Whether you’re an executive who wants a content management system that enables business growth or a content professional looking to improve your content strategy and content modeling skills and grow your career, Model Thinking will help you learn, connect some dots, think differently, and get actionable tips.
The fidelities of content models, and farewell to STC
Published 2 months ago • 6 min read
Issue 4
Structure
Quick thoughts about how content lives in systems
In the user experience (UX) world, designers work in different fidelities.
Often, it’s helpful to start really low fidelity with designs made on whiteboard sketches or simple grayscale shapes called wireframes. This helps to focus feedback on big-picture concepts behind the designs and avoids bogging down details like which shade of blue should be used.
Then, at other times UX designers may use higher-fidelity mockups that start to look like static versions of real software. The object of feedback moves toward visual design elements and wording. There may be multiple mockup versions under consideration.
The last step before a design gets turned into software code is the design specification in which the user flows, the visual design, and the interface text are essentially final, and a developer can take the design and know the fonts, font sizes, colors, and words to use when they build the feature. So, with that as background, let’s think about content modeling.
Years ago, I stumbled upon Cleve Gibbon’s three stages of the content model lifecycle: conceptual, design, implementation. I’ve adapted this and mashed it up with UX design fidelities.
Conceptual content models equate to wireframes. This is low fidelity, and you’re looking at big-picture concepts and trying not to get distracted by details. For content models, this may be content types and relationships. You might even think about a domain model at this stage.
Design content models equate to mockups. You are starting to define the fields in the content types and the specifics of how different content types relate to each other. You’re into details for this stage.
Implementation content models equate to design specifications. At this point, you’re fine-tuning the models for the tools you’re using. For example, you’re defining field-level validations (such as required fields or character counts, and so on) that your content management system (CMS) supports.
A composite image showing a (redacted) conceptual content model diagram in the top left, a (redacted) design content model diagram in the top right, and an implementation content model spreadsheet across the bottom.
This is helpful to me when creating content models, because I can think more iteratively about the work I’m doing and plan for different rounds and types of feedback from stakeholders. As Gibbon points out, different audiences will value different fidelities, so this framework may help you communicate about your content models with your stakeholders.
“I think of governance as the glue that holds strategy and operations together.”
Quick thoughts about the importance of thinking strategically about content
Many executives may hear talk about “digital transformation” and they may get pitched on such an undertaking. If you find yourself in such shoes, resist the temptation to view this as solely an information technology (IT) project. Insist on having a senior-level content strategist on the project, maybe even part of a cross-functional leadership team. Content and content operations is at the core of a digital transformation, and no technology can transform those without input from content professionals.
Scuttlebutt
News from the UX design, content strategy, and content management communities
Technical communication can be defined as “the process of conveying information about technical or complex subjects to an audience in a clear, concise and understandable manner.”
Practitioners, often called technical writers, are experts that work across a variety of disciplines, including content strategy, content design, technical expertise, writing, programming, interviewing, agile methodologies, publishing, and much more.
STC has described itself as the world’s oldest professional association dedicated to the field of technical communication, tracing its own roots back to 1953.
The organization published several publications, hosted an annual conference, and more recently launched a Certified Professional Technical Communicator program. It had chapters around North America with a number of special interest groups.
By my observation, the news was a shock to those with ties to STC.
When I moved into the tech industry from journalism, my first role was as technical writer. STC was the first place in which I found some professional belonging in tech. While the STC Summit was not the first conference I attended or spoke at, it’s the conference series that was most formative for my early tech career, both as an attendee and as a budding public speaker.
Through STC Summit, I met someone who became a coworker, and I made numerous friends that I’ve kept in touch with for more than a decade and a half. Some of those friends were even involved in this gut-wrenching decision, and my heart goes out to them.
Soft skills
A look at the less-tangible characteristics and skills that can expand your influence
Leadership is considered a soft skill.
You can’t lead by force. That’s management, or if you prefer, boss-ship.
No doubt there’s books upon books about leadership, and so I know I won’t break new ground here. But I’d like to encourage you to look for ways you can serve those around you. That service can become a type of leadership, often called servant leadership.
I’ve volunteered in a variety of roles in emergency services for over 16 years. That’s a world that can have very clear hierarchies and expectations. I try not to consider myself too good to do something nor feel I deserve things I don’t have, so I’ve always made it a point to be quick to grab a vacuum, take garbage out to the trash bin, or clean a bathroom.
No task is below a servant leader. (Created with Dall-E)
Examples of the power of servant leadership are everywhere.
Jesus came not to be served but to serve, according to both the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew. A slew of other biblical passages support the idea of serving others.
President Kennedy urged us to “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Martin Luther King Jr said “Every one can be great, because everyone can serve,” and Mahatma Gandhi is credited with saying that “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
What can you do today to serve those you lead at home, those you work with, those you encounter around town?
Top of mind
Things that are bouncing around in my head as I synthesize a range of ideas
I was marveling with some friends this weekend at the idea of music.
It’s simple, obviously.
From C to C, there are 13 notes on a keyboard (including the black sharps and flats).
Of course, we know it’s not simple.
Beyond the 7 octaves on a piano keyboard, there may be a total of 10 audible octaves. Then there’s chords (combinations of notes), progressions between notes, time signatures, rhythm, major and minor keys, dynamics, a system to notate all of this, and so on.
At face value, that’s still a manageable amount of variants, yet there’s actually an exponential factor when you start combining all these things together. So much so that in all the years of humanity, we’re still inventing new musical pieces and even genres (in spite of occasional songs that sound similar).
I point out the apparent simplicity and then the infinite possibility of music because so much of life seems to work this way. We think it’s simple and straightforward, until—or if—we give it a second thought.
I feel like working in the software industry for the better part of two decades has helped me understand the complexity of life, and the over-simplification of this thing or that thing drives me some sort of crazy, especially when someone not very familiar with the topic declares THE RIGHT ANSWER to the topic.
Look for those who understand the nuances of a topic and can talk about it from a bunch of different angles. That’s when you know you’ve got an expert. And don’t fall for the over-simplification trap.
Update on the subscriber freebie
For those who are reading this as subscribers, you should have received a link to a free gift from me when you signed up.
I’m slowly filling in the spreadsheet with data, and I’ve now populated it with data for all CMSes with names from A to C.
I’m referencing vendor sites and documentation, Github repositories, and other websites to get the data points. I plan to keep adding data to the spreadsheet several hours a week, so stay tuned.
If you’d like to see something that isn’t in the spreadsheet, let me know by responding to this email.
If you’re not a subscriber, sign up today to get your freebie!
If you’re already a subscriber and you found value in something here, tell your friends and colleagues to subscribe!
Welcome to the 11 new subscribers who have joined us since the last issue of Model Thinking.
Model Thinking
Improving your organization’s content
Whether you’re an executive who wants a content management system that enables business growth or a content professional looking to improve your content strategy and content modeling skills and grow your career, Model Thinking will help you learn, connect some dots, think differently, and get actionable tips.