Implementing a Content Strategy Is Like Running 100 Miles: Painful But Possible

Editor's Notes

• #2: My chat with you is how the techniques I’ve learned to finish 100-mile ultramarathons helped me implement a new content strategy at Salesforce, the 4th largest software company in the world, focusing on Customer Relationship Management, CRM. Welcome, I’m going to speak for about 35-minutes and leave 15 minutes for Q&A at the end. Please hold your Qs until then.
• #3: Talk TrackBefore I begin, just a quick note that you should base your purchasing decisions on products and services that are currently available. Key Takeaway Salesforce is a publicly traded company. Customer should make buying decisions only on the products commercially available.
• #4: I could tell you that I’ve been a technical communicator for 20 years and that I speak at a lot of conferences… I also could tell you that I’ve worked at Salesforce for the last 13 years and helped implement a humungous new contents strategy to 100+ content creators. Oh, and I also have run nearly 50-ultramarathons, any distance over a marathon’s 26.2 miles, and I’ve finished six 100-mile races. BUT BEYOND THAT BRAVADO are these facts....
• #5: In the past 9 years, I’ve run nearly 50 ultramarathons—any distance over a marathon’s 26.2 miles—and I’ve finished 6 100-milers, including this, the WS 100, which is probably the most prestigious (not hardest) 100 miler in the world, twice.
• #6: I helped motivate, explain, train, and lead a team of 100+ smart, bright, talented, opinionated content creators into a new content strategy.
• #7: The definition we’re working with
• #8: From what I’ve found, from my experience, a lot of the info out there on content strategy and finishing 100-miles ultramarathons, never takes these things into account. And I’ve found them to be the most important things to think about and focus on. Here’s the agenda and your takeaways. This talk isn’t abut tools, hacks, or fads, because I’ve found that none of those things matter or actually help. If you’re not squared away on your feelings about pain, relationships, and focusing on your strengths, your content strategy or 100-mile racing dreams won’t come to fruition! A series of questions I wish I was asked before I began either feat.
• #9: First, let’s talk about pain. If you’re going to implement a content strategy or run 100 miles, get ready to hurt.
• #10: Define content strategy with Abel & Bailie: SFDC: Reduce content, 400 page PDF RN, update voice & tone for playfulness, give customers what they want – interactive content, more graphics, videos. Give them less traditional doc — online help, implementation guides. Give them more context on the page to stay in the app. WORTH the pain or risk losing customers!!! WS100: Curiosity of the experience. What does one learn finishing 100 miles, being in the most prestigious ultramarthon. WORTH the pain because what lifetime opportunity and experience. One time opportunity with the WS lottery. If on your deathbed—career and personal life.
• #11: SFDC: We worked on multiple content strategies—for UI text, for online help, for dev guides, impl. guides, graphics, you name it… So much to keep track of—fear, anxiety. Had to boil it down to one single, simple vision so everyone could understand: Create interative content over traditional forms of documetnation. WS100: Snow, moutains, horses & helicoptors, mountain lions, 100-degrees in canyons. Had to ditch all those details for a simple, less painful vision: Get from point A to point B in less than 30 hours. That’s only a little more than 4 miles an hour, I can walk that right?
• #12: SFDC: “Content strategy” is like Agile—everyone thinks they know what it is and they have an opinion. You will hear a million opinions on what to do. You should keep an open ear, as that one opinion may be fantastic. But know you’ll endure hearing a lot, over and over. If you shut someone’s opinion down, you risk giving the best to your customers and team. WS100: Everyone has an opinion, diet, training schedule… “Listen to everyone, follow no one.” Might miss that one thing that can help like Coke & potato chips.
• #13: SFDC: What painful thing can you measure and try to get rid off with your strategy? To us, 20-years of legacy content. No way to tackle thousands of topics, delete or rewrite, over night. Instead, we identified our legacy content and had writer assigned to spending 10% of their time each release (three a year), to curate, rewrite, or delete it. Could track this and see how doing. WS100: Weekly long runs ranging from 3 hours to 6 hours. Measure by time to build up to the pain and endure it. Then at least two 50-mile races in the two months leading up to the start. Could track this and see how doing.
• #14: SFDC: With so many people, so many details, so many different schedule for deliverables, it often feels too much. Most people feel like it’s too burdensome, or the change too much, and they will want to quit. For us, our safety blanket: It’s an interative strategy that we can change based on customer response. Meaning, it’s not set and stone and we’ll all figure it out together. WS100: It is so hard to get into WS100 because of it’s lottery (300 spots out of 4,000 people), quitting is not an option. I will quit my job if training for it takes too much, and they ill have to pull my dead body off the course. “Beware the chair.”
• #15: Now, let’s talk about relationships. Implementing a content strategy and finishing a 100-mile race is not something ANYONE can do alone. Your relationships, team, and people are what get you through.
• #16: SFDC: You don’t have to reinvent the wheel… Who’s done these things before and what can you learn from them. Mysti – how to speak to large teams, Geri — how to examine a million tiny details and expalin them, Ted — DITA and how to automate things. I didn’t know this stuff. Learned from others. WS100: Mark, father of three and executive who prioritizes time to trail, Gordy — guy who invented the modern sport and did what everyone thought insane and impossible, Ken — heavy set guy at every race with greatest attitude and helpfulness who always finishes even though often last.
• #17: SFDC: Who can you check in with to get feedback about your content strategy implementation? Is there someone who can gauge how you’re doing and check you? For us, the content strategy team which met/meets weekly. We chat about all things, have writers bring us feedback and proposals, gauge morale, etc. If you go too fast, you’ll burn out or get injured. WS100: after 62 miles can have someone run with you to make sure you’re okay in the dark of night. My pacer, Chris, kept me safe, kept me going when I wanted to stop, kept me laughing.
• #18: SFDC: No shame in asking for help—ever. We asked our team about what they thought of our strategy. How we could fine tune it, make their jobs easier. We learned we couldn’t have a “one-size fits all” strategy because the SFDC platform is so massive, so many features unique, so our writers are all many content strategist working off of our high-level theme. WS100: I needed help with getting there, people crewing me, cheering me on, handing me headlamps in the middle of the night, checking my weight and blood-pressure… If I didn’t ask for help or get what I needed, I could’ve died!
• #19: SFDC: We have some clunky tools that hold back our productivity, but we’re always exploring new options. Tools are great, but they are not a panacea. Tools come and go, and you really don’t want that with your people. You’re people, team, relationships are your greatest asset, so listen to what they need, how to make it better – our walkthrough, guided tour tool is clunky and we’re making it better over time based on all the feedback from our people. WS100: No shoe, no supplement, no watch can take the place of the people who help me along the way – mentors, pacers, strangers cheering me on. It’s a sport that requires relationships and feedback, same as content strategy.
• #20: SFDC: You have to have fun and celebrate with your team. All work and no play burns everyone out, and it feels like there’s no reward. We have outings each release, bowling parties, awards, dinners, happy hours for specific accomplishments—regularly. WS100: Each race leading up to the event, I treat myself to eating whatever I want. Taking a road trip with my wife, going out for some wild dessert. If there’s no rewards along the way, the process is unenjoyabe and stale.
• #21: Last but not least, let’s talk about focusing on strengths over weaknesses. Management gurus and leadership teachers often mention that focusing on strengths is more productive and better for the organization than focusing on weaknesses. That’s definitely true for content strategy and running 100-mile races.
• #22: SFDC: Our team is great at improvisation. Our writers are extremely smart and talented and we knew that if we put together resources on our strategy, and gave them some minimal training (a day), they’d get it. We get out of their way and let them be mini-content strategist for their product areas, and the result is they do phenomenal work. WS100: I’m great at timed events in heat, such as desserts, so I don’t participate in events in mountains in Colorado, and frankly participating in heat is more fun for me—cuz it’s my strength for whatever reason.
• #23: SFDC: What’s our biggest weakness? 20-years of legacy content and a changed voice & tone. If we spent all of our time on those things, we’d never get the bigger ticket, customer asks out the door, such as interactive content through Trailhead, walkthroughs, videos. So we mitigate working on our weaknesses and focus on our strengths, which give us the biggest bang for our dollars. WS100: Elevation and snow. Just had to get through the first 30 miles and I’d be fine. If I concentrated on elevation training, all the driving to the mountains would’ve wasted time I could spend running on my feet and building a core for distance. Not worth focusing on that weakness.
• #24: SFDC: We didn’t just come up with a strategy after a meeting and have everyone follow it. No, our strength was that we assigned some of our best writers to come up with different strategies for different content types, create proof-of-concepts, and see what the result was in user testing. Without the guidance and vetting of a proof-of-concept, something to show executives too, can you imagine the mistakes we could’ve made? WS100: I’d spent years running marathons, 50-milers, 100Ks, and one 24-hour run under my belt before WS100. Each race taught me what I could do, and they were all proofs-of-concepts that showed me 100-miles was hard, but likely doable.
• #25: SFDC: We have celebrations of victories, but also breaks from our strategy. Writer Hack Days, speaking at conferences, being Scrum Masters for Agile teams, these are just some of the things we do to recharge our batteries as writers and team members. You don’t get stronger if it’s always full-steam ahead on the same projects. WS100: With running, I only run three-days a week. A lot of runners burn out by doing too much. To rebuild and recharge muscles, you have to lay off of them for at least 24-hours so that they can rebuild. This whole notion of running every day or lifting weights on the same muscle groups every day goes against science—people actually get weaker.
• #26: SFDC: When great at something, think you don’t need to plan for it. We have a UI Text and Voice & Tone teams that review writers work with one of our best strengths. Why? Because we want to bake our strengths into our strategy and remind writers what we’re best at. WS100: Since I’m good at running in heat, I can neglect doing it since I live in San Francisco on the ocean. I schedule running in the East Bay across the bridge where it can easily get 100-degrees so I’m still primed with my strength.
• #27: Hope: My first WS100 drag my leg for the last 10-miles, but still finished. Since of accomplishment, psychological SFDC: Terrified to present in front of 100+ people and get buy-in, but I finished. Since of accomplishment, psychological Some of the greatest personal and professional experiences of my life, even though scared, doubted myself, and constantly felt like there’s no way I could go on. I survived and flourished and you can too!!!
• #28: Obligatory call to action – go volunteer to do something scary on your team related to content strategy. The challenge may change your life. Same for running or exercise. Volunteer at a race or join a club to do something physical. It may seem impossible at the time, but it may change your life too!
• #29: Now, my favorite part of the presentation.