Content Trouble – What’s Your Approach?

• 13 years ago

Content trouble can delay projects, reduce traffic, and miss the message when not properly managed. Content troubles often appear in the following areas:

Content creation – generate original ideas, write, edit, curate, add keywords

Content quality – find good sources of information, good writer, variety, high interest, meet business objectives

Content management – schedule, publish, integrate, re-purpose

Content priority – projects may involve a team of professionals: manager, web developer, graphic artist, photographer, and videographer who need to see the big picture and how/when their expertise fits.

Every content project manager hears the word “trouble” sometime in their career. Singer/songwriter Ray Lamontagne embraced “Trouble” as a title for one of his songs. His initial “trouble” lyric is quickly followed with “….worry, worry, worry…” then he gets saved. What saves the content project is often a combination of planning, talent, and interpersonal communications skills.

When trouble comes my way I tend to take the following approach.

1. Seek to understand. Were priorities set and understood by all? What went wrong and why? What other problems might this create?
2. Build some kind of rapport with the problem. This reduces worry and increases focus. Ask lots of questions of yourself and others.
3. Evaluate expectations for a solution. Like a doctor, do no harm.
4. Pursue the solution. I usually do this in phases to assess progress and make observations as we move away from trouble to solution.
5. Understand what’s needed, nurture, and deliver.
6. Be grateful for your ability to learn from the experience.

What’s your approach to resolving content troubles? Anything I forgot to add?