PowerPoint Presentation

COPEing MechanismsThe Peril and Promise of the NPR COPE Story

@gadgetopia

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@gadgetopia

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@gadgetopiaI almost did this. Seriously. I had the form filled out and everything.3Notes:

@gadgetopiaI write blog posts about how much I love content management. And what is a Content Management Practice Director? Its a guy who loves content management so much that he invents his own job title.4Notes:

Were not doing enough with our content.

@gadgetopiaThis is why were talking. Theres so much more we could be doing.5Notes:

What is/was COPE?What benefits does COPE offer?What challenges does COPE present?

What does this mean for us? What do we need to do?

@gadgetopia

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bunch of content

@gadgetopiaThe tagline for the 2013 version of this conference was poor (we minimized the tagline this year). Content is not bound to a website. The real tagline should be you have a bunch of content, now what?7Notes:

If you could publish your content every way except as a web page, what would that look like?

@gadgetopia

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What is/was COPE?

@gadgetopia

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NPR project, spear-headed by Zach Brand and Daniel Jacobson

@gadgetopiaI interviewed Zach Brand for this presentation. Daniel Jacobson has since left NPR.10Notes:

CreateOncePublishEverywhere

@gadgetopiaCOPE was an initialism for Create Once Publish Anywhere.11Notes:

The project was publically introduced in a Programmable Web article in 2009

@gadgetopiaThis article hit the CMS industry in a very bombshell-like fashion. Everyone in CMS circles was talking about it for quite a while (there are reasons for this, explained later).12Notes:

In order for content providers to take full advantage of these new platforms, they will need to, first and foremost, embrace one simple philosophy: COPE.

@gadgetopiaInteresting that it was a philosophy, not a technology. COPE is platform and technology agnostic.13Notes:

Build content management systems, not web publishing tools.

@gadgetopia

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@gadgetopiaThis an article about the return of Winnie the Pooh in the core editing interface. Notice that this interface is fairly generic. Very little (nothing?) in this interface is specific to WEB content.16Notes:

@gadgetopiaThis was the article on the main NPR website.17Notes:

@gadgetopiaThis is the article in their iPhone app.18Notes:

@gadgetopiaAnother iPhone app: Public Radio Addict19Notes:

@gadgetopiaYet another iPhone app.20Notes:

@gadgetopiaThis is the article in their Internet radio interface.21Notes:

@gadgetopiaThis is the article on their Boston affiliate site.22Notes:

@gadgetopiaThis is the article in iTunes/podcast.23Notes:

@gadgetopiaThis is the article in their iGoogle gadget.24Notes:

CreateOncePublishEverywhere

@gadgetopia

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This is multi-channel publishing.

@gadgetopiaCOPE is not a new concept. Its just a nice name around a concept weve been pursuing in various forms for decades.26Notes:

channel: a distribution point for your content.

@gadgetopiaPut another way: where your content comes out.27Notes:

ContentChannelCMSWebsite

@gadgetopiaThis is the traditional model that 99% of organizations use. Call this single-channel publishing.28Notes:

ContentChannelChannelChannelonceeverywhere

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multi-channel publishing: publishing content into more than one channel

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multi-channel publishing:that thing that everyone said they wanted but hardly anyone actually did.

@gadgetopiaLisa Welchman has an alternate definition of multi-channel publishing.31Notes:

Great Lie of Content Management

@gadgetopiaThis is the thing that vendors and integrators have paid lip service to for years, but no one actually did it.32Notes:

@gadgetopiaThis was the only channel many of us ever intended to publish to: HTML delivered via a browser.33Notes:

We feigned interest in separating content and presentation, but deep down we knew that press release was only ever going to be published as a web page.

@gadgetopiaI wrote a sidebar for Content Everywhere last year (great book, BTW), where I essentially called practitioners (including myself) out.34Notes:

Separating content from presentation.

@gadgetopia

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Aristotle phrased this as the difference between logos (the logical content of a speech) and lexis (the style and delivery of a speech).

Gideon O. BurtonSilva Rhetoricae

@gadgetopiaThe separation of content and presentation is not a new concept. More recently that Aristole, William Tunncliffe fathered the Generic Coding movement in the late 60s which sought to separate content from presentation in what would eventually become SGML.36Notes:

@gadgetopiaI wrote this article in April 2009 (pre-dating the original COPE article by six months) where I pointed out that content management has gotten too web-centric.37Notes:

@gadgetopiaSocial media was really the thing that pushed us into other channels. LinkedIn started in 2003, Facebook in 2004, and Twitter in 2005. These services gathered steamed for 2-4 years, and by 2007-2008, organizations were expected to have presences on these services and were pushing content into them on a regular basis.38Notes:

When COPE was unveiled, we had a multi-channel problem.

@gadgetopiaWhen 2009 rolled around, organizations were experiencing legitimate pain juggling content in multiple channels.39Notes:

ContentFacebookTwitterWWW

@gadgetopiaAt a minimum, this is where a lot of organizations were at: how do you we push content into our website, Facebook, and Twitter gracefully?40Notes:

COPE was the dream come to life.

@gadgetopiaCOPE showed us that someone had done it well. What we hoped was possibly actually existing. This is why it tickled the collective imaginations of the content management industry.41Notes:

What benefits does COPE present?

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ExpansionCost ReductionPeace of Mind

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ExpansionNew marketing channelsNew revenue modelsReach more people

butcant we do that now?

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Cost ReductionMultiple channels means re-workRe-work means $$$High-velocity content just makes this worse

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We want the benefits without the drawbacks. We want control.

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@gadgetopiaThis is the control room for a nuclear power plant. There are 72 screens in this image. It represents how we envision managing out content a master view with complete control.47Notes:

@gadgetopiaPeople love dashboards. They give the illusion of control.48Notes:

We want to futureproof our content.

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We want to keep our options open.

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@gadgetopiaContent editors are scared. Were afraid of what the future might bring. (The animation of this slide likely doesnt work in other contexts its a bunch of scared cats.)51Notes:

@gadgetopiaThis is animated GIF of a cat jumping off the hood of a car when the windshield wiper starts. Again, a reference to content editors being scared of what the future might bring for their content.52Notes:

@gadgetopiaAn animated GIF of a dog tripping over a ball, for no particular reason.53Notes:

Content thats bound to its channel is locked in.

That scares us.

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The Dream:Infinitely adaptable content that can shift shape or format at will. Forever.

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We want peace of mind.

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What challenges does COPE bring with it?

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Editorial changesRendition managementContent/channel elasticity

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#1Editorial Changes

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Since a web page will be a single channel among many, your editors cant create content solely for that channel.

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@gadgetopiaClick here doesnt mean anything outside the web. This content will have trouble adapting.61Notes:

@gadgetopiaThis is what happens when you try to use web content directly in other mediums.62Notes:

@gadgetopiaAnother example of what happens when you try to use web content directly in other mediums.

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@gadgetopiaIf this content depends on changing the font in the headline, then you will have a problem if you try to push into a channel which doesnt support that.64Notes:

Question:Will your editors know and understand all the different channels where their content might be published?

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Training Issue:Can your editors abstract themselves away from the presentational specifics of a channel?

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Philosophical Question:Is it possible to mass produce content without thinking about where it will be presented?

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The problem is this: The question content people ask when finishing adding content to a CMS is how does this look?. And this is not a question a CMS can answer any more even with a preview. How we use the web today has meant that the answer to that questions is, in what?

WYSIWTFFTWOMG!Mark Boulton

@gadgetopia

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@gadgetopiaVendors are actively trying to address the preview problem. This is a screencap from EPiServer, a web CMS, this is a page in the standard channel (cont. on next slide)69Notes:

@gadgetopiaand this is the preview in an iPhone vertical.70Notes:

How does this look?

should change to

How does this read?

@gadgetopiaWhen youre done with content, it might be of value to call someone on the phone and read it to them, in an effort to strip away all the visual formatting from it. (Although, now you introduce audio formatting, which opens up an entirely new set of problems.)71Notes:

#2Rendition Management

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ContentMobile AppSocial MediaWWWWhat We Hope For

@gadgetopiaWe hope that content will go directly from our repository into our channels, unaltered.73Notes:

ContentMobile AppSocial MediaWWWRenditionRenditionChannels impose limitations

@gadgetopiaIn reality, channels impose limitations, and content often has to be reformatted (rendered) for those channels. We call these renditions.74Notes:

Rendition: a version of content designed to adapt to a particular channel

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@gadgetopiaNotice the two types of teasers. Neither would appear together in any channel a channel would use one or the other, in an attempt to render the content in an appropriate manner to fit into that channel.76Notes:

Core

Rendition

Rendition

Rendition

Rendition

@gadgetopiaYou end up with core content, and multiple renditions surrounding it.77Notes:

Managing multiple renditions is harder than managing single pieces of content.

It becomes an N+1 problem.

@gadgetopia

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@gadgetopiaCropping content is a human-centric process. A human has to look at this image and decide how best to crop it to make sense. This cant be done automatically.79Notes:

When we change content, how do we propagate manual interventions through all the different renditions?

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At what point do manual interventions cause a rendition to become its own piece of content?

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#3Content/Channel Elasticity

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Content elasticity: the ability of content to adapt to a rigid channel

Channel elasticity: the ability of a channel to adapt to rigid content

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@gadgetopiaTry creating content to fit these two channels.

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Generating omni-channel content is virtually impossible.

@gadgetopiaThis is referring to TRUE omni-channel content. Content that can go into ANY channel with no modifications. Content like this would be so generic and simple as to essentially be worthless.85Notes:

Editorial changesRendition managementContent/channel elasticity

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What do we need to do?

@gadgetopia

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TheoreticalTechnical

@gadgetopiaTheres a theoretical mindshift, and a set of technical imperatives.88Notes:

We need to break up with the channel and fall in love with the message.

@gadgetopiaOur priorities have been misplaced for years. Weve concentrated too much on the channel, and not enough on the message.89Notes:

@gadgetopiaRemember Aristotle? He loved the message first (logos), the channel second (lexis).90Notes:

message: what were trying to say

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channel: how we say it

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Channels should be interchangeable.

@gadgetopiaThis is an overstatement. But the spirit is true.93Notes:

The north parking lot is being resurfaced tomorrow at 4 p.m.

@gadgetopiaThis is our message, in its purest form, devoid of formatting or channel.94Notes:

@gadgetopiaThis is the web page we use to transmit our message. Sadly, this is usually what we think of INSTEAD of our message.95Notes:

ChannelsVerbalPhysical print mediaPhysical digital mediaWeb pageRSS itemEmailSMS

Social mediaAudio broadcastVideo broadcast

@gadgetopiaThese are all the channels I came up with in 60 seconds. There are even future channels we havent thought of yet (a la Minority Report where they beamed ads right into Tom Cruises head). Sadly, we tend to tune out all channels except the web page.96Notes:

If you could publish your content every way except as a web page, what would that look like?

@gadgetopia

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The north parking lot is being resurfaced tomorrow at 4 p.m.

@gadgetopia

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Historically, we havent been creating messages, weve been creating web pages.

@gadgetopia

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Technical ImperativesWe need to design for content structureWe need to value content purityWe need to insist on content integration

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Structure

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How can we break our content down into reusable pieces?

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What is the MRU?MinimumReasonableUnit

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@gadgetopiaWe tend to look at web pages like this a single conceptual unit.104Notes:

@gadgetopiaIn reality, web pages are a combination of smaller elements.105Notes:

@gadgetopiaIn 10 seconds, I broke an IBM press release down into pieces which can be select and re-used.106Notes:

Credit: Wikipedia user Tudokin

@gadgetopiaYou want to turn your content into a salad bar separate units that can be selected and combined to form new things and to work in and around someone dietary needs and taste preferences.107Notes:

Purity

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How can we keep our content free of formatting that inhibits re-use?

@gadgetopia

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@gadgetopiaThis is what happens when you try to use web content directly in other mediums.110Notes:

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You can remove or minimize most WYSIWYG with structure.

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Integration

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How can we get content out of our CMS in a neutral format to power other channels?

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How can we connect our CMS to other systems?

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CMS IntegrationContent exportContent retrieval servicesProgramming APIs

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If This Then That

@gadgetopiaThis service allows you to connect systems together, from the outside. It operates on triggers something happens on System A, and this does something on System B.120Notes:

@gadgetopiaAn example recipe. Then someone new appears in an RSS feed, post it to our Facebook page.121Notes:

@gadgetopiaAn example of how it works.122Notes:

@gadgetopiaZapier is a industrial-strength version of If This Then That. It integrates hundreds of apps, essentially connecting them together in arbitrary ways.123Notes:

@gadgetopia

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@gadgetopiaHuginn installs in your organization, behind-your-firewall, and performs content integration tasks for you.125Notes:

@gadgetopiaDynamic PDF generation has come a long way. Its not hard to push your content into print channels. Kindle Direct Publishing is releasing an API later this year that will let you update your ebook directly in Amazons store without any manual work.126Notes:

@gadgetopiaKapow makes a screen-scraping system that can capture your web content directly from the public face of your website without making changes. You can then re-combine this content into new forms.127Notes:

Content Integration liberates our content.

@gadgetopia

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StructurePurityIntegration!

@gadgetopiaThis should be our rallying cry.129Notes:

@gadgetopiaContent managers should have the nerdiest protest ever.130Notes:

@gadgetopiaThis is only half in jest. Structure, Purity, and Integration = Freedom131Notes:

COPE lets us do more with our content.

@gadgetopia

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More ValueLess CostLess RiskMore Control

@gadgetopia

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We need to think in terms of messages, not channels.

We need to design for content structureWe need to value content purityWe need to insist on content integration

@gadgetopia

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@gadgetopia

deane@blendinteractive.com

http://gadgetopia.com/cm

@gadgetopia

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