BY SCOTT ABEL

ANN ROCKLEY IS A LEADER in

technical communication information

management. For more than two

decades, she has worked to develop

methods of efficiently and effectively

creating, managing, and delivering

information. Known as the “mother of

content strategy,” Rockley developed

what is arguably the most well-known

approach to managing complex sets

of information. It’s called the “unified

content strategy”—a systematic,

repeatable approach currently in

place in content-heavy organizations

around the globe.

In this month’s “Meet the Change

Agents” column, Scott Abel, The

Content Wrangler, chats with Rockley,

president of The Rockley Group,

about how mobile devices, eBooks,

and consumer expectations are

forcing organizations of all types to

rethink how they

do business.

SA: You

helped lead

the way in the

single-source,

multi-channel

publishing

movement.

While some in

our discipline

have been

slow to adopt

the practices,

standards, and

tools needed

to write it once

and use it often

(structured

XML,

component

content

management,

and a unified content strategy), there

are many firms that have adopted

this approach and have experienced

tremendous financial and organiza-

tional benefits. Now we see book and

magazine publishers adopting our

approaches. Why did it take so long

for publishers to catch on? 

AR: It took a long time for

us—and even longer for traditional

publishers—to move to a more

efficient, content-centric approach to

creating content for two big reasons:

1) change is hard and humans aren’t

good at it; and, until recently, 2)

organizations didn’t have a strong

motivation to change.

Traditional book publishers

have been following a process

perfected over many, many years.

It was designed to support the

creation of books. Publishers never

imagined their world would change

so drastically and that their business

wouldn’t be about printing books.

While the idea of eBooks has been

around for quite a while (before the

Kindle caused a real explosion in

eBooks), digital books always seemed

like a “fringe” movement, never

something publishers seriously had

to think about. The current eBook

revolution caught them off guard.

Today, they’ve had to face changing

their processes, which is extremely

challenging for many publishers.

Change is hard. But, it happens

when an industry is sufficiently

motivated to do so. The digital

publishing era has arrived. Change

is no longer an option. It is critical

to the survival of publishing

companies—and they now know it.

SA: What are the drivers for

change today?

AR: Content-hungry consumers

using tablet computers and

smartphones to purchase and access

content they want and need is a

pretty strong driver. Mobile devices

can’t answer one specific question

or provide one type of information

service (usually, what apps do) without

structured, semantically-rich XML

content. Apps can’t dynamically deliver

the right information to the right

person at the right time in the right

format and language—on the device

that person is using—without modular,

semantically marked up content. So,

if you want to provide mobile content,

it’s easier, faster, and cheaper to do so

using the methods we developed in

the technical communication industry

over the past decade or so.

The other driver is the digital

content revolution. While best-of-

breed technical communication and

training departments have been

creating multi-channel outputs for

years using a write-it-once, use-it-

often strategy, traditional publishers

haven’t felt the pressure to adopt

this approach until the Kindle,

smartphones, tablet computers—

and of course, the iPad—changed

consumer demand. Now, publishers

are rushing to convert back catalogs

to eReader-friendly eBook formats

and to develop new, multi-channel,

multi-device approaches.

The lack of an eBook standard

that works universally the same on

all devices, coupled with the fact

that Amazon, Apple, Google, and

the other players in the publishing

industry all handle eBooks in

different ways (and are making lots

of money selling them), creates a

powerful driver for change.

SA: It’s clear that what started in

the field of technical communication

is no longer limited to our little corner

of the information production world.

An Interview with Ann Rockley, the “Mother of Content Strategy”

In the digital age, change happens quickly. This column features interviews with the movers and shakers—the folks behind new ideas, standards, methods, products, and amazing technologies that are changing the way we live and interact in our modern world. Got questions, suggestions or feedback? Email them to scottabel@mac.com.

June 201224

MEET THE CHANGE AGENTS

skills needed today to solve all of the

world’s mobile content challenges. But

the demand is there, like a magnet,

pulling smart people from all sorts of

industries into the mix. And, because

our world is truly an increasingly

small one, the talent pool is no longer

limited to our little corner of the

world. It’s a global market of talent.

Expect to see knowledge workers of

all types learn the skills needed to

produce content, enhance it, and

make it interactive. However, I believe

that technical communicators have

a head start in this area if they just

choose to seize the opportunity.

SA: Few people in our industry

want to address the elephant in the

room. Is it scare-mongering to suggest

that things are changing so rapidly

content their customers need—all

their customer facing content, not just

product content, marketing content,

and technical communications.

Customers are no longer satisfied with

one delivery method; they want it on

any device, anywhere, and at any time.

We can and should be helping all parts

our organizations achieve these goals.

SA: There are hundreds of

thousands of organizations (maybe

more) that need to rethink their

content strategy in order to produce

content mobile devices need. And, yet,

they’re aren’t many people with skill

sets necessary to foster such change.

Where will all this talent come from?

AR: Yes, that’s a good point.

There are not enough technical

communication pros who possess the

In the second edition of your

best-selling book, Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy (New Riders,

2012), you focus a lot on

helping content profession-

als understand the need for

a content strategy. Are the

business drivers that are

fueling the digital content

revolution in traditional

publishing also fueling a

revolution in corporate

publishing?

AR: Yes, indeed they

are. These same drivers are

forcing organizations of all

shapes and sizes to rethink

how they create, manage,

and deliver information.

The larger the organiza-

tion, the more complex the

content requirements, the

more likely they are to move

away from hand-crafting

of content deliverables and

move toward what I call a

unified content strategy—a

systematic, repeatable process

for creating multiple types of

information products from a

single source of information.

Organizations that make

medical devices, pharmaceu-

ticals, software, consumer

products, electronics,

construction equipment,

and other complex products have

been using this approach for years.

But, today, nearly every type of

organization realizes they are in a race

against the competition to get their

content into digital format in the most

efficient and effective way possible.

Non profit providers of health

information, universities and school

systems, governments, and profit-

seeking organizations of all types are

motivated to change.

We’re lucky because we (technical

communication professionals)

invented the methods, standards,

and practices needed to succeed in

this new mobile, digital economy. We

have the knowledge needed to help

organizations prepare and deliver the

VLAD

GRIN

/shu

tters

tock

.com

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