Best Practices for Acquiring Content
Part XI of this series of articles that share useful insights and practical guidance to troubleshoot underperforming self-help and learning systems
This article offers insights from the author’s experience helping organizations overcome avoidable mistakes when acquiring and integrating externally produced content, e.g training, professional development, self-help.
There may come a time in your organization’s path to riches that a cost-benefit decision needs to be made as to whether or not licensing externally produced content makes good business sense. In MBA terms, it’s a Make or Buy decision:
“Rather than commit the time, money and energy to produce this
material internally, would we be better off acquiring it
from a source whose business is content development?”
Whether the target audience is composed of clients, partners and/or staff, the rationale for outsourcing content is often compelling, especially if the topics address subjects for which the organization lacks internal capacity to author & produce, e.g. human resources, regulatory topics, technology.
For those seeking the Cliff Notes version, let’s cut to the chase:
“The most accurate determinant to successful integration of
externally produced content is the nature of demand.”
When there are champions in the organization who have determined that content from an outside source is likely to be advantageous, then success is likely. This is because there is a recognized need coupled with awareness that creating the material internally will require a costly and/or impractical investment. The advocates have examined the need, frankly assessed internal capabilities and have a measure of confidence that the content they are promoting fills the void. Of course, success is not assured, but for readers in this enviable position, this article includes tips for avoiding pitfalls that could bedevil the project, e.g. disadvantageous licensing, setting unrealistic expectations.
If, however, the organization is considering an unsolicited offer from a potential vendor of content, the likelihood of success is much lower. Put another way:
“An unsolicited offer may — or may not — be a great deal,
but it is certainly premature for the potential customer to
acquire content until the requirements and options are well understood.”
It’s worth noting that this dictum applies to low- or “no-cost” content as well as pricey resources. It is wise to keep in mind that content consumers will judge your organization’s credibility based on their perceptions of the usefulness of what is offered to them…regardless of source. In that context, the user sees your organization as the trusted broker for the content on your system (regardless of disclaimers).
Guiding Principles for Content Acquisition
The following principles should be considered by an organization that intends to broker externally produced content to its knowledgebase users:
Involve Advocates for each Audience. Often, content integration is seen as a C-level decision and a technical implementation. This is akin to a school district licensing instructional material without involving those who will teach with it. Put more affirmatively, those who are responsible for helping users solve problems have unique insights needed to evaluate the efficacy of the resources. Moreover, without their enthusiastic support, the initiative is likely to fail.
Carefully Define Success. When licensing resources, the savvy organization will put the onus on the provider for the usefulness of the resources. This can be done by capturing the promises of the sales pitch and incorporating them into the contract. Fundamentally, do not fall into the trap of defining success as offering lots of new resources available to an indifferent audience. Rather, be explicit that:
“Success = Popularity (and demand for more).”
One of the immediate benefits of this approach is that the provider will be disinclined to foist material on your users that is past its prime.
Add Value by Curating the Content. To achieve the expected ROI from your investment, your customers, partners and staff must perceive that the content you've acquired is being provided by you to meet their needs. The content provider does not have the insights necessary to map the content to the unique needs of your audiences, but your experts and advocates do. Task them to review the new content and provide your audience with tailored recommendations of what to read or watch to learn about a particular topic. Not only will this boost the popularity of resources and the gratitude of users, it will imbue your team with a sense of ownership that will spark creativity and enthusiasm.
Carefully Manage Expectations. By all means, restrain the enthusiasm of your marketing and sales teams to tout the incredible benefits of your newly acquired content. When it comes to effectively integrating external content, it is wise to recognize that there is much to learn and that optimization will be an iterative process. The bottom line is that no one yet knows how useful this content will be and setting unreasonable expectations is a recipe for disaster.
Protect Your Interests. The decision of whether or not to host the content — particularly e-learning — is extremely important. As soon as your users depart your online environment for that of the content provider, she becomes a candidate customer. Be very wary of the risks of exposing your clients to the content provider’s sales team. Granted, hosting content is a tough logistical challenge, but losing customers is a serious risk.
Recognize That Every Resource Is a Burden. Each and every resource you publish incurs the burden for life cycle maintenance. It must be vetted, described, featured, reviewed, updated and eventually retired. It behooves the organization to consider that burden when selecting external content. Put another way:
“Any item you publish has the potential to bite you in the keester
the instant it is no longer useful, accurate and current.”
Practical Tips and Insights
Within the context of the guiding principles there are a number of issues that impact implementation. The following tips and insights are offered for those grappling with them:
Cherry Pick. Do not accept (at face value) claims from the sales team as to the popularity of their resources. Request that they provide you a current list of the most popular resources in the topic area(s) in which you are interested along with the metrics to support the claim. Chances are — among their offerings — there are a handful of popular resources and a laundry list of dozens more that are not being touched.
Establish Maintenance Protocols & Responsibilities. When you host content that needs to be periodically updated, there are significant challenges that must be addressed that are not intuitive to people without extensive digital publishing expertise. Put starkly, these issues are completely familiar to the content provider and new ground for you. The vendor’s sales team is inclined to gloss over these challenges as they can be rather thorny and represent a detrimental expense. This area typically belongs in the purview of the IT team who should be encouraged to ask tough questions and approve the negotiated arrangement.
Define Liability. Lean on your risk manager(s) to surface potential problem areas. This can be accomplished by establishing hypothetical use cases, e.g. examine the ramifications if one of your clients shares a resource — that has licensing restrictions — outside of your organization. Or consider the implications if a user claims that outdated content led him to make a costly mistake.
Establish Ownership. Effective quality control requires that each and every knowledgebase resource has an owner in the organization. This role-based responsibility must necessarily be made explicit since problems related to lifecycle maintenance may surface after individuals present at the outset have moved on. A sound practice is to imbue ultimate responsibility at the C-level and delegate as needed downward through the organizational chart to the person keyboarding. Should that person depart the organization, the responsibility automatically reverts to the next level of authority. A common source of problems related to content management is the failure to codify the responsibility and tasks into the job plans of those expected to do the work. Managers of content workers need formally defined tasking, otherwise the accomplishment of content-related tasks will suffer from a lack of priority.
Cater to the Audience. This concept should resonate with any organization that offers its constituents online knowledgebase resources, but doing so effectively requires understanding the unique needs of disparate groups of users. Often, it takes the form of building purposeful collections suitable to meet the needs of audiences with fundamental differences, e.g. experts & novices, international & domestic, new hires & veterans, salary & hourly, technical & non-technical. Successfully shaping content to the audience is best accomplished by identifying and leaning on advocates for them. Since this is an ongoing effort, it is wise to be alert for symptoms of under-served audiences. While it is easy to spot an overtly frustrated user, it is not unusual to discover a person in a position of significant responsibility who is surprisingly uncomfortable using the knowledgebase that contains information vital to their work.
Reward Participation. Every time a user takes time to provide feedback on our acquired content— even stinging criticism — we have the opportunity to improve its usefulness. As the resources are improved, we have the potential to save time, effort and money that can be used elsewhere. Put another way, critics should be seen as contributors and treated accordingly.
Next Topic: Think Like a Librarian
Part XII of this series encourages the reader to adopt the mindset of professional librarians when preparing resources for use.
Directory of All Topics
Browse this directory to discover how to troubleshoot the often thorny problem(s) preventing our self-help, intranet, training, support and/or extranet knowledge bases from being incredibly useful.
