Plans Archives - Keith O'Brien

Destination: 2020

In the year 2020, in the year 2020!!!!!!!!!

The Wall Street Journal tackles a pernicious trend taken root in governance and corporate America. The rise of the 2020 report!

But not just any 2020 report, there are multiple organizations that have rolled out documentation called Vision 2020, which, as the WSJ reports, has dismayed eye doctors for hijacking their phraseology.

Behold some of the offerings:

Vision 2020: NYC Comprehensive Waterfront Plan – NYC.gov

Strategic Plan – Vision 2020 – Defense Security Cooperation Agency

Vision 2020 – Siemens AG (PDF warning)

Futuristic reports like these are very easy to churn out seemingly credible accounts, but they fail to illuminate upon closer inspection. They mostly follow the idea that globalization will continue, culture is important, and the world is changing rapidly. And so?

Perhaps a little over two years from now is not an important milestone. AI will be improved, remarkably so, but will it have reshaped our world yet? The erosion of the human workforce is approaching, but can anyone even credibly predict what that will mean and how we’ll address that?

I’d like to see someone take a crack at Vision: 3030 (someone else besides Deltron, that is). Will we all be half-cyborgs? Will the rock on which we currently stand be burning and will we have escaped it? Not sure, but I’m willing to bet culture will be important and globalization will be continuing

Today’s Bonus Thought

Some damning reportage out of Forbes on Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross regarding his net worth. It is said that he has exaggerated his finances by a figure of $2 billion! The entire piece is a study in abject narcissism, where you are left shaking your head at the amount of time Mr. Ross spent haranguing Forbes about accurately depicting his wealth and then trying to weasel out of reportage of his deception. Of all of our great pathologies, our self worth over our net worth is one of the most destructive.

How to Run Discovery For Content Strategy

This is part of a series of articles entitled “A Definitive Guide to Content Marketing”. Read the whole series here.

What is discovery? If you’ve ever watched a legal thriller, you have heard the term discovery, which means:

Discovery enables the parties to know before the trial begins what evidence may be presented. It’s designed to prevent “trial by ambush,” where one side doesn’t learn of the other side’s evidence or witnesses until the trial, when there’s no time to obtain answering evidence.

Discovery, in marketing terms, is to identify all of the aspects that will influence your content marketing strategy. Ideally, you hold discovery as an in-person meeting, but it can be done online through a shared document. In the case of the latter, you’ll still want to block off time and have a conference call while updating the document. Use a digital app like Trello, or stick things up on the wall in a conference room.

The person who is ultimately responsible for the final product should lead the discussion. At first, encourage people to start dumping ideas out of their skulls.

Start with building blocks. Things you want to cover, sketch a logo, what would your Facebook page look like, how would you handle Q&As, who would be your biggest get for a live event. What would a theme week look like? The adage “there are no bad ideas” is especially apt here.

Discovery works better with a couple of people (but not too many, as it will get noisy and off-track very quickly). Encourage everyone to do their own discovery in advance of the meeting. Tell them to come equipped with story ideas and thoughts of what the brand means/should mean.

Now try to hone into recurring themes and ideas that resonated with most people. Flesh them out and give them greater context.

Keep detailed notes from this session, but don’t expect to figure it all out. Make a goal of having at least three universal themes answered. Sample themes: what is our major area(s) of focus?

Select one person to take copious notes. You should make both the raw version (literally verbatim) and the cleaned up copy available for all participants.

This is part of a series of articles entitled “A Definitive Guide to Content Marketing”. Read the whole series here.

How to Document Everything for Your Content Marketing Plan

But documentation is not just about printing out reams of paper or setting up a wiki. It’s a living functionality. Documentation has versions. It requires discussions. It involves reminders. Documentation is the engineering of any successful content operation.

It can help your colleagues, you, and/or your employees to structure their days and weeks, and also put into place expectations and responsibilities. This can be immensely helpful if you are worried about people skipping vital behind-the-scenes functions, such as, as you will see below, analytics.

If you remember the end of the Gawker saga, you will likely point to the Hulk Hogan lawsuit as its literal demise. This is true. And absent Peter Thiel’s war on Gawker Media, it may have survived. But an incident that preceded it demonstrated the issues it was confronting over exactly what it should continue to be. A Gawker post that was seemingly true (has not been disproven) about a media professional being blackmailed met immediate opprobrium and criticism.

While I make no claims to know what documentation and processes Gawker had in its twilight years, the amount of public debriefing about that incident featured more than one at-the-time Gawker (and former ones) employee claiming that the piece was exactly (almost literally) the type of content they were urged to do by Gawker founder Nick Denton. And, indeed, it’s the type of story he might have approved of years before, but his thinking had changed. That thinking was not clear to the staff.

Now, Gawker was clearly the type of publication that consistently tested the limits of censorship, taste, and appropriateness. It is incredibly unlikely any branded content operation would encounter the same problems, and, still very unlikely any editorial operation would either (unless it is trying to emulate Gawker’s truthtelling).

But you need for every member of the operation to understand their roles and the roles of the content they are producing. If you have partners you need to mention, that should be documented.

If there are topics that are off-limits, those need to be documented. If there’s a

What documentation do I need?

The most important is the all-encompassing brand rules and voice guide. You may call it something else, but you should have everything one needs to know in one document. It will be long, but it needs to be delivered on every employee’s first day. They should do nothing before they read it and read it twice. You should strongly consider a quiz that they must score 100% before they can do anything live. Topics to include:

Mission Statement
Do’s and Don’ts
Types of content and best examples
FAQ
Versioning*

* By versioning, I mean some documentation of things that have been changed, or used to be. People will make mistakes and someone who has been there for a long time might revert to policies since changed. Giving that context will make it easier for a new employee to avoid those pitfalls and for the entire organization to understand what has been changed and why.

You should do two things with this documentation. 1) bold the most important points in it (the key takeaways, as it were) and encourage employees to further “highlight” them.

Secondarily, include these takeaways in a one-sheeter that should be visible and locatable on their desks at any moment in time. Employees should be encouraged to tell management if there are points in the main document that should be included there, and you should aim to revise the copy at least once a quarter.

You may require other documentation, but this is the key one that every organization should prioritize.

How to Come to an Understanding for a Content Marketing Strategy

This is part of a series of articles entitled “A Definitive Guide to Content Marketing”. Read the whole series here.

Understanding in a word is: “what?” In a few more words: “what is this grand experiment about?” Imaging the standard elevator pitch helps. How would you describe what your brand is about in under 10 seconds?

Try to sketch out your idea of a perfect piece of content. What does it look like? What does it entail?

What does the publication look like in five years?

The below advice will be helpful regardless of whether you are a one-person operation or part of a small group.

Getting your hands around the scope of your content operations is a sweat-inducing process, but it is also highly important. Once you’ve decided you are going to start up the thing *

The best piece of advice I have is to try to have a simple idea in mind before you start brainstorming all of the different ways you’ll put it to life.

For a brief example, I started this content series by stating, simply, that I wanted to walk through the steps of how to devise content strategy. The brainstorming that followed was what subject matters were required and how I wanted to display them (short paragraphs linked to a longer, stand-alone article that could live on its own.

This also applies to any situation where you’ve been hired to take on ownership of an existing content brand or organization. You should still do an understanding exercise, even if you are not being asked to overhaul the existing structure. You, as the leader, must have your own understanding.

All stakeholders should share the understanding; that way, there is less confusion about any particular piece of content or general strategy.

Take the Wirecutter, for example. My understanding is a review company that simplifies the path to purchase by only suggesting the best products. Compare it to other sites that commit to writing about new products, whether they are good enough to recommend or not.

So The Wirecutter understanding is an unbiased company that makes it easy to buy the best product. Once they knew that, they could start brainstorming how to bring it to life.

Mattress company Casper’s publication, Van Winkle’s tagline doubles as a fine understanding: “Exploring the science, culture and curiosities of sleep.”

Your initial understanding may not always be something that pithy and publishable, but it usually eventually translates into a tagline or mission statement.

How You Can Work in Content Marketing

This is part of a series of articles entitled “A Definitive Guide to Content Marketing”. See the whole series here.

Either you are starting something up alone or in a group, or you’ve been hired to run or help a content operation. Before you get into any of it, know this: it’s hard. It’s very hard. Your audience will be fickle, its attention scattered across thousands of platforms, and traditional competitors and new upstarts will be trying to outflank you. Or they may ignore you, which means you’re not bothering them. I’d prefer the former.

You will need to be creative, but that is not the most important aspect of the job. Above all, you need to be disciplined, organized, and consistent. Creativity comes later.

If you are working with other people, you will need to be a leader and a follower. So much of writing is understanding the audience and what they want and need. It’s impossible for any one person to know that perfectly, so that’s why content teams need to be collaborative.

If you are wondering if this is a job for you, a few ways to determine are listed below. Even if you’re in the field, the below can help you recalibrate.

If any of the below bullets describe you, you’re ready for a job in content.

You are intrigued in how things work and process
You like systems and structure
You enjoy deep research
You can manage stakeholder expectations
You are constantly prepared to receive feedback.*
You want to know what performed well and what did not and try to understand why
You can take direction (very few content professionals exist without an editor; for good reason, everyone needs one)
You enjoy marshaling your thoughts into a creative output, preserved for all time (or as long as the hosting or the company lasts)

* A note about content feedback. In many jobs, something either works or it doesn’t. If you are making a chemical compound and a reaction doesn’t occur, there is a specific reason. If you are an athlete and your shot isn’t going down, there are concrete ways to fix it. In writing, the feedback is often abstract. You can always argue away listening to it. But more times than not, the feedback is a better approach than what you did.

As you can see, this is a job for organized people. You need to manage the various inputs (research, interviews, assets) and outputs (published pieces of content) that will come in a steady stream.

It also requires individuals to have strong constitutions. Regardless of whether you work in editorial or branded content, there is often a tension between what your readers want and what your bosses want to be published. It rarely aligns perfectly, so you will have to defend your work in uncomfortable situations.

It is also a job for the naturally curious. If you are interested in learning more about a variety of subjects, then content may be the job for you.

A Definitive Guide to Content Marketing

INTRODUCTION

Content has become one of the most powerful tools in a modern corporation’s arsenal. So much so, that it has created a high-demand marketplace for content strategy specialists and agencies.

TOC
You
Understanding
Discovery
Documentation

But where do you begin? In a proactive gesture to demonstrate my own thinking and a gesture to those who are otherwise contemplating content marketing, I am drafting a content philosophy that can help both brands and publications alike.

This is an uber article – let’s call it a living listicle – which will link out to longer pieces on each topic as I flesh them out further (these in-depth articles will be highlighted with a more below each section. I purposefully did not number each section because the marketplace is changing and the order of considerations might follow. But this is the order that makes sense in my brain.

YOU

The best thing you can do is decide to go no further. But if you’re a brazen fool, read on.

read more

UNDERSTANDING

In a word: what? In a few more words: what is this grand experiment about? Imaging the standard elevator pitch helps. How would you describe what you’re about in under 10 seconds?

Try to sketch out your idea of a perfect piece of content. What does it look like? What does it entail?

What does the publication look like in five years?

The below advice will be helpful regardless of whether you are a one-person operation or part of a small group.

read more

DISCOVERY

Start with building blocks. Things you want to cover, sketch a logo, what would your Facebook page look like, how would you handle Q&As, who would be your biggest get for a live event. What would a theme week look like? Use a digital app like Trello, or stick things up in a conference room.

Keep detailed notes from this session, but don’t expect to figure it all out. Make a goal of having three universal themes answered.

read more

BREADTH

Shallow? Deep? There is no wrong answer, but try to get it right. If you are, say, one of the thousands of gold-rush mattress blogs (caveat emptor), you will need to be super deep on the subject of bedding. If you are covering all of modern history, you’re likely to start shallow (while retaining the option of going deeper on specific topics). By topics, I mean war. You’re probably writing about war.

The work above will help you understand which direction you are looking to take this. A simple calculus is whether or not the list of subject matter you could cover – the topics that fall under your umbrellas – is long or short. Let that guide you.

MEDIUMS

Look, I know it’s super cool to pivot to video these days – and you’ll have ample time to do that in the future – but you need to know what you and your brand/publication are good at and what you’re not. You must decide: what’s necessary? If you have subject matter that is super-visual, then it’s worth the video investment. Doing audio-only might not be as smart. You can trick or convince yourself into doing any and everything. Much harder to make the more narrowly focused decision.

MVP

We live in an agile world. The likes of Talk Magazine will never be seen again. You (and the marketplace) do not have the time to launch the final project. You get something live and you hang a shingle. So, you’ve mapped out what you want the fully-formed operation to look like. But what’s the first step? A newsletter? A video series? Polls on Twitter? The only way to start is to start.

PERSONNEL

I admit I could devote 100,000 characters to this section and leave you more confused than when you started. In short, decisions for this section should be determined above (yes, I know I have purposefully not numbered sections).

I would break personnel down into two categories. What do you need to launch? Maybe you only need yourself and some training.

And then map out the people or skillsets you will need for the second phase of the project. Do you need jack-of-all-trade generalists or hyper-expert specialists? Every organization has different requirements.

If you are bringing people on board, you should involve them in the final decision process. Show them your notes and work with them to refine so they buy into the final structure and assignments.

CONTENT CALENDAR

Nothing dooms a new publication more than lack of organization. If you think you will wake up every morning bursting with inspiration, well, you would be the first person in history to accomplish that. Content is a slog and ideas can wane, so you should prepare as much as possible. Always have a bank of completed articles and story ideas for when the well has run dry.

TAXONOMY

While web design is important, what keeps most people actively engaged on your site is a clean taxonomy. Simply put, you should have well-thought-out tagging and categorization strategy. Remember all of the stuff you jotted down during your understanding period? Try to organize those things into buckets and create a tagging guide. This will help you build out sections and archives.

TONE

How do you want your content to feel? Is it playful? A good thought experiment is imaging a reader of yours discussing your publication with a friend. This friend may say something akin to: “Oh yeah, what’s so good about it?”

While you may assume they will discuss the subject matter, think about any time you’ve answered such a question. You’re more than likely to respond by saying – “It’s really interesting… or informative… or funny… or introspective.” The content is easy enough to understand; the tone is what sets you apart from everyone else discussing those subjects.

DOCUMENTATION

The easiest thing to do is often the thing never done. Everything discussed above should be documented somewhere accessible. And documented in a sensible format. Why don’t people document? They tell themselves it will either make people inefficient in their jobs or that no one will read it.

more

ANALYTICS

Much like documentation, you can convince yourself that no one will check the analytics, so why bother? Well, for one, you can’t retrieve historical data without putting the tracking in place. So you’re betting that your boss or your boss’ boss, or the head turtle in charge will never want to know how any historic article performed.

And, ultimately, what’s the point of creating content if you have no idea whether it’s doing its job or not?

Build into the documentation responsibilities for analytics to ensure someone can speak credibly at any time.

PLANNING

Now the real work begins. You have started work (either alone or with a team) and content proceeds apace. How are you ensuring you are staying on top of everything? Documentation helps. Analytics tell you the story of success. But who is driving future strategy? Who is keeping on top of third-party apps, and industry trends?

The first month should be focused on execution the launch plan. But do not wait too long until you convene all stakeholders to map out what the next 60-90-180-180,000 days hold for your new product.

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This is a living document. There will be additions and (hopefully few) subtractions. I will do my best to minimize the latter. Like what you read? You can excerpt it on your blog or site, but do not copy the entire work. Can’t believe I have to say that in Twenty Nineteen. Looking to pick my brain? You can hire me to do workshops, proposals, or run your content operations. Contact me here.

-30- for now….