and efficient service is an integral part of this formula for RM objectives most of the time. Organizations should be working to make processes better for their customers or clients, but also for their internal members or staff. 

Avoiding heavy costs is always a goal for any organization, and cost avoidance is necessary to making a profit or staying in business. Social responsibility is one of the most important of objectives related to RM and includes moral, ethical and legal responsibility to maintain secure, confidential, and accessible records. Hospitals, government agencies, and other organizations must have good operating records management in order to serve the public interest.

Programs used for management of records should manage the information in a highly organized and easy to understand fashion so it can be timely, accurate, affordable, complete, usable and accessible. Business will run much smoother this way and less time and energy will be expended on searching for an important record or related documents.

The Growth of Data and Records

The growth in data these days is purely amazing and exponential. Because the amount of information and records will keep growing at all organizations, particularly successful ones, it will be necessary to manage the records effectively as well as efficiently.

Controlling the amount of paperwork is one thing, but managing the ability to generate more is another. This also includes digital forms. Effective ERM attempts to control creation of documents that may not add value to information or are duplicate. Retaining the records is important, however, so whatever program or method used must not be faulty or ineffective, otherwise there could be trouble with lost records and so forth.

The Preservation Effort is Continuous

Keeping records, like doing your taxes, is an ongoing process and one that can be continuously improved over time, either through internal processes or new program implementation (software).

Safeguarding vital data is important for nearly any organization, public or private. Comprehensive programs for protecting these important records from danger or disaster is essential because every organization is vulnerable to losses like this. Functioning as part of the records management program, vital records programs preserve integrity and confidentiality of the most sensitive data. They also keep these information assets safe according to a record protection plan.

Preserving the corporate memory or organization’s history is also important. An organization's data contains its institutional record, an asset important to the integrity of the institution but often overlooked by its various members. Each business day, records are created that could become templates or catalysts for future decisions or important plans. The records document the activities of your organization and may provide insight for future teams. They may also lead to other innovations.

Compliance and Legal Safeguards

Much of the records retention efforts made by companies or organizations have to do with compliance or avoiding lawsuits. Legal teams are often heavily involved in making recommendations on records management.

The United States is the most regulated country in terms of record keeping requirements across various industries in the private sector and agencies in the public sector. To ensure compliance, organizations need to follow a well-defined legal and organizational framework. Compliance laws can create major issues since they can be quite difficult to implement without a proper program or procedure. All members of the organization need to be kept in the loop, too. Failing to comply with these requirements and regulations could result in expensive costs for the organization such as fines and penalties.

Organizations also need to minimize risks of litigation. Implementing ERM program to deal specifically with records can reduce much of the liability associated with record keeping and document disposal or destruction. Routine and regular disposal at intervals in the cycle of doing business is vital to ensuring legal protection. Policies should be drafted to ensure these demands are met as well.

Better Business Performance Through Record Keeping

Business efforts that are streamlined are always better and lead organizations of all sizes and types to success if implementing the proper programs, policies and procedures. The same is true for documentation and record keeping.

Good ERM will certainly help reduce operating costs, even though that may seem like the opposite of the truth. It is likely that records management will save time and money, however, in the long run. Searching for lost records, including staff labor and other costs, can quickly damage the ability to efficiently run the operation. Organizations can save a lot of time and money by both investing in ERM and setting forth information policies that make sense. Staff time will also be spent more productively and staff stress will also be reduced by such efforts. An effective and usable index and filing system can make all the difference in the world to productivity.

Assimilating new RM technologies with existing processes can also streamline the organization’s information handling needs. The current technology should be audited to analyze its usefulness before implementing any new automated systems. Also, you may need to take a look at the manual way of doing it before automating to ensure reliability and proper functionality of the system. The manual procedure might even need improvement, so look there first. 

What is Usability and How Does it Relate to Business?

Your business is relying more heavily on technology than it ever has, and it is likely to continue in that direction. But in order for your technology to work for your business and make it successful, there must be at least some degree of usefulness to your technology.

That may sound like a no-brainer at first, considering that it is the entire reason your business has adopted technology. However, a surprising number of enterprises fail to adhere to usability and user design principles. Usability, as it suggests, is the field of studying a document’s usefulness to the user. How easy is the website to navigate? Is there enough white space? Is information structured logically? Are elements easy to find? These are just some of the questions a usability test might attempt to answer.

Schedule a Usability Test

If you want your organization to succeed, and you want to improve the quality of your information, consider scheduling a usability test with participants that will offer insight into your publications or information systems. The results of the test should help you determine the areas of your information and design that need to be improved. It can help establish what works and what doesn’t work. Web usability testing is the most common type of usability test, that is usability testing of a website. Any type of document or information system can be put to the test, however, internal or external. A consultant that is familiar with usability testing can test for these issues.

The Era of Responsive Design

User design has become a major development over the years in websites, applications and other information systems. The idea is to make information as easy and intuitive to understand and access as possible. Two terms have developed in this field: User interaction (UI) and User Experience (UX). UI refers to the usefulness of an application or site’s functionality as it relates to the user, and user experience refers to the form or design aspects that help the user locate information or appreciate the visual quality of the content. Usability testing can help determine if your UI/UX should be improved and how.

Eye Tracking

Eye tracking, believe it or not, has been employed as a way of studying usability for decades. Google uses eye tracking to study the interaction between a user and their behavior on a webpage to determine the best way to serve ads to users online. Eye tracking works by providing a heatmap that can visually display user behavior, such as where their eyes spent the most time observing elements on a page.

This data is important for organizations to understand where their users are going on their websites or other documents and how they are interacting with them. Most of the content in the right-hand column of many pages, for example, is often unnoticed or less noticed than content on the left, or at the very top of the page. Users spend very little time attempting to locate data online. On mobile devices, the time frame is even shorter. You must catch the user’s attention immediately, literally.

Information Context and Logic

Information should have context and proper logic if anyone is ever expected to try to understand it. Usability testing can help make sure that information is not only relevant and useful, but that its context and logic follow guidelines on how content should be created and implemented.

The information itself has to be of good quality to start with. Bad information tends to be ignored, especially in today’s culture of fast-paced computer-based interactions. The metrics for usability should not stop at the screen. In other words, it’s not all just about design. Design must be handled appropriately, but information quality, context and logic are just as important because that is the treasure inside the packaging that the user expects to acquire.

Information must follow logical order in terms of navigation, themes, key ideas, narration, order of operations, etc. These elements are extremely important to users who have expectations of how information should be presented to them. Their assumptions should guide your inspiration for method and mode of delivery.

Maintain Reputation and Trust

A part of usability that is rarely discussed is trust and reputation. These are important factors as digital technology becomes involved in nearly all facets of life today. Now, Google, the largest search engine and search enterprise, rewards websites with better search rank if they have a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certification. That shows you how important this has become. The Internet is threatened by criminals and others who are making legitimate business difficult with their scams.

Getting a SSL certificate is one way to maintain your security, reliability and reputation. It also will build some trust. Using sub-domains rather than an actual primary domain for your company is another reason users will not trust your business. Your business should have its own domain. Company information like addresses, phone numbers, staff names, company biographies and author biographies also help reinforce trust.

Other Elements for Usability

Information architecture is important for usability. One important element is page outline and mechanics. Users like to see information laid out on the page very organized and clear, so they can index the information for what they need and ignore what they don’t (immediately) need. Breaking content up into clear titles/subtitles, callout boxes, bulleted or numbered lists and other page design elements will improve the quality of your information and if it is hosted on a public website, it will even rank higher in Google and other search services.

Social media is also become part of the usability process. Is content easy to share online?

Also, examine the content’s links and other elements for consistency and clarity. Approach each element with a cautious editor’s eye to make sure that the elements are working as much to the user’s advantage as possible.

508 Compliance and Content Management

Section 508 compliance seems tricky and confusing, but its implementation on content management systems is vital for many organizations. According to the United States Census Bureau, about one in five Americans are impaired with some sort of disability. That is a rather large number of people that you do not want to ignore.

All federal and state agencies of the U.S. government are required to meet section 508 standards for accessibility. This law was established in 1998 to require that all technology used by the federal government to be accessible to those with disabilities. This includes those with visual, audible, physical or cognitive impairment.

Assistive Technology

Those with disabilities often use assistive technology. This would include things like screen readers for the visually impaired user. Jaws and Microsoft Narrator are a couple of popular software titles that are used for these purposes.

The Standards of 508 Section

There were 16 standards developed to make information and technology accessible to users with disabilities. These standards are the core requirements to making your content section 508 compliant with the federal government. There is no one automated solution that will magically make your site compliant, unfortunately.

These days, it is still a mix of manual and automated processes that drive a site’s compliance. Below are the 16 standards. Sites must be accessible by keyboard only (without a mouse). All screens should be readable by screen readers that can also display alt tags and descriptions of images. Closed captioning should be available (or transcripts of audio/video). Online forms should be able to completed using assistive technology (or only the keyboard).

Good Tips for Usability

Good technology applies great user experience, user interaction and design principles. This is often referred to as UX/UI in the creative and IT industries. The two terms evolved from the guidance involved in usability principles, an area of expertise that has grown over several decades.

Good usability means the user is able to quickly perform a task with little to no difficulty. This often involves employing sensible and logical navigation, understandable required action items, well defined terms, clean design and smooth workflows. There are other options to consider that vary from project to project, but these are the most basic caveats to understand when dealing with usability as it pertains to section 508 compliance.

Software and Technology Function Essentials for Section 508

The software and technology fundamentals here are designed to make computing life a bit easier for those with a disability. Your CMS should follow these guidelines and tips. Remember that all things should be executable from the computer keyboard, without a mouse. Some people can’t use a mouse. This should include shortcuts, object/image manipulation and dropdown list operation to name a few on the computer keyboard side. StickyKeys, FilterKeys, MouseKeys and High Contrast are some useful functions for this.

Your organization should also maintain a well-defined on-screen solution for focusing. An indicator that moves with the other interface elements is the preferred method for your CMS. Assistive technology should help with focus controls.

Web browsing comes natural to most of us that can use all five senses, but someone with impairment will have trouble. That is why it is important to have sufficient information about the user interface, such as identity, operation and state of the elements, available to the assistive technology. An image that represents a program element (icons) should also display text to define that process. Meaning should also be consistent with icons or bitmap images that are used to define elements of an application.

Textual information should be provided through the operating system’s (OS) functionality for text display. Text content, text input caret location and text attributes are the minimum textual information that should be displayed in the CMS.

Display options also need to be tweaked for this with vision impairment. For example, applications should never override a user’s selected contrast levels or color selections on the screen. Display functions should accommodate those with a disability. When there is animation, it should also be available to users as non-animated content or information. The user should also be able to choose the presentation mode of this content prior to viewing or consuming it.

Organization is also key for some. For instance, for section 508 compliance in the CMS, it is important to label items clearly so they may be easily understood. Color coding or highlighting items should not be the sole way to handle the process of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response or distinguishing a visual element. A large range of color and contrast items also helps users stay organized with large loads of information that may need to be categorized and organized in a certain fashion within folders, directories, etc.

There are also some key elements to avoid. One good example is blinking or flashing elements. Not only can they be annoying and distracting, but they can also be problematic for the end user. The frequency should be somewhere between 2 Hz and 55 Hz.

Assistive technology should also be available to users who are filling out digital forms. It should be able to assist with accessing information, modifying information and submitting information.

Contextual information is also very important. Users with all five senses may take certain elements for granted, but these items should be accessible to those with disabilities too. Items in color should also be available without it, like markup or context clues for the user. Documents should be readable without a style sheet. Redundant text links should be there for each active region of a server-side image map (replacement of image elements with text elements). Table data should be clearly defined, including row or column headers. Even frames should be clearly defined as an element.

There are many other standards and compliance rules of thumb to follow. It is best to consult with an expert on maintaining section 508 compliance.

Using Big Data Efficiently in 2015

Will 2015 be the year that your enterprise be able to finally harness all of that customer data that they have compiled over the years? Will there be ways to organize and use this information to impact the bottom line? Indeed, this data has become a form of capital for enterprises. So what will change in 2015?

Big Data Brands to Watch

Here are the areas to watch: secure storage and backup with encryption, reliable data management and data visualization (DV) are key ingredients as far as next generation big data software is concerned. 

As far as vendors are concerned, there are several players in the space including Twitter-owned Lucky Sort, Tableau, Advanced Visual Systems, JasperSoft, Pentaho, Infogram Tibco, 1010 Data, Salesforce, IBM, SAP, Hewlett-Packard, SAS, Oracle, Dell and Cisco Systems. These are a mix of independent and majors, but all have solid reputations in the industry. Choosing which one depends on numerous factors like budget, IT systems already in place, preference, reaquirements, etc.

The Coming Influx of Big Data

Big data must be useful and many professionals within all sorts of organizations are actively seeking out ways to use the data they have collected, rather than just consuming it.

Is your organization prepared for the influx of new users and devices that will flood the Internet and electronic communications, encapsulating customer interactions more than ever before? Many enterprises could be unprepared for the massive wave of data coming as billions of devices join the Internet. More devices, not just smartphones and computers, will be connected, bringing more data into organizations' servers. 

Gartner reportedly estimated the Internet of Things, or IoT, market at 26 billion devices by 2020 and Cisco thinks it will add $14 trillion in economic value by 2020. These devices include everything from household and office electronics and appliances to industrial manufacturing equipment. IoT will increase big data exponentially. It will hit pretty much every industry in a big way, but planning and preparing for the road ahead can ensure at least some adaptability for 2015 and beyond.

How to Deal With Data

Assess your organization's needs thoroughly including a checklist of IT systems in place and what needs or opportunities exist there. IT management will likely find a multitude of ways to incorporate new systems or upgrades through the right software options. Try to find robust, dynamic systems that are tailored to the way information is used or may be used within and outside the organization. Also, explore ways to improve customer relationships through the targeting and taxonomy of their data. Big data will be a more useful asset in 2015.

After you have taken the time to make an assessment of need and checklist for problem areas, you have to implement changes so that you can make the most of your information. You want to absolutely make sure that the data that you have collected from customers, suppliers, personnel and others is accessible, useful and organized. 

For example, a good search software that can access thousands of records and display results based on varying factors is a great way to handle the problem of search. Great search software is sometimes already a part of your organization’s CMS or other software for handling data and is just may not be fully utilized to make search more useful or easier.

Using Enterprise Search

Enterprise search applications vary by brand, but you may recognize a few of the names immediately from the larger tech firms such as IBM, HP and Microsoft. There are also open source options. Other vendors include Oracle, LucidWorks, Lexmark Perceptive Software, Sinequa and others. Sharepoint is probably one of the most popular options, which is also a tool for collaboration available from Microsoft. Google and IBM are also top companies in search technology. Many systems support multiple languages too.

HP is a great example of useful search for enterprise. Their flagship system is appropriately named Autonomy. Autonomy can index, or “crawl” (a search software term) millions of records including various types of content like documents, audio, video and social media. Employees and customers have come to expect a great system of search within their companies as expectations for technology have continued to climb higher due to a surge in search application use (such as Google searches on the web).

There are some important facets to search applications that should be noted. The HP Autonomy system, for instance, is capable of searching based on concept and context. This is becoming much more important in the era of big data. Searching through such large volumes of data requires some scrutiny to access the right information assets. Enterprise search applications can help with this obstacle.

Start with Little Data

It has been suggested that to deal with big data, you must first deal with little data. We are talking about metadata of course. Metadata are bits of information that can offer insight to content, helping to optimize search. Essentially it is information about information. Metadata can provide that context and concept information we referenced earlier in search applications.

Working with metadata can help with the overall process of keeping data organized and easy to access. The smaller pieces of information come together to become big information sets. Your team must start there to adequately solve this information overload problem.

Start by analyzing the exact needs or perceived functionality of the information. Taxonomy and terminology can be critical. Defining terms and putting them into contextual and conceptual order will help to provide a road map to access and utilize all of your team’s critical business data. This way, your data will actually become more valuable, too. Your information assets need to be managed in order to fully take advantage of them.

Some Big Data Tips

Here are some general tips to help with organizing and using your data assets:

• Perform usability testing of your organization’s tools for data management.
• Develop compliance and governance model for handling information.
• Develop master data management (MDM) plan to reinforce and promote compliance.
• Assess taxonomy and develop a controlled vocabulary to keep data structured.
• Compress files (such as PDF documents) when necessary to save on storage cost.

Taxonomy in the Age of Agile and Shadow IT

Marketing Meets IT and Merges

Information presented to customers must be capable of meeting near-instant information demands in a multitude of perspectives. This includes all end users, internal and external. Organizations will need to continue to be versatile and clever in their approach to data management.

Digital marketers are becoming quite clever in dealing with data, using it to persuade their (or their clients’) customers or potential customers. Taking principles from usability, marketers now use terms such as “user design”, “user experience” (UX) and “user interaction” (UI) and develop specialty roles to turn data into the most pleasant user experience possible. The food, beverage and hospitality industries aren’t the only ones in the experience this issue. Every industry is.

Build to Further Understand

Taxonomy and information architecture is not just about designing a great way to organize content for the end user. Taxonomy can also be used to understand data. Information, its structure and agility are keys to modern design techniques where such vast volumes of data exist.

Your organization can benefit from developing taxonomy for your organization’s information. Designing your information flow isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Consulting with a trusted professional that can analyze various aspects of your business is often needed to alleviate the stresses of a complex business taxonomy. A specialist can take your data and help you make sense of it. Whether you are a hospital that needs to define protocols for accessing patient data or a retail website seeking comprehensive analysis of information about web traffic, an internal audit of information systems can help to get you on the right track toward efficiency.

Start with assessing your digital (and even non-digital) tools to determine problem areas within the organization such as incomplete records or inconsistent rules or terms. The way in which systems communicate with customers, employees or other stakeholders is important to consider as well. Check that these systems can perform essential functions properly and that proper access and other rules are clearly defined. A master data management solution will help with this. Many fortune 1000 companies are going this route to deal with their organization’s information.

Agile Systems Will Assist in Achieving Maximum Comprehension

The right information asset management tools make all the difference. Having software for terms and concepts will provide users within the organization the right context for use. Thesaurus management, ontology software, metadata or cataloging software, auto-categorization, search, and other tools used in concert will keep the stability.

For example, in dealing appropriately with taxonomy, an agile system including auto-categorization and search tools (including text mining) would contain pre-installed user editable and non-editable taxonomies, be able to auto-generate editable taxonomies, support import of editable and non-editable taxonomies. To be agile for any number of end user type, these must be able to play out in several different varying combinations.

The same principle applies to other software categories like content management or thesaurus software. Search functions, for example, are more useful to the end user when they contain spell-checking functions or multiple display options. Remember, these principles apply to both the internal and external users. Remember that information architecture mastered on the inside will translate better to the outside.

Taxonomy and information architecture should be the foundation of an enterprise view of the customer. So how must an organization view its own vocabulary? Ensure that your master data management is interpreting terms consistently and includes context for those terms. Without context, people are often left searching for clues instead of getting the information they came for.

Maintaining Culture While Establishing Order

The above phrase sounds more like a political statement than one of taxonomy. However, when you think about it from a business perspective, it makes some sense. When you are implementing your agile system for taxonomy and information architecture, you don't want to disrupt the critical flow of business nor the information that is required to actually do business.

What you do want is to be able to open the pipeline of information further to increase productivity and enable efficient processes within the organization. That statement sums up the general need to implement an agile system for handling information.

Part of the solution to this is governance and compliance controls. By introducing hard controls for governance and compliance, you are forming a backbone with controls for how systems are using and integrating data. Your taxonomy, metadata and other information may connect business processes or even use content to complete or help complete a variety of tasks.

The exact structure of any organization varies from enterprise to enterprise and in parallel does their culture. This contrast can be reckoned with reason. The key to being able to harness information collectively, selectively and to varying degree is what will make the major difference in opening that pipeline up with controls in place to establish order.

Taxonomy Soup: Collaboration, Integration and Access

Here is analogy to social science: Just as the language of a region or culture may vary in dialect, so too does the language of business. The language of business can be quite diverse. Between industries, organizations, departments, fields of study/practice and a wide variety of other factors, confusion exists. The real benefit to a system with agility is the ability to communicate more efficiently. The combination of collaboration, integration, and access are the key ingredients to making the perfect taxonomy soup.

The ability to sort terms is very important and will become even more important in the big data era. A great system will be one that can differentiate taxonomy with due diligence. Collaborating will become more efficient this way.

By integrating data that does not fit into the dialect of terms, the organization will be able to make better use of its information assets, whatever they may be. This includes getting all of the information into the right places and ultimately into the right hands in the correct way. Policies and procedures are important examples of such data.

Analyze Your Needs Carefully

Take a look around your organization. Take notes on every detail you can to make an informed decision about what to implement and where. Consulting with a professional is the next step. The aforementioned details of creating an agile environment for taxonomy and information architecture within an enterprise of nearly any size are helpful in beginning to form a strategy for handling your enterprise information. Consulting a professional will help alleviate the overwhelming and burdensome task of data complexity.

Making Information Easier to Find Becomes Ever More Important

Taxonomy is becoming so much more important in the digital age that entire enterprises may one day develop out of the need just to classify information. The many ways we have traditionally classified content has exponentially grown in the digital age to a size un-imagined and continually growing. 

The Library of Congress and other libraries, large and small, have gone to using digital tools to classify and re-classify information about books, documents, texts and even multimedia content. The Internet was, of course, developed to help more easily share and organize documents and other content across a computer network. Now, here we are with the cloud and big data.

Where to begin?

The proportion of data-to-enterprise, or even data-to-individual, can become difficult or even unmanageable without the right tools or experience to guide you. As humans and consumers, we tend to expect that our options will be categorized into specific types based on the larger type. For instance, if we buy a computer, the choices are usually as follows: brand, device type, operating system, etc. 

Then we get into Apple vs Dell, Desktop vs Tablet or BlackBerry vs Android. The more immediate platforms that come to mind are Google or Bing search engines, hashtags or networks on social media like Twitter and Facebook. These are the most recent consumer examples of classifying information in a multitude of ways using software. Enterprises of all industries, however, are becoming more dependent on systems to help them manage information to scale.

The time it takes members of an organization to find important or relevant information is productivity lost. It also adds to personnel frustration, even at management level.

Time to Give Industries Options for Information Management

Companies are responding to the needs of industry. Taxonomy, metadata, ontology, data virtualization and data governance are some of the key areas of need for many organizations dealing with vast amounts of data coming from customers, partners, legal or other channels.

Top Quadrant, who released a web-based taxonomy solution recently, is an example of how these enterprise needs are so far being addressed, according to KMWorld. 

TopBraid, the software referenced, is able to help end users reference data with more easily accessible visual models of the data, laid out in a clean way. 

Much more emphasis on visual representation of data is becoming an IT industry-wide way to tackle some of the problems associated with extrapolating and explaining complex data sets. Asian countries have had a great deal of success, in fact, in using visual models to teach mathematics and transition students into new topics easier, which Americans have had some difficulty with in many educational settings.

TopQuadrant is just one recent example. There are tools and software being developed in the market to deal with this exponentially growing challenge.

Taxonomy Time for Taxonomists

So what does a taxonomist do that can help arrange and set a standard for all of this enterprise information that we are dealing with in ever increasing amounts? Well, for one, taxonomists are tasked, not only with categorization of terms, but also governance and definition of those terms as well. 

They often use a commercial software that is dedicated to this work, such as a dedicated thesaurus or taxonomy management application. Some of these can be developed internally as well, for the right organization, as long as it fits their particular needs. 

Sometimes taxonomy management tools are part of another suite or software, in which taxonomy is a feature. In the case of Drupal, a website content management software tool to build and maintain websites, taxonomy is used to define or classify content, which can then be configured to display nodes, pages, etc. to the end user. Sometimes, other software can be used, such as spreadsheets or other types of software tools. 

Lastly, open source software for taxonomy and ontology are becoming available for use as well.

The benefits to having a system or person that maintains taxonomy within the enterprise are several. One benefit is that information is organized, as I have already alluded to. Another is that this information can also be made easier to find for customers, personnel, vendors, supply partners, etc., which I have also discussed. One reason that we have not discussed is standardization. 

This refers to terminology and jargon within your particular company. Every company can create a manual of terms, glossary, thesaurus, etc. But a taxonomist or someone working with taxonomy software can refine this process and create a standard that efficiently works across the company, so everyone is in compliance. It is kind of like having a style guide, but only for key terms of the business. 

Compliance is another key benefit to all of this. Regulations need to be followed and adhered. There are other legal and regulatory impacts that information has and taxonomy, ontology and information management are a few ways to stay ahead of the mess. Information audits can be a great way to find holes in your system and develop ways to patch those holes for greater governance and compliance. All of this can save us time and money on our business operations in one way or another.

Techniques for Creating a Great Information Structure

Taxonomy and information management starts with a few basic techniques to help guide end users to information they have are trying to navigate to. The less time to navigate, the better.

Not only are terms important, but so are their relationships. Sometimes information can be found using one term or another, depending on the scenario. If you are looking for blue cars that are fast, you could search cars by color or by speed, as one example illustrates this point.

Standards should also weed out content that is irrelevant or invalid. Other types of information related to terms can be used in conjunction with taxonomy. There should be clear hierarchies of information within the enterprise as well. 

All of this data should be able to be used with other tools like content management, indexing, search and others. It should always support ANSI/NISO Z39.19 or ISO 2788 thesaurus standards. Different classes of information may apply to sets or subsets even. 

Make sure that any software you use will generate reports for you on analytics (of terms) and so forth. This is very important.

There are a variety of ontology and thesaurus options available. They are available in a multitude of platform formats. Here are a few: MultiTes Pro (Microsoft Windows), Cognatrix (Apple Mac OS X), One-2-One (Windows) and TheW32 (multi-platform). There don't appear to be many options for the mobile platforms yet (iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone). 

The information management problem in the world of big data seems pervasive, but there is a growing trend toward developing new ways of dealing with it. Now is the time to start looking at creating a plan to develop a system for dealing with taxonomy, oncology and information management to help your organization users to access data more quickly, efficiently and sensibly. 

The more content builds up, the more the organization needs to change, adapt and most importantly, handle of the big data involved.