Working against the silo
Practical ways to deliver engaging content
Jon Reay – Head of Strategy, AqueductJon David – Web Developer, Eduserv
26th July 2011
#iwmw11
Agenda
1. Content silos and how to overcome them2. Case studies (three of them)3. Practical silo breaking exercise
Content silos
Content silos
Department X
Department Y
Department Z
Organisation silos
3rd party content
User generated content
Text
Content sources
Imagery
Documents
Video
Audio
Data
Content media
Main website
Microsites
Social
Mobile
3rd party sites
Delivery channels
Prospect studentsCurrent
students & staff
Alumni
Researchers
Job seekers
Media
Audiences
Bloggers
Breaking down the silos
Breaking the silos
User experience Editorial Governance Technical
Editorial guidelines
Audience relevance
Channel relevance
Media relevance
Metadata & tagging content
Site navigation
Tag/category navigation
Audience type navigation
Multi-surfacing
Search
Personalisation
Ownership
Workflow rules
Regular content audits
Surveys & user feedback
Taxonomy
Test and learn
Joined up data / eCRM
Workflow setup
Auto quality checks
Metadata & tagging capability
Search capability
Automated lists & surfacing
Personalisation capability
Case studies
Case Study 1 – Technical solutions
Common Problems
• Migration to a new CMS platform• Consolidation of sites• Rebranding or restructuring• Easily re-using content in different contexts
Case Study
• Department for Education– How can we re-use content in different contexts?
• Multi-system solution– Sitecore CMS, CouchDB, Solr
Tackling the monolith
Decoupled approach
One step further
Web Administration Content Repository
Tagging
Mapping
Taking control of URLs
• URL provides context
http://domain/area1/languages/articles/french_exam
http://domain/news/2009/08/articles/french_exam
http://domain/articles/french_exam
http://other.domain/languages/articles/french_exam
Search
• Multi-surfacing affects Page Rank– Use canonical links– <link rel=“canonical”
href=“http://domain/articles/french_exam” />
Advantages
• Central content store– Can be organised logically without impacting navigation
• Navigation nodes deal with site structure– Content tagging determines where it appears
• Easy to re-work navigation– Content is not affected by restructuring
More advantages
• Content Articles can appear in multiple locations– They can also appear across multiple domains
• Content Articles can be exposed via other sources
Difficulties
• Default context– When an item can exist anywhere, where does it belong
by default?• Editor Education
– Content is self contained• Strong Taxonomy
– Requires depth and breadth to ensure good quality tagging
Case Study 2 – Multi-channel
Case Study 3 – Personalisation
What are your silos?
Questions?
Thank you.
@jreay@ jon_p_david
@eduserv@weareaqueduct