Diving Into The Content Pool
Join us for a weekly look at the world of content.
Welcome to the first edition of the new weekly newsletter from THE CONTENT POOL. Thanks to all the folks who signed up for a launch subscription at the LavaCon conference back in October. Your patience is appreciated.
Each week the TCP newsletter will be delivered FREE to subscribers and available via our Substack webpage for everyone else.
We’ll be covering a variety of items each week from our weekly content and customer experience related thoughts and observations, to a look at what has caught our attention in the world of content, be that books, articles, social posts, or in-person content experiences. Plus we’ll be posting our own articles on a variety of content related topics, and news on upcoming events or services from THE CONTENT POOL team.
We hope that you will enjoy what we have to offer, and remember the easiest way to receive the newsletter each week is to hit the SUBSCRIBE button so it gets delivered straight to your email inbox.
Weekly #CX Thought
Think about the systems your employees use when interacting with customers. Customers may decide about their potential ongoing experiences with your company based on how easy (or difficult) it is for your employees to complete their tasks.
On the Blog
New on THE CONTENT POOL blog last week was a short discussion on when you should be thinking about tools and technology when solving a business problem. - Hint, it isn't first. - You can check it out right HERE.
Content Discovery Workshops - Now Booking for Q2/24
THE CONTENT POOL is offering a special discount on our two-day Content Discovery Workshops for newsletter subscribers and readers.
We are now booked for through to the end of February. That leaves two slots for March available, plus we have just opened up workshop scheduling for Q2/2024, and we wanted to make sure that as a newsletter reader you got an early opportunity to lock-in a date.
As a reminder during these on-site in-person workshops workshop we will:
Develop your content vision
Identify opportunities to leverage your content in new ways
Map out the path to transform your enterprise content.
It will be followed by two deliverables:
Key observations document
High-level content transformation plan
A quick overview of the standard workshop format can be found HERE
If you would like more details, or you like to discuss reserving a date for yourself and your team to benefit from a Content Discovery workshop, just email us at info@4jsgroup.com
Content Observations
This week I saw a note on Threads asking
“What was a turning point in your career or education that completely changed your life’s direction?”
It seemed like a fun question that had me thinking for a while. My answer?
‘I was told by a high school careers counselor that there was ‘no such job’ when I said I wanted to combine my interests in writing and engineering.
I joined the merchant marine as a junior engineer and on my first voyage I ended up flicking through a tech manual on a quiet shift rotation. - There followed a 30+ year career in various aspects of technical writing and content strategy and management that has given the opportunity to travel around the world and work on some iconic engineering projects.’
So what’s your story? Let us know in the comments section below.
Sitting on the Desk
Human Compatible
We are currently working on a series of technical white papers for a client to help them with positioning how their customers should be addressing the current hype around Artificial Intelligence. As well as digging through a plethora of existing white papers and articles currently available on the subject, it was a good excuse to pull this volume off the shelf. - Human Compatible by Stuart Russell published by Penguin RandomHouse in 2019
Although published just over three years ago (which seems like a life-time ago when it comes to the recent speed of AI adoption) it provides a great general audience non-technical introduction to the worlds of AI and how we should be approaching it.
The book is divided into three sections covering:
The idea of intelligence in humans and machines and the core concepts of AI
The problems or control associated with AI
Ways to ensure that AI remains beneficial to humans.
Defining The Content Pool
Back in the pre-dawn age of electronic publishing, when one of the greatest challenges was how to convert the literal mountains of legacy paper documentation into electronic storage (Any type of electronic storage – standards weren’t even a twinkle in the industry’s proverbial eye at that point.), I worked on a marketing campaign for a new conversion bureau service.
For the campaign’s central messaging image we selected a photo library montage that showed a ship’s life belt floating on a sea of paper.
That image stayed with me and it’s one I’ve referenced over the years when doing consulting work, or preparing papers for conferences.
The idea of us living in a “sea of information” is far from being a new one. The fact that we are all drowning under the amount of information currently available is a well acknowledged problem, not only in business, but also in our personal lives as well. The challenge of navigating that sea can be overwhelming. Many people just choose to ignore it, other’s make valiant attempts to, but soon drift off course.
A few years ago it struck me that the answer was not to consider all the information as a large continuous sea, but to look at it in terms of distinct separate pools of content. A pool isn’t so daunting. A pool is something we swim in for pleasure. We can easily transfer, or even share the content between pools using a bucket.
If we replace the water in the pool with the content we generate, then the bucket becomes exchange standards. The task of using the content becomes one that can be mapped, navigated and understood.
In upcoming newsletters I’ll expand on some of the ideas I’ve developed for establishing strategies for swimming in The Content Pool.
In The Bookstore
If you enjoy the contents of this newsletter and would like more, we have three books always available from XML Press.
You can also check out THE CONTENT POOL website or follow us on FaceBook or on Twitter/X at @TheContentPool
Please feel free to share the newsletter and pass it around to any friends or colleagues you think might find it of value.
Till next time - have fun paddling in The Content Pool.
Alan J. Porter
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The Content Pool™ is a division of the 4Js Group LLC