The principles of content strategy

This post is probably moving to the outer edges of the discussion on web governance. However, I think there is relevance given the emphases I’ve placed in other posts on establishing strategy. Last week I stumbled on two interesting articles introducing the principles of content strategy.

1. The Discipline of Content Strategy by Kristina Halvorson
2. Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data by Rachel Lovinger

I like how these articles:

• Link strategy with audience; particular the interactive elements
• Argue for a holistic approach which draws together the different web design activities together with content.

This neatly highlighted the weakness of over compartmentalising the various web management activities. Activities such as; a discoverability strategy, an IA, a UCD methodology, a CMS, etc, need to be linked and contextualised to be effective. A content strategy could be an approach to this. However, I’m not entirely convinced that creating another formal web discipline, the ‘Content Strategist’ is really helpful or necessary.