Adoption certificate for "jobler" from the OED

I believe I’ve mentioned before that everything changes.

That’s just a truism: who can argue with it? The seasons cycle; we age and die. Our emotions change from moment to moment. Kids grow up faster than we want them to. Our relationships with one another change even when we hope they won’t. People leave us. New people come into our lives.

And change is scary. Not just for humans, but for all creatures. If you’ve ever moved a piece of furniture in a cat’s home—or just changed the bedsheets—you know what I mean.

We may resist change or embrace it or both, depending on our personalities and circumstances—and the context. But even when we’re moving full steam ahead, change isn’t easy.

Human language changes too. More slowly than our piddling individual lives, but inexorably. And as with other kinds of change, people respond differently. Some dig in their heels and insist on maintaining the standards of yesteryear. Others scorn historical precedent and welcome neologism like the pizza guy at 2 a.m.

Changes in language are both documented and determined by linguistic specialists; perhaps the most trusted of these specialists for word definition and frequency of use in English are the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary.

These sages are engaged in a public trust: they research the frequency of word use in contemporary speech and writing, then decide for any given edition of the dictionary which words should be considered obsolete. It’s a somewhat paradoxical endeavor: once a word is defined as archaic, it’s less likely to be used. A delicate balance.

Some words deserve to be excised from the common parlance. A word may truly have no contemporary application. Or it may be unwieldy, with a meaning duplicated by far more elegant and useful words. Its meaning may be too specific or too general. Or it may simply be ugly.

But there are many words that deserve to live on and flourish. Useful, appropriate, timely, interesting, engaging, expressive words in immediate danger of extinction.

Here’s a word I like: moderation. It implies both the avoidance of extremes and the integration of opposing viewpoints. And it’s a really good way to set about dealing with change.

Adopt your own word(s) here!

Words I’ve Adopted

Jobler: One who does small jobs. The recession hit me so hard that I’ve had to become a jobler to make ends meet.

Bucellation: The act of dividing food into small bite-sized portions. Some kids won’t eat dinner unless you bucellate everything before putting the plate on the table.

Sodalicious: Belonging to society or fellowship. I have such a sodalicious nature that I get lonely when I try to work from home.

Spiscious: Of a thick consistency. Whisk steadily over a low light just till the mixture is spiscious.

Amarulence: Bitterness, spite, scorn. I know I sometimes come across as amarulent, but it’s just a defense against rejection.

Lardlet: A small piece of bacon used to enrich meat. This bacon fad has become so widespread that I had to pick lardlets out of my ham sandwich at lunch.

Prandicle: A small meal. I heard it was healther to eat often throughout the day, so I’ve decided to break for a prandicle every half hour.

Phlyarologist: One who talks rubbish. Of course I gave him my number. But until I hear from him, I’m assuming he’s a phlyarologist.

Vicambulate: To walk about in the streets. “Do you feel like waiting for a table?” “Nah, let’s just vicambulate till we figure out where else to go.”

Lambition: The act of licking or lapping. I really like your dog, but his lambition is endangering my Jimmy Choos. Can you call him off?

Adopt your own word(s) here!

Jessica Hagy, "Information Overload and/or Closet Organizers." Indexed © 2009. All rights reserved.

What’s So Important About Content?

Everything changes. Online, things change more rapidly than elsewhere.

Just a few years ago, a company could afford to think of its web presence as one marketing channel among many. But not any more.

Large enterprise, small business, or non-profit organization. Direct-to-consumer or B2B. Media, retail, finance, healthcare, government, hospitality, telecommunications. Businesses in every sector are increasingly aware of the need for an immediate shift in how they communicate with customers.

Why Now?

Because everything changes. More specifically, innovations in web technology and design create changes in consumer demand—and vice versa. People now use the web on a daily basis for work, entertainment, communication, and convenience. They expect to find their favorite print media online and to get corporate and product information that’s fresh, accurate, and fast.

They are increasingly impatient with disinformation, marketing language, and poor customer service. And they make their opinions known.

For a company to thrive beyond the next few years, it must recognize the importance of how it communicates with its customers. And that takes forethought, strategic planning, expertise, and dedicated budget.

Why Content Strategy?

Because everything changes. Businesses do, certainly, as do the products they offer.

And therefore website content—the words, images, audio, video, downloads, and especially the data that users never see—must change over time. Online, customers can go anywhere they please. They will abandon a website with stale, inaccurate, boring, confusing, inaccessible, or otherwise sub-par content.

If the content of any website isn’t:

•    selected and crafted for the site’s specific audience
•    clean and well organized
•    thoughtfully integrated with the interaction and visual design
•    properly formatted for current and future tech requirements; and especially
•    regularly and systematically updated

then the results will be apparent—and frustrating—to the customer.

Content Strategists are professionals who specialize in the practice or discipline that ensures high-quality interactive content. But anyone who attends to your content from a strategic perspective is engaging in content strategy.

Value their work. It’s vital.

Zack Bent, Participation Points © 2007

If you’ve been following the emergence of a content strategy community, you may be aware that an interest group has recently formed in New York City. On Thursday, June 25, 2009, we held our 3rd monthly event, an informal discussion, led by Karen McGrane of Bond Art + Science, about making the business case for CS.

Maybe you know Karen? She recently shared this stunning presentation on the value of content strategy to an effective Web presence.

Our group had a fine time talking strategy for content strategy. Our biggest takeaway: until the necessary resources for content strategy deliverables become standard budgetary line items, interactive projects will continue to fail.

(On the bright side, as one of the participants remarked—modesty forbids my naming her—past failures are the best argument for change.)

During the evening, we discussed the difficulty of working in a field that integrates perspectives from data management, user experience design, marketing, product development, and editorial strategy within an industry that resists their intersection. We grumbled about our frustrated efforts to convince the powers-that-be that our work is essential to their ROI. We vented about projects gone awry because we were brought in at the eleventh hour to “rescue” the content.

And that represents one of our major challenges as a group. Right now, we’re talking mostly to ourselves. And in preaching to the choir, we’re full of fire and brimstone.

Sharing our experiences with one another is empowering. Many of us have felt frustrated and isolated for years. We bond by discovering we have similar ongoing critiques of industry practice. We’ve felt similarly dissatisfied with the career options available to us and worried similarly about the future of the Web. We’re happy to discover that if we’re iconoclasts, we’re a whole bunch of iconoclasts—with room for more.

But in our delight in (finally!) finding like-minded colleagues, let’s make sure not to get trapped in past resentments. Time marches on. Business requirements become more complex, specialized design skills become more respected, and content—the very stuff the Web is made of—remains at the bottom of ye olde toteme pole.

We’re not engaged in a battle for professional recognition. Or (disingenuousness alert) not solely. Most, if not all, of us believe fervently that our approach is essential to a future in which multiplatform digital content will be mashed up and redistributed in ways most of us haven’t even begun to imagine.

So let’s start the brainstorming now. What can we do to help?