As I have started to learn about digital content strategy, I have encountered many surprises, delights, and disappointments.
Building the Business Case
The focus on contextualizing and explaining the value of a content audit presented in Paula Land’s Content Audits and Inventories delighted me. Prior to this course, I didn’t understand the context or ways to articulate the value of a content audit. I was delighted to find explanations of why an organization might audit their content. I also appreciated Land’s inclusion of a chapter about building the business case for an audit.
I hadn’t considered how to quantify the results of an audit. The ability to explain the business value of an audit, which I learned from Content Audits and Inventories and Dr. Kim’s module 1 lecture, will be highly useful to me in the future. It is important for me to understand how to explain the value of content audits because I don’t want the work that I do on content audits to be undervalued.
Context for the Audit
The variety of contexts in which content inventories and audits can occur that Content Audits and Inventories presented surprised me. I assumed organizations conducted content inventories and audits almost exclusively as part of site redesigns. I didn’t consider less obvious cases like government compliance or continuous upkeep.
After reading about the variety of contexts that audits can exist in, I can see how they would affect their goals and scope. Beyond why the audit is necessary, business goals and the time and tools available affect the context of an audit. The context of content audits is much more complex than I thought.
Gathering Requirements
The similarities between how Val Swisher described the interview process before starting an audit in Dr. Kim’s module 2 video lecture and the interview process that I learned in TECM 5170: Grants and Proposals surprised me. I didn’t expect the content audit planning process to include interviewing management about business goals, KPIs, and defining success. My expectation for the interview process before starting a content audit was limited to the second type of interviews Swisher described: interviews with writers and SMEs about the process of writing.
Dr. Kim’s instructions for asking good questions, presented in the module 2 video lecture and in a dedicated video, also surprised and delighted me. I have learned how to ask detailed and answerable questions implicitly as a student; this is the first time I got direct instructions about how to ask good questions.
Asking good questions makes it easier to get the answers you are looking for and improves your relationship with the person you are interviewing. I appreciate explicit instructions about how to ask useful questions. As a technical communicator, asking good questions is vital for information gathering and developing professional relationships.
Conclusions
Land’s explanation of building the business case for audits, Swisher’s description of interviewing managers, and Dr. Kim’s guidance on asking good questions delighted me. I expect to benefit significantly from the abilities to quantify and explain the value of audits, interview management to find out business goals, and ask good questions that I learned from the instructional material in this course as I go forward in my career.