Alan Brandon

I just viewed a great presentation by Melissa Rach called “10 things every business person should know about content strategy”. Whether you’re in the content creation biz or not, this is an excellent introduction to how you should be thinking about your content (if you’re not already).

Here are the “10 things” highlighted in the presentation:

1. Treat content like a critical business asset.
2. Content needs dedicated oversight.
3. It’s never too early to think about content.
4. Understand your content’s environment.
5. Document your content ecosystem.
6. Don’t underestimate the content creation effort.
7. Ask why. Start small.
8. Assemble the content team before the work begins.
9. Content needs care and feeding.
10. Be prepared for change.

There’s a lot of good stuff in Rach’s presentation. She works at Brain Traffic, where president Kristina Halvorson has written the book called Content Strategy for the Web. I plan to check out the book soon and will report my impressions here in the future.

(via justwriteclick)

Wikipedia will soon add video to their online encyclopedia. That’s pretty cool, but what’s even more impressive is that they will eventually be adding web tools to allow Wikipedia users to edit the video online.

From an article on Technology Review:

The project also includes developing Web tools to create smooth methods for transferring and editing videos. When a Wikipedia editor finds relevant snippets, he will be able to preview them, and set the “in” and “out” points, without having to worry about file conversions.

The convergence of words, pictures, sound, and video is getting closer to “seamless”. With in-browser tools becoming more widespread (photo editing tools in Flickr, for example) the breadth of media available for techincal communicators is greater than ever before. I know this will benefit information users and consumers in the end (as soon as tech “writers” figure out how to take advantage of the new tools).

via 2moro docs.

The Honeywell Windgate wind turbine is compact, lightweight wind-powered generator suitable for home use. I wrote an article about it for Gizmag’s ecoGizmo section. Click the picture to read the whole story.

I wrote a short article on a neat gadget called the DidgiLife DDV-JF1. It’s a pocket-size HD video camera and video projector in one unit. Click the image to read the article.

I have two more articles up on Gizmag.com this week. The first is a piece about Energizer’s new tactical flashlight, and the second article covers Honeywell’s Prestige programmable thermostat.