When was the last time you looked at the things you don’t do?
The reason I ask is that this very question is occupying my mind at the moment as I try to pull together both a content audit of what we have and a plan to create the things we don’t have. Which isn’t as easy as it may sound.
There are three or four different departments involved in the audit, and from each I’ve asked the same two things:
- A list of all the content you currently have
- A list of all the content you would like to have
With both lists in place, and understanding that some items in the first list may also need some rework or ongoing maintenance, we should all have a good view of what everyone else is doing and be able to plan a smarter way to produce more of the items in list two.
Whilst this is nothing radical it should help us by making people step back to see the big picture and allow us to move forward in one direction. Once this phase of the content audit is complete, the next stage, planning how to fill some of the “would like to have” gaps, will begin and once we start producing this content, regular catchups will help keep everyone up-to-speed and make sure we all focussed towards the same goals.
The tricky bit will be populating the second list. Asking your audience or colleagues for input will lead to one thing, a very big long list of “hey, do you know what would be REALLY good…” style requests. I’m more than happy to field those and they are, for the most part, good to have noted down.
Where it starts to get tricky is in the prioritisation of these things, and for that you’ll need to get some of the interested parties together to help. I’ve already covered how I do that but to make that process a bit slicker (it’s very ad-hoc at the moment) I’ll be setting up a common “Information Planning” meeting. That way we can involve the pertinent stakeholders in the decision process, and it will help communicate the ongoing plans around the Information Strategy.