Looking for a  place to store your company´s information? Nowadays many solutions are available, from SharePoint-like portals to Oracle database solutions, but there are certain things that technology cannot help us resolve. For example:

Does your content management system (CSM) look like this?

Or like this…..?

Do people react this way when they access the CSM?

If you felt some kind of familiarity with the above, then I consider you have a quick read at this.

Back in 2015, the APQC (American Productivity and Quality Center) held a roundtable discussion where various KM professionals (including myself) had the opportunity to share ideas regarding how organizations can improve their content management strategy. The most recurrent point discussed is how organizations often leave aside stakeholder needs or “simply think that their content is of interest to their stakeholders, so they attempt to push it out” (Stan Garfield).

Below are 10 points that will help you engineer effective CSMs.

1. Build upon content your company really needs. Don’t just gather content, make sure it adds value. Study your stakeholder requirements and propose a suitable content structure.
2. If you are just about to kick off, start with some basic stuff. Identify the necessary information that people need to I.e processes, templates, or any other core information in terms of business strategy.
3. A CSM need a friendly interface and quick response time. If it’s too complicated, Google will come first. Make content accessible in the simplest and most functional way.
4. Measure and optimize. Study usage trends, analyze the stakeholder journey. Also create interactive “contact points” so that users may post comments related to content, add tags, offer feedback and content reviews. This way you can see which content is generating more traffic or value.
5. Make mobile-friendly content. Mobile is increasing so we need to make sure that content can also be viewed in multiple formats and platforms (IOS, Android)
6. Communicate value. You will need a proper communications strategy in place in order to facilitate user buy in.
7. Paraphrasing Paul Corney and Martin White, “companies rarely understand the importance of information as an asset. Thus, processes related to content curation are fitted in as a “hobby” around other tasks”. This means that you need a formal procedure in place and assign responsibilities for managing the CSM.
8. Define policies, manuals and other documentation that will support CSM usage.
9. Find sponsorship
10. And finally…use stakeholder value as a barometer for CSM value!

Catch the APQC roundatable discussion here

If you want to add any points to the list, feel free to do so! Just add your comments.

© Jose Carlos Tenorio Favero

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