Today was a content strategy marathon and I was Bill Rogers sans the nylon short-shorts. After the first hour of talking about content strategy, there is a palpable groove you find—an artistic prideful high of making sense out of silly string and tiddlywinks.

I was on the phone all day talking about content strategy with:

Jeff at Predicate—mega, wicked sharp content strategist.

Multiple Clients—who are just starting to understand the long tail of content marketing.

Blind calls—from organizations interested in content strategy

Business neighbors—wondering what it was we did again and do we always play post-rock-math-metal on Fridays so loud.

And then, off-topic—an NFL QB ventured into my office with a friend.

Just as there is artistry in painting/sculpture, so there is in mathematics, law and even content
strategy. Success is about intersections: art/business, operations/vision or strategy/content/design. The better you mashup the inputs, the better the output.

When I was younger, Warhol didn’t make sense. Then rent was due, and tuition was due and I began to see that art was everywhere and in everything. Once I applied that creative thinking to work, good things happened. The chalk line of business and creative has been washed away—the more integrated, the better.

“An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have but that he—for some reason—thinks it would be a good idea to give them. Business Art is a much better thing to be making that Art Art, because Art Art doesn’t support the space it takes up, whereas Business Art does. (If Business Art doesn’t support its own space it goes out of business.)”

Andy Warhol
The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
1975

—Ian

John Updike died yesterday at age 76, having authored 61 books. Sixty-one books!

How did he do it? The New York Times reported that Updike churned out three pages a day, thus proving the writer’s workshop promise that three pages a day can produce roughly a book a year. Or in Updike’s case, serious real estate on the library shelf.

From the Times article: “I would write ads for deodorants or labels for catsup bottles, if I had to,” he told The Paris Review in 1967. “The miracle of turning inklings into thoughts and thoughts into words and words into metal and print and ink never palls for me.”

What Updike teaches us is this: Writers write. Artists make art. Musicians make music. Inventors invent stuff. Creators create.

And this: whatever your personal goal—learning Mandarin, mastering the circle of fifths, inventing the holographic Post-It—all it takes is three little inklings a day to make some serious traction.

—Britta

From the “It’s-never-too-late-to-learn-a-new-trick” category, the Vatican has launched its very own YouTube Channel.

It’s pretty basic so far, but you can have it translated into Italian, German or Spanish. Currently, there are only 18 videos on the site and they are almost all of Pope Benedict XVI speaking, but the potential for the site is amazing.

There are links to Radio Vaticana, the papal state’s radio service, Centro Televisivo Vaticano, the Vatican’s television station, the Vatican’s official website and the official website of the Vatican state (in Italian only).

On the YouTube channel, I’d like to see way more from the history side of things, as well as a video library of Pope John Paul II’s greatest hits, but it’s early in the process.

What happens next will say a lot. Launching a social media portal is one thing; nurturing a social media portal is another. How much are you investing in the care and feeding of your social media assets?

— Jonathan

Now that all the inauguration hoopla is over, it’s time to make like Obama and get to work. But before we let our Basecamp to-do lists get the best of us, let’s take a breather and remember what we’re in this for.

On my corkboard, buried under production schedules, magazine layouts and meeting notes, is a little gem I pulled out of Timothy Ferris’ The 4-Hour Workweek.

It helps me remember the big picture, even when I’m feeling too overwhelmed to answer its questions.

—–

Define: What do I want to be doing?

Eliminate: Am I being productive or am I being busy? Eliminate the noise and disruption.

Automate: Delegate or automate the remaining tasks.

Liberate: Enjoy your mobility and use the time you create.

—–

Your turn: What messages are tacked up beside your desk?

BONUS: I just stumbled on Basecamp’s new time-tracking feature, check it out.

—Britta

Yeah, it’s Inauguration Day, but you can read all you want about the big man and his big day just about everywhere else on the web, so in the interest of counter-programming, let’s talk about design.

More specifically, let’s talk about The Huffington Post. The site has grown into a new aggregating juggernaut with millions of visitors every month.

So why does it still look like a blog a couple of kids are cranking out in a basement somewhere?

Arianna Huffington has raised no shortage of venture capital, so money is no excuse.

She may be enjoying the ride right now as the hits continue to pile up, but at some point, someone is going to come along and do something very similar AND IT WON’T BE SO UGLY.

Arianna and crew have failed the Eat Media three-step mantra: Strategy. Content. Design. In that order. For a reason.

Their strategy is simple enough and follows on the heels of that other great news thief, Matt Drudge: make a lot of money by procuring other people’s content.

Huffpo’s content is a gimme: be the liberal Drudge Report.

But Huffington forgot all about step three: design. While The Huffington Post may seem to mirror the genius simplicity of The Drudge Report, it’s really just a mess.

— Jonathan

(Arianna Huffington photo from Wired and Matt Drudge photo from Media Bistro.)

It looks like Circuit City is officially going out of business. Another case of the blues: Lowes, Best Buy, outperforming the reds: Home Depot, Circuit City. The service, prices, layout and lighting of Circuit City are just the beginning of their problems.

Here is the current site messaging:

I understand the potential loss of competitive pricing at Best Buy with this loss. But even if I have to pay $5-10 more without the competition adjusting prices—I still say good riddance.

Honesty and uniqueness used to be for the very special organizations with tremendous ad budgets and dynamic leaders. But the dollars behind those campaigns aren’t what made the difference, it was the commitment to finding the right message. While other companies seemed to be happy telling the same story: We’re open—neon OPEN signs, We have a sale—poorly designed flyers stuck beneath windshield wipers and Free Shipping—flaming gif banner ads, the truly great companies looked for what was unique about their business and told that story.

Today even the smallest companies need to differentiate. (And no, being cheaper doesn’t cut the mustard.) It all starts with finding the perfect messaging (arrangement of words) that aligns with your organization’s personality and objectives. Give your customers a smoke job and they will see through it—they are smarter than you think. Special Offers.
Here’s a quote from a well-worn book that has been with me for 20 years. It applies to fiction writing, ad copy, web copy and custom content.

“Whatever you want to say, there is only one right word that will express it, one verb to make it move, one adjective to qualify it. You must seek that word, that verb, and that adjective, and never be satisfied with approximations, never resort to tricks, even clever ones, or to verbal pirouettes to escape the difficulty.”

[Flaubert writing to Maupassant]

Hallie & Whit Burnett
Fiction Writer’s Handbook
1975

—Ian

I’ll admit it: I’ve never been big in to “community.”

Chamber of Commerce meet-and-greets give me hives, street fairs scare me and I’m still high-fiving myself for never attending a city commission meeting despite my years as a city magazine editor.

So as a lifelong non-joiner, all the emphasis on creating online communities leaves me a bit skeptical. I’ve already shared my dedication to BabyCenter, and Saturday mornings wouldn’t be the same without Ohdeedoh or Apartment Therapy.

I consume their content. I post the occasional question or comment. I feel good about myself when the editors select my question for their “Good Questions” series. But do I need to hang out in their forums and make a slew of new BFFs? Not so much.

Just because users aren’t contributing to your online forums or “connecting” with one another doesn’t mean you’re not offering a meaningful user experience. Some products and services are more apt to attract “joiners and contributors” than others. The correlation between joiners, active community members, purchasers and content (custom and UGC) is not always easy to distinguish. Check your analytics.

Remember in school how the teachers made you break in to small groups? Some of us hated breaking in to small groups, and when it comes to online content, some of us just want to hear what the teacher/editor/experts have to say and move on to the shopping cart, or in search of more information. Give us relevant content and we will come back again and again.

—Britta

There are plenty of compelling reasons to have original content on your web site, but if you need one more kick in the tail during these challenging economic times, here it is: advertising is most effective on sites that have original content.

Sites with original content perform better than portals. Sorry, Yahoo.

Sites with original content perform better than ad networks as well. Sorry, ValueClick.

So what are you waiting for?

If you want stronger brand awareness, better retention of you brand’s message and have more people who intend to make purchases form a better opinion of your brand, get cracking on the content.

— Jonathan

Another Friday come and gone—but don’t let the recession spin you like a top. If you want to get spun (in a good way), go check out Gary V’s week. As promised, I am revisiting some of the basics of content and design to put all this social media, web 2.0, content marketing hoopla in check.

“Without the right information, external and internal customers cannot make appropriate decisions…Organizations need to do as much as they can to help users find the information they require. It’s all there, but the trick is to find it and determine what is relevant.”

Ann Rockley
Managing Enterprise Content
2002

I know, I know. Your mind is reeling at the mere mention of the word Baconnaise. Yes, some mad culinary genius has combined the two greatest burger toppings on earth and come up with the spread of the gods.

No doubt that some of us had thought about making a bacon-flavored mayonnaise at some point in our lives, but only one man was crazy enough to follow through and make it happen. That man is now delivering a unique and seriously addictive product. A burger without Baconnaise seems naked by comparison.

Delivering the content marketing version of Baconnaise has to be our top goal for 2009. Each of us has to be thinking about spreading the Baconnaise on thick this winter. What will it take to deliver this level of unctuous porcine goodness?

Creativity.

There are a lot of other ingredients, but creativity is the top one. We need to be able to have the vision to say to ourselves, “Mayonnaise is already pure fat, so let’s add some bacon to it.”

Double-down on the heart-attack quotient, if you will.

It has been said that it’s the rare person indeed who can take the hitherto unknown and render it blindingly obvious.

Here’s to seeking that sort of inspiration in 2009.

— Jonathan