Hi Christine,
We touched on this lightly on the Slack conversation in the WTD community.
What I'm seeing from our users and our research is often split between the
internal tools teams and various functional silos.
An example might be a CMS used by the whole organisation, where one or more
roles exists to maintain it. These often have "clean-up" duties in terms of
the information architecture, tagging, etc.
Otherwise there are often specific roles doing these kinds of tasks in
their division. But rarely as a whole role. So while a sales division might
have a full time information architect managing their sales collateral,
this might also be a function of a traffic controller type role. This is
not uncommon in agencies with client services as well.
I'm not seeing any clear and common implementation however. But there are
heuristics and patterns by industry and stage. It would take a while to dig
through all of those, so it might be easier to say:
- the role you mention is these days often more a function of multiple
roles that require control over the IA
- pathways to improving skills in the actual management/IA of content
are gained more from friction than a clear career path
- content management and knowledge management are rapidly fragmenting
and specialising further each decade
These aren't lost skills though. I'm on secondment at the moment to lead an
innovation project for the car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover, and because
we're moving so quickly, I've taken time to train my team in this area you
mention. Everyone had to level up some area of their workflow, but all were
extremely positive once they did. Nobody begrudges getting faster at what
they (or doing with less cognitive load).
Which is really just getting back to the kind of IA that traditional
librarians excelled at. Even if, to my view of the industry at the moment,
those roles you mention aren't in the numbers you might expect.
Regards,
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David Ryan
Managing Director
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On Tue, Jul 5, 2016 at 8:54 PM, Christine Kent <cmkentau@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We all know “content management” by some name or another (the whole “Write
the Docs” thingy) is an emerging area for writers, but does anyone know
what the pathway is into it?
I am currently writing some TAFE courses, and , on the whole, the VET
sector has not grasped that the whole of the business world has been
disrupted. The training very much represents the past state, not the future
state, so where I can, I introduce more up to date information. However, I
am also falling behind and whilst I can see the new state from afar, I do
not always know the mechanics of how it works.
I decided to add the concept of Intranet/Internet content management in a
low level “Organise Workplace Information” course, and put a note
explaining how someone can specialise in this. I do this for other skills
skimmed over in the Unit like communication skills, where I referred the
students to more detailed courses on specialist topics.
I scanned every business course and could find nothing that seemed to bear
any relationship to what I am calling “content management” – nothing on
intranets, SharePoint, Lotus notes etc – for non IT people. That includes
data storage and management systems in modern organisations that are NOT
either databases or Office documents, but that can, nonetheless, involve
junior staff in their creation or management. The term XML does not appear
anywhere in any course, but surely junior staff are going to become
involved in tagging and managing XML files etc, or creating files for
Intranet distribution other than PDF? (Even managing PDF files does not
come up in these courses.)
Do junior staff get involved in any aspects of “content management” as I
am defining it above. I need some insight on this one as I have not worked
in a modern large corporate environment for a few years now. Is the area
monopolised by IT graduates or is there a pathway in for the newly
recruited junior office person?
Cheers, Christine
