Issue 16

Strategy

Quick thoughts about the importance of thinking strategically about content

Inertia is hard to overcome. The world of content is a good place to observe this. The inertia of content is to keep creating, keep churning out more.

Occasionally, a content strategist will come along and attempt to get rid of content that is outdated, incorrect, or somehow obsolete. Rarely does this get buy-in from the business; instead, it’s a side project done on Friday afternoons, and I suspect the content reduction efforts rarely reach their intended goals before the content strategist gets shuffled on to other roles or other projects.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, this is content debt, which I’ve talked about in Issue 9 and Issue 10 from similar-but-different angles.

The way that search engines handled page rank and relevance provided some of that inertia that prevents cleaning out old content. Generally, old and underperforming content sinks in search results and essentially disappears because people aren’t visiting the pages that content lives on. Nobody’s linking to it.

I listened to Mark Demeny on “Beyond the CMS” recently, and he talked about this problem in terms of artificial intelligence (AI). While I’ve had this thought in my brain, Demeny explained it very clearly.

“Things that were no longer as relevant would just sort of trickle down to the bottom naturally,” Demeny explained about search engine rankings. “Whereas, to an LLM that’s just sucking up everything, all of the content has the same sort of relevance to it. If you have things out there that is old and incorrect, it will take that and digest it and spit it back as if it is fact.”

If you’re a content person or a data person or a risk manager or a compliance person, I imagine this sends shivers up your spine. It should, no matter who you are.

All that old content that your organization has on the web or in its content management system is sitting there, waiting to completely mess up your AI-driven efforts.

“Now you have to be really very cognizant of… this content is no longer valid,” Demeny said. “How do I retire that?”

While AI can be of great use to business, such as in providing chatbot answers, the need for content strategy and structured content becomes more important than it has been.

“That overall thinking about structured content and content strategy, you have to be much better at in order to take advantage of AI,” Demeny said.

Top of mind

Things that are bouncing around in my head as I synthesize a range of ideas

• Texas floods: I mentioned in Issue 15 that I had volunteered on Saturday, July 5, helping run an evacuation center. After the newsletter came out, I ended up working Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in support of the emergency management office in our city dealing with the crisis. I helped with public information, documentation, and supporting search operations.
• Vacation: I don’t really remember why, but I didn’t really take a vacation last year. (That’s a confession, not a boast.) I’m remedying that now. As this issue jets out to your inbox, my family and I are in the midst of an adventure.
• Don’t miss Choose Your CMS! In my last issue I announced Choose Your CMS, my new tool to help CMS buyers get personalized, expert recommendations and a CMS implementation readiness assessment. If you’re considering a new CMS or have a CMS you think could run more smoothly, I’d love to help. Check it out!

John Collins

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