The Jack Bauer School Of Content Management
It’s Monday, a new episode of 24 is on tonight, and rather than think about all the meetings and conference calls that lie ahead this week, let’s step into alternate reality for a minute and imagine we could all run our online content departments like our favorite anti-hero.
What would Jack do?
Before we start shooting tardy online producers in the knee, let’s step back and ask an important question: what are the two most important aspects of Jack’s personality that make him a successful counterterrorism agent?
• Creative, out-of-the-box thinking.
• Focus on the end goal.
These two things apply to content management as well.
Go down the hall—or more likely, down in the basement—where your content team is ensconced in front of their flat-screens. Look around the room. This is your last and only line of defense against dull, uninspired content.
Do these people have the room they need to operate? And if that space exists, is the room filled with the right kind of free-thinking anarchists who make the best content editors?
For example: Jack is always looking for “assets” — agency-speak for anyone or anything that can help with the mission at hand. Is your web crew doing the same thing for your content? Are you making the best use of video? Podcasts? Interactive features? Games? Your producers may not have license to steal cars at gunpoint and fake convenience store holdups to keep a mission alive, but you know they all have crazy ideas that they’d like to try—ideas that can’t wait for focus groups and approval from legal.
Take another look at that web team. What are their rules of engagement? Is their end goal just keeping your website running or are they empowered to make it sing? It may be a little dangerous to give them a lot of freedom, but with the right people in place—free-thinking anarchists really are a good idea—your content will shine, engage, and best of all, win acolytes.
— Jonathan
April 8th, 2009 at 4:12 am
Interesting way to look at content management. I think it is important that what ever goal you set yourself, you always need to focus on the end result and that all the hard work you will have put in to get yourself there will be worth it in the end, although it may not look like it at the time.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Great blog post. Adding you to my list. Thanks!
July 9th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Great post. How often do you update? I am looking for new stuff to toss in my feed reader and this might be good. Later