Over the last month or so I made several posts regarding content delivery, leading up to the publishing of the Market IQ on Content Delivery. In that post I commented on how I was not shocked, but nonetheless disappointed to learn that the overwhelming majority of organizations still do not fully comprehend the value of intelligent delivery. Most stop at the embryonic step of merging names and addresses into form letters (YAWN.)
As I have stated several times before, there is virtually unlimited possibilities, each tied to amazing value propositions, when rich media and/or "chunked" or semi-structured text content are recombined and republished to meet very targeted audiences, in some cases audiences of 1.
As discussed in my earlier post regarding the OpenText Bloom strategy, part of the burgeoning publishing paradigm is the ability to also tailor content for particular reader devices, from paper to Kindles, from laptops to iPhones. Opentext took a noble but somewhat rudimentary stab at this during the demo I saw - providing access to a collaborative ECM applications on an iPhone - screens were tailored to leverage the powers of the phone, and compensate for its limitations.
Very cool - but again - unfortunately most business organizations are still mastering merged mail lists.
But as commercial web sites such as Wikipedia, FaceBook and Amazon ushered in and demonstrated for the business world the impact that Web 2.0 could have in the form of Enterprise 2.0, it appears it will do the same with content delivery.
According to an NPR story,music video producers have realized that a large percentage of their audience is now watching on smaller screens, and that viewing habits on these devices are very different. (Ask yourself now, are your work/viewing habits different when holding your PDA on the morning commute versus sitting at your desk in front of a 21" monitor?) These music producers are deploying new approaches to display, delivery, use of visuals, close-ups, and a technique known as "center framing", to better utilize and leverage the small screen.
Music video producer Joseph Kahn, commented on this technique: "It's very effective because it doesn't rely on any format whatsoever. " YES - THAT'S IT! That is the very essence of content delivery techniques in ECM, to separate the content from the format - and thus provide content that can be dynamically formatted - recombined, manipulated, shaped to specifically leverage or maximize its value at each instance of consumption - whether dictated by physical device, preference of user, or current business process.
Ask yourself if that user manual designed for the English-speaking trained technician is the most effective approach to communication for a Spanish-speaking end user. And how would you format a financial report that will be consumed on 8 1/2x11 paper as well as on hand-helds? You need not create two separate versions - but rather dynamically reformat to meet separate instances of consumption.
Rethinking content creation to exploit content delivery requires discipline, strategy, and a fair deal of effort. But, as the entertainment industry is showing us - it certainly has its payback.
