Are we Content?
Subject Matter, Ingredients, material, quality — all these are ways in which one could define the word ‘Content’. The true meaning, however, is completely contextual and lies in how one perceives the usage of the word. Written content, digital content, video content; you come across the usage of the word in one of these contexts and it’s something you simply cannot escape today. The truth of the matter, however, is that content is anything and everything. We’re not trying to be preachy — but it really is that. Think of it like that ‘Matter’ chapter in your school’s science class (anything that occupies space and has mass) — it is everything and what differentiates the type of matter is how you are able to create every unit or able to package it together (solids, liquids and gases).
After a quick game of word cloud and asking people around me as to what they thought about the word ‘Content’, I arrived at a few other meanings for the same. These are all in the same ballpark but genuinely add a lot of meaning and context to the word.
Substance — Content can be looked at as the word ‘substance’. It has the attribute of tangibility, it has certain qualities that are unique to a particular measurable unit and most importantly, it is measurable. A word an alphabet, a video, a sound clip — all this is content in its different forms. The beauty of it is that it has the ability to be moulded in different ways for different purposes. Like liquid filling various containers.
Information — Content has the attribute of providing the user or benefactor with information. Content can also be information itself — in its raw form. It has value — maybe not to everybody and it may not even be for a long time — it can be relevant and important only for a while and to either an individual or a select few benefactors. News of a particular country may not matter to people of another country; however, it has the power to mobilise action and create deep impact among the lives of its own people. Similarly, data is again content; it has the attribute of being useful and purposeful to the ones that use it.
Knowledge — For the proverb ‘Knowledge is power’ to have any weightage, it certainly meant that there was value. Knowledge, although intangible has the ability to influence our decision-making process and perspectives. It is a form of currency, which when transferred to someone to whom it matters can cause action or a change in thinking. It has the ability to be distributed and conveyed in different forms such as written / print, images / pictures, video, audio, through touch and a combination of all of the five sensory inputs. In fact, sensory inputs are required only so that they are able to convey certain knowledge / information to the one using them. Using Sensory inputs, to access knowledge and take action is again the usage of content.
Resource — An ant moves towards something sweet; reptiles move towards the water; humans conduct a series of actions for monetary benefit — all of these occur because of and by content. Content is a resource which when used in different ways yields different results. It is an inevitability and necessity for all action to have any meaning. It is limited usually to those concerned with the resource but otherwise also has the nature of being limitless (like numbers).
Experience — Qualitatively, experience is what we learn from incidents that have occurred in the past. More importantly, it is what we do with that information. However, experience, due to its nature of being an intangible resource, automatically also becomes content. In fact, experience is content that is rich with the additives of wisdom. Similarly, emotion and feelings are also content as they trigger action in a certain way, with a degree of purpose.
What we do with these different types of content is what defines the clarity of our purpose. In business, it is often misunderstood that content is only that which a certain department engages in. However, this is far from the truth. Every department uses information relevant to its function and carries on with its series of activities. Outside of business too, all inputs can be categorised as content. This is why it is important for us to understand how wide and expansive the meaning of the word is and how we all in some way engage with it, all of the time. A bill at a restaurant, the stock market light board, a video, a podcast, music, pictures, a book, the keys on your keyboard, simple intuition — all of these are content. The examples are far and wide, but what we’re trying to get at is a clear differentiation of the word ‘Content’.
It may be a stretch too far but our entire lives are also in a way a special type of content. The medium may differ but the essence of it all is purposeful, useful, meaningful, complementary and beneficial to more life.
