Kristina Halvorson of Brain Traffic has a marvelous new post at A List Apart about “The Discipline of Content Strategy.”

Her premise is that, although we know all about designing, building, optimising, and using web media, we have often been woefully lax in our attention to the actual content that appears on our carefully developed pages. I have often lamented that a perfect timeline can go awry due to missing or incomplete content to put on the pages themselves. Often we have the perception that “…content is really somebody else’s problem —’the client can do it,’ ‘the users will generate it’…” and the project begins to unravel.

However, all is not lost — a strong content strategy can help to define this pieceof the puzzle and get it executed in an efficient, timely manner. Content strategy plans for the creation, publication and governance of useful, usable content. Ms. Halvorson outlines a number of points to consider when defining a content strategy:

• Key themes and messages
• Recommended topics
• Content purpose (i.e., how content will bridge the space between audience needs and business requirements)
• Content gap analysis
• Metadata frameworks and related content attributes
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Implications of strategic recommendations on content creation, publication, and governance

Take a look at the full article, and let us know what you think.

It’s bad enough when your brother-in-law sends you an email in all capital letters with no punctuation and it reads as if he were having a conversation with himself during which he changed his mind a few times; but such an email in the office can cause a headache, not to mention a delayed response or, worse, no response at all.

It amazes me how many emails I receive in my day-to-day activities that don’t employ basic written communication strategies. I mean, don’t people realize that their  “to” list will respond more quickly if the email clearly states their needs (and we don’t have to scroll down through days and days of thread to figure it out)?

Loose-fingered emailers have been a frustration of mine for years. I mean, who thinks it’s a good idea to send out notes that ramble on and on with spelling errors and no sentence or paragraph breaks? Come on. Can I be the only frustrated recipient? I googled email etiquette and was not too surprised to discover that poor email communicators have been around since the dawn of email. Did you know that they can cause businesses to lose revenue?

Of course, there are the common tips for email: don’t use all capital letters, don’t overuse the CC or Reply All features, limit your use of emoticons and exclamation points, etc. But I don’t think they hit the basic communication strategies. Remedial communication training costs companies more than $3 billion per year! And here I am, offering you some simple advice for free!

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This year, Staples Business Depot in Canada continues its ongoing effort to honor teachers with a “Show Your Teacher Appreciation” contest. The contest asks students to write a 200-word essay telling Staples Business Depot why it should appreciate their teachers, and the five winning essays will garner each of the teachers a $1,000 Staples gift certificate and each of the students an iPod Nano. By recognizing excellent teachers, Staples positions itself in a market traditionally owned by large department stores. This relationship-building strategy is becoming more common and will soon be the norm rather than the exception. Kudos to Staples. This is a creative way to win the hearts of teachers — who are the main influencers of the next generation’s office product purchasers — and put their products and brand in front of young people. Staples is sure to create a level of loyalty that is not easily won. Everyone has a teacher they love and the fond memory stirred by just taking part in such a campaign is sure to make a positive connection that just might bring someone back to the store when they need, for example, a ream of paper.

Check out their news release here.