Confab: Day 1 Recap from Beehive PR

Category: Blog - May 10, 2011

The first day of Confab is all wrapped up. (If you’re not familiar with Confab, it’s the content strategy conference hosted by our friends at Brain Traffic.) John Schneider and Bridget Nelson Monroe were live-tweeting the keynotes and sessions all day and found the content to be very confirming of the work and thinking that Beehive PR is doing with clients. The following are our highlights from the speakers we heard today. Follow along at @beehivepr for more gems from speakers tomorrow.

Morning Keynote: Kristina Halvorson, Brain Traffic

• Focus on content driven by technology and our changed habits.
• Why content strategy, why now? Because mobile and tablet devices are going mainstream, and organizations’ content is simply not ready for it.
• Critical time to put focus on organizing and producing content across platforms that users need.
• Content is an asset, not a commodity

A Web Designed for Readers, Mandy Brown, Typekit

• How we read on the web is a function of how the web works.
• We must take the following into consideration when creating content for readers:

1. How might it be dispersed?
2. Is it shareable?
3. Is it connected (via hyperlinks, for example)?
4. Can it be liberated?
5. Is the publishing model sustainable?
6. Is it generative (does it inspire others to create their own content)?

• People who are consuming a lot of content are likely writing content, too. Good content is generative.
• There’s a real interest in shifting from discovery of content to content consumption. See: Instapaper’s growth.

Curation: Beyond the Buzzword, Steve Rosenbaum, Magnify.net

• From the dawn of civilization to 2003 5 exabytes of data were created; we now create this much every two days.
• All of the systems built to manage data on the web were not built for this.
• This makes the content strategy role critically important because people currently cannot manage that amount of content.
• 50.3% people are connected to the web from wake to sleep everyday. We’re connected all of the time.
• There is no way we can keep up with the volume of data; it’s too much.
• Say goodbye to search. It isn’t working for us anymore.

Making Sense of the (New) New Content Landscape, Erin Kissane, Brain Traffic

• We are publishing in weird times. Weird, rapidly changing times.
• As content strategist, delivery methods are our problem. When a client or internal team says, “We need a Twitter, we need a Facebook, we need a blog,” without a strategy, that’s just reactive and fragmented tactics.
• A lively digital space is:

1. Accessible
2. Searchable
3. Findable
4. Shareable
5. Selectable
6. Self-aware
7. Portable
8. Usable in many ways

• We need to create whole, enmeshed content plans that work to resolve conflicting forces and accommodates new technologies and methods.

How to Create a Data-Driven Content Strategy, Elizabeth McGuane, LBi London/Mapped, and Randall Snare, iQ Content/Mapped

• The way we decide things is based on context. Three questions:

1. What is data?
2. How do we incorporate data into our work?
3. How do you understand the context for that data?

• Context is about relevance. Start with how people find your content (keywords) and this is rarely if ever about product names or product features.
• Metadata is a core part of content strategy, it gives content longevity and extensibility.
• Data is not the answer, insights are the answer and these are informed by the data we can and should collect and review.

Afternoon Keynote: Content is a Business Asset, Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent

• Content helps lower the cost of leads.
• Content can be opportunistic by providing the right info at the right time.
• Break down barriers between departments by aligning people around the language used, skills needed and necessary patterns and behaviors.
• Show the C-suite the value of PR by creating reports of missed opportunities when the PR department was not involved. That will quickly influence how PR is brought into processes.
• Put everybody in the company to work creating content. Give people roles and direction.

Plan, Process and People for Quality Content: Lessons Learned from MayoClinic.com, Nicole Spelhaug, Mayo Clinic

• A culture that caters to stakeholder concerns runs the risk of emphasizing internal wants over user needs.
• Ask internal teams, “What are you really trying to do and why? How do you know if you’re successful?”
• Make creating a content strategy part of the project timeline. “Don’t skip it, scope it.”

Stealth Content Strategy, Michael Fienen, Pittsburg State University

• Why do people feel like they need to be stealth with content strategy? Because they work at places with bureaucracy, trickery and a negative perception of content.
• Let’s get back to what we do best as individuals. Is it productive to give everyone access to the CMS, train them how to use it and expect them to remember how to use it the two times per year they publish content?
• Make a checklist for publishing content. Not only is it helpful to people in your organization, it makes for a good grounding reference if processes and standards start straying.
• Remember this one thing: Never lose sight of the people working on your website and the people using your website.

Tags: John Schneider, Bridget Nelson Monroe, confab, content strategy, event, recap

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