Goodbye, Symbiosis

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Scott Smith

I’m not a scientist, but took some biology courses and thus, I’m qualified to be  bothered by the misuse of “symbiosis” in business communication.

I learned about symbiosis in 9th grade biology, and learned more about it in a college course “Evolution, Ecology and Behavior.”

Since then, marketing documents and web sites seem determined for me to  unlearn  the proper definition.

Symbiosis is a categorical term that encompasses concepts such as:

  • Predation— The pursuit, capture, and killing  for food.
  • Competition—The utilization of the same resources by organisms of the same or of different species living together in a community, when the resources are not sufficient to fill the needs of all the organisms
  • Parasitism—A relationship between two species of plants or animals in which one benefits at the expense of the other, sometimes without killing the host organism.
  • Amensalism—An association between organisms of two different species in which one is inhibited or destroyed and the other is unaffected.

Do any of the above relationships sound like the kind in which you’d like to enter with  a vendor, a client or a strategic partner?

“Mutualism,” is a relationship in which a benefit is realized by both parties. I think that when most  companies use the term symbiosis, this is the kind of relationship they have in mind for their external relationships.

At least I hope that is the case. We’ve all had experiences where vendors seemed to treat us as if we were a parasitic host and they were  content to suck purchase orders from our system until we financially shriveled.

It might be worth a look at your own presence in print and on the Web for the instances “symbiosis” and ask if  “mutualism” is a more appropriate term.

Posted in Invisible Fist | Tagged , , | 22 Comments

Let’s Play Two

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Scott Smith

In  the fall of 1998, I looked up from my desk and was surprised to see  the Director of Operations and the Chief Financial Officer of JWT Chicago standing in my office doorway.

The Operations Director was my boss’s boss so I saw her fairly frequently on the floor, and we met a few times a year to discuss departmental budgets, employee reviews, etc.

The CFO’s presence made me raise an eyebrow. I don’t think I’d ever seen him up there on Floor 27. He had certainly never been in my office.

Perhaps there was a question about an employee’s expense report or perhaps, or I was going to be chided (again) about using freelancers on new business pitches (which were non-billable).

I guessed it was the latter, and rehearsed my response in my head: ”Everybody on staff has worked over 70 hours for three consecutive weeks, and most of them were here last Saturday AND  Sunday.  I needed to give them some relief and brought in the freelancers Monday morning….”

I figured we’d settle this in a matter of seconds, so I was stunned when they asked to close the door.

”Uh….yeah…sure,” was my confused reply.

”Why are they here?” I asked myself.

Then my mind raced and suddenly I was second-guessing every decision I’d ever made in my two years with the company. Not just about freelancers and non-billable work, but about everything. Did I eat too much shrimp at a company party?  Had I ever used the last of the coffee without making a new pot?

The office security guard was not there, so that was good sign. Wasn’t it?

Then the Operations Director asked ”Do you have any plans this weekend?”

“Huh?” I thought to myself, then said: ”Uhmmm, tonight my girlfriend and I are going out with her work friends.”

Then she said, ”How nice. What about Saturday night?”

I quietly and rapidly  was becoming livid, because I had deeps suspicions that there was (yet another) unannounced new business pitch that was going to consume the weekend (yet again) of my entire staff.

A few of them had tickets to Saturday’s Cubs game. Not that unusual, but the fact that Cubs were playing the Braves in a one-game playoff caused me to prepare to go on offense.

I was ready  to  voice my complaint that once again that somebody in account services had committed to a tight deadline on an RFP (request for proposal), with total disregard to my staff’s well-being (and my well-being, for that matter).

I was prepared to march down to the president’s and/or the executive creative director’s office, though realized that this late on a Friday afternoon, they were likely already boarding their commuter trains home.

I was braced to work, myself, but I was not  going to pretend to be happy about it. I had planned to watch the game on TV, but  I knew I could do that in the Art Studio during a new business pitch preparation. There would likely be beer and Thai food, pizza, other comestibles available, so it wouldn’t be  awful for me to work during the game.

However, given that several of employees had tickets to the game and others had plans to watch the game with friends. It would be awful for them.

I was going to draw a line: that working on the pitch by staff member would be on  strictly volunteer basis–there would be none of the “voluntold” bullshit. If got in trouble (again) for bringing in freelancers, so be it.

Finally, I answered the question. ”No, I don’t have anything planned for Saturday, other than watching the Cubs game?”

I eyed the CFO again…why was he here?

Then the Creative Ops Director said ”Would you like to GO to the Cubs game?”

My eyes opened, as big as soup bowls. I wasn’t sure what was going on here. ”It would be nice to go, but there’s no tickets available and I don’t want blow a paycheck on a scalped ticket.”

Then, she said ”We have two extra tickets would you like them?”

”Uh….sure,yeah.” I replied then

She said, turned to the CFO and asked, ”Bob can you give Scott the two extra  tickets you have?”

Finally, I understood why the CFO was there, they were his tickets.

I’m still not entirely sure why, out of the 400 or so people in the office that I was chosen for those the tickets. I had worked a lot of hours the past couple of months, but so had a lot other people. My department was turning a good profit, perhaps that was the reason. Or perhaps I might have the only person who didn’t have a ticket from vendor (this was a 20th century ad agency after all).

Though 28 hours after I first clutched tickets in my hand, I found myself clutching a weather-inappropriate  pint of Old Style and nestling into a chilly seat at Wrigley Field, with my future wife, who huddled around a cup hot chocolate that could not have been nearly as good as my cup of bad beer.

I was  still puzzled as to why I was there, though when I heard “Play ball!” I stopped caring.

My conclusion: they gave me the tickets  for that thing I did that time. If I knew what that thing was, I’d do it again.

Barring a complete collapse, the Cubs are heading back to the playoffs, at least for a one-game showdown against the other wildcard team. But, 2015 is THE year, according to the Marty McFly Prophecy.

I am currently freelancing from my home office, thus the probability is low that some C-level executives are  going to walk into my basement with tickets to the Cubs/Pirates playoff game. However, you have until October 7th to surprise me.

Posted in Invisible Fist | Tagged , , | 21 Comments

Making Your Intelligent Content Smarter

Posted on August 24, 2015 by Scott Smith

“When I first started writing this song, it was supposed to be about the future. But it took me seven years to finish it. So at best, it’s about the present.

I’m sure Jeane Dixon has days like that too.”

The above quote a introduction by  John Prine, one my favorite musicians, for  his song “Living in the Future.”

I can identify with Prine. I feel as though I have been writing this particular  blog post for about 15 years.  Ever since I first grasped the idea of component content management systems.

Admittedly, it took me quite some time to see the value of creating content as reusable chunks, rather than as whole documents. My “aha!” moment occurred when  a client provided me with her company’s  “about us”  boilerplate  for an RFP I was writing. I noticed  that one of the founder’s names was incorrect in the text that I had been provided.  My project team proofed the content and made several changes.  It was pasted into the RFP.

I had received the boilerplate info from an IT manager, who had received it from an HR contact.  Given the company’s size and international presence, there were very likely numerous instances of incorrect boilerplate info in magazines, web sites and official documents. It didn’t take much of a logical leap to realize that there was incorrect and inconsistent content chunks  all over the organization. Suddenly, the concept of single-source, component-level intelligent, content management moved  from esoteric to something that seemed like a smart thing to do.

I immediately started musing how these XML-based  frameworks for dynamic  text content could be integrated with  digital asset management systems (caution: DAM jokes ahead) that were rooted in delivery of rich media. It seemed that smart content could be made even smarter. I was convinced that this was the future of publishing content.

I’m still convinced that’s the future, I wish the future would hurry up and get here.

In The Beginning There Was Prepress..

I have been making digital content for a long time, since the previous millennium in fact. I started working in print when desktop technologies were just making  inroads into prepress and publishing.  Like just about everybody else, I started working with Web content in the  1990’s. All along, as I was surrounded by people who made stuff, I was interested in systems that would prevent people from losing the stuff they made.

In 2000, I finished up a DAM  project (DAM was still print-centric) and joined my first ” ‘content’ management” project. During the dot.com era, content management was normally referring to Web content management. Essentially, there was an interface to make HTML  pages and a means to add Web-ready graphics (72-DPI, jpg, .gif or .png files).

There  are very clear physics-based difference between  print and Web content, but they are primarily related to the resolution (DPI) and color model (RGB vs CMYK) of images.

It frustrated me (and still does)  that print and web were thought of as separate things, with separate  editorial, design and production workflows. Furthermore, it has long frustrated me that organizations spent such large volumes of money on software and implementation of these (largely unnecessarily IMHO) separate platforms.

The AcronyMs

I promise that I won’t go into an extended  jag about acronym reduction here, (mostly because I’ve done that before) but there  are numerous  “….Management….”   acronyms to offer confusion to organizations that just want to make their stuff. Here are a few:

  • DM (document management)
  • WCM (web content management)
  • DAM (digital asset management)
  • LCM (learning content management)
  • (I could go on, but I think the point has been made)

A Place For Your Stuff

You shouldn’t fixate on the acronyms. They are all managing content All you want is a place for your stuff. While every organization has some unique needs the core requirements for all “stuff” management systems could be described as  these:

  • To make stuff
  • To be able to find stuff
  • To share stuff
  • To prevent stuff from being shared with those who aren’t allowed to see your stuff.
  • To reuse stuff that is already made so it can be used to create new stuff (that can be found,  shared and protected)

If your content (aka “stuff”)  adds organizational value, it’s a ”Digital Asset” If not, then it’s  a digital liability.  It’s much like that line in the George Carlin routine  “A Place For My Stuff”: “Have your ever notice how everybody else’s stuff is crap, but your crap is stuff.” (note the Carlin video has a some raw language,,,,because it’s Carlin).

Trouble In Paradise

Anybody who has been making content for a while, will know how much easier it is to make content than it was before the desktop publishing technologies surfaced in the 1980’s. I don’t think anybody wants to return to the days of pounding out text on an IBM Selectric typewriter or  running photos through  a waxing machine so they can be pasted on a composed page.

Now, we can make stuff really fast without risk of getting waxy fingers.  But what is the downside?

Well,  digital technologies allow us to make mistakes faster then ever, and you can copy your mistakes faster than ever. The Internet allows us to share our mistakes with more people than ever. 

If you can’t find previously created content, it’s easy enough to recreate it. However, then you have to repeat your entire creation and QA cycle. You’ve placed your organization at risk because there are now two versions of the same content that might not be identical. Furthermore, while the retrieval of existing content should take only seconds, or a few minutes,  recreating the content may take hours or weeks.

If you don’t know exactly where the content needs to be stored, it’s easy  to put it in a lot places on the server, or e-mail to a gaggle of your colleagues.  Do your think  you will be able to remember all the places  where you put (or sent)  all that stuff, a month from now. In a year from now?

In the absence of organizational governance, the creation of content might have become just a  little TOO  easy.

Stuff Inside of Stuff
In any organization, it’s  possible to get a handle on the all the “stuff” files.  It’s a wee bit trickier when you have “stuff inside of stuff.” For example, if you have a chunk of content (such as your organizational “boilerplate”) that has been copied and pasted into  scads of Word and InDesign documents as well as into  multiple areas on your corporate Web site and intranet portals, then finding and updating that content will be extremely difficult.

For example, if your organization has a new CEO, are you going be able find all the occurrences of your boilerplate to put her name in place of her successor?

The truth will set your free; however multiple versions of the truth will set you back.

Where Do We Go From Here?

If the thought of making a small change in dozens of places throughout your organization’s content  has made your pulse quicken, it’s probably time to consider a unified content strategy and how you make your stuff. Thankfully, there are people who can help you do that.

For decades, technical communicators have been creating content as stand-alone, discoverable,  reusable modules, rather than as whole documents. This framework is known as “intelligent content.”  

Intelligent content is  (finally) starting to make inroads into other types of content outside of technical communications, thanks to the efforts of people like Anne Rockley and Charles Cooper, who coauthored this book. I certainly recommend the  book for anybody who is, will be, or even wants to be engaged in a content strategy project.

Lately, I’ve been pondering how organizations might make intelligent content even a bit smarter by incorporating  best practices of image-repurposing into an intelligent content framework. I’ll be collecting  my thoughts on such things in a post entitled “Pure Substance.”

I’ll publish that in the future and  I’ll make sure that the future hurries up and gets here.

 

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Strong Goals & Flexible Means: What Would Dick Fosbury Do?

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Scott Smith

People in my professional circles  have most likely heard me reference the book “Teaching Every Student In the Digital Age.”  The book is about the Universal Design for Learning, an educational framework that was developed by the Center for Applied Special Technology.

I might not have mentioned the book  by name in discussions about content strategy or IT, but I’ve likely referred  certainly referred to its teachings. Specifically, people have likely   heard me reference the lesson to be learned  from a long-retired  track and field star.

I don’t recommend the book to everybody. It is a good book, but I know its contents are not relevant to everybody. I also recognize that most people are up their nostrils in a backlog of unread books, so it’s unlikely that it will read.

However, I do point most people to a specific chapter in the book because I think it is relevant to just about everybody: “Using UDL To Set Clear Goals” The key take-away in the chapter: avoid merging your goals with specific methods. This point is illustrated with the example of the “Fosbury Flop.”

As the chapter states, the goal is not to jump high with a specific jumping method.  The goal is to jump high. In order to achieve the goal, the jumper will chose the most-appropriate method.

Since  watching the 1972 Summer Olympics as a kid,  I have been a track and field fan.   The mere mention of “Dick Fosbury” guaranteed a heightened level of engagement from me. For those of you that are also fans of the sport, and for of you that are not, I recommend investing a couple of minutes viewing this video regarding Fosbury’s revolutionary high jump technique.

1968 was a good year for jumping. At  Olympics in Mexico City,  Bob Beamon, of the United States won the long jump with a preternatural leap of 29 ft. 2 1/2 in. (8.9 meters). In a sport where mere fractions of an inch separate the winner from the runners up, he broke the existing world record  by nearly two feet. His jump was so far beyond  what was considered attainable at the time, the jump exceeded the capacity of the electronic measuring tape.

Beamon was one of the favorites to win the event. He won it, by a lot. It is one of the most famous moments in sports, but it was moment.

US teammate, Dick Fosbury turned the high jump world upside down, by turning himself upside down.  Unlike Beamon, he  was not expected to win the event, but he did. His then-experimental technique is now the standard approach to the high jump. Fosbury started a revolution.

In the video above, Fosbury describes his focus on the goal (to jump as high as possible), and how his technique evolved to allow him to reach his maximum jumping height. His key to his success:  his goal was firm and his method was flexible (that and a  lifetime of practice).

When you start  coupling your goals with methods (software platforms…)  you are going to put artificial constraints that will make achieving your goals more difficult. Furthermore, you are going to fuel dissension among potential collaborative partners.

Your (teaching, marketing, user-adoption…) goals should be rigid, but not so much that they can’t be revised when appropriate. The means to achieve these goals should be flexible and should, as much as possible, allow for your  learners (or customers, or your corporate intranet’s users), the autonomy to choose how they achieve these goals.

I’ve written before, on extending the principles of UDL into contexts outside of the classroom. My opinion (be it ever-so humble) is that similar strategy should be incorporated into all forms of communication. A fair question to ask when developing your content strategy, is, “What would Dick Fosbury do?”

 

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