Intelligent Content: A Primer

I consult regularly with clients on how to make their content operations more effective. I've started recommending this book often, in both client conversations and in presentations I made at industry conferences. It IS a wonderful primer to the possibilities that intelligent content open for an organization. If you are wondering how to make your content more effective, or to demonstrate the ROI on your content, or to better meet the needs of your audience, this book is for you!

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This book is thorough yet accessible and readable, and it answers all the fears and concerns and questions that people have when they are facing scary words like DITA and structured authoring and content management. I marked up my copy quite a bit as it's helping me answer questions for my clients and their teams. It's not focused just marketing or just technical publications or just customer spport content -- it's about how all of your content can and should be working for you. If you're already experienced in content management and structure, this book will help you explain things to your teams... if you're not already experienced, this book will enable you to understand what the experienced people are talking about. And wherever you are on the content spectrum, it helps you understand what everyone else is doing and why, and how your content operations can continue to get better.

If you're a technical writer struggling to wrap your mind around the "new frontier" of content creation, or a manager who needs a good sales pitch for adopting intelligent content on your team, or a marketing person who wants to know how to better reach diverse audiences by re-purposing the same set of content in multiple ways, then this book is exactly the resource you need.It's well-organized, to the point, and brief. It walks readers step-by-step, starting with our common understanding of "traditional content" and moving towards an understanding of what makes content intelligent. Each section builds logically on previous sections. An easy-to-follow explanation of intelligent content (and what makes content "intelligent" as opposed to not intelligent) opens the book, followed by sections that explain why we need intelligent content, and the challenges and benefits of intelligent content. There is a section of case studies, which are always useful when building a persuasive argument for adoption. Finally, the book lays out some methods and approaches for overcoming objections to intelligent content.As an information architect who has guided several groups through a transition from traditional content to intelligent content, I very much appreciate this last section and its acknowledgement that change is hard.There are certainly more comprehensive books on intelligent content out there, but this book is an essential introduction that has been sorely needed.

The term "intelligent content" can seem daunting. This book breaks down what it means in an approachable way, and it clarifies why today's organizations need to move in this direction. Bonus: The authors bring new insights to the long-standing definition first set out by Ann Rockley and Charles Cooper years ago. Even those who already know what "intelligent content" means will benefit from revisiting this term here.