MCN2015

The landscape of content channels, tools, and opportunities for communicating to and with the public is evolving at a rapid pace. This presents new challenges and opportunities for content creation and use from both public and internal user experience perspectives. In the typical siloed institution, it is often difficult for staff in individual departments to step back and look at their institution as it appears in totality to the public.

In his 2013 article “Designing for Services Beyond the Screen,’ Andy Polaine wrote, “...even if your “job” ends at the design for a specific channel, your users’ experiences don’t. Your website or mobile app might be wonderful on its own, but customers experience services in totality, and base their judgments on how well everything works together. This means the transitions between channels and over time become crucial.”This session will explore three institution’s approaches to moving toward a more cohesive user experience across all content channels, particularly new and evolving digital channels.

In 2013, Minneapolis Institute of Arts established a cross-functional team, the Communications Working Group, to collaborate, iterate, and strategize around content. This team helped to clarify editorial workflows (both in print and online), identify priorities for a multitude of communication channels (from mailings to screens in the lobby), and reach consensus across departments. It was in this group that an editorial workflow within WordPress was proposed, tested, and implemented with great success. The group is a place to raise questions and try new approaches.

Moving forward, the goal will be to align content across channels. With an enhanced set of tools for constituent relationship management (CRM) and integrated access across platforms with enterprise content management (ECM), the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will continue to learn what kind of content resonates most with visitors and work to deliver that in a consistent and efficient manner.

The Corning Museum of Glass enlists a cross-departmental group of staff to manage web content and actively monitor areas of the museum’s website and public digital projects. This group, called the Power Users, not only manage content in their areas, but also provide feedback based on what they learn about users’ experiences and identify opportunities for improvement and ideas for new content creation across all museum digital channels.

This formalized role for staff engages them in the day-to-day web content that makes up the museum’s website, blog and social media. In turn, we’ve garnered support for overarching digital initiatives across the institution and, with help from the Power Users, increased collaboration between departments on digital projects including the recently launched GlassApp.

In 2014, the Minnesota Historical Society formed a cross-departmental group called Strategic Content Management to establish best practices, standards, and tools that support agile and efficient content creation processes in order to to create a more cohesive public user experience.The group struggled to get off the ground at first, but after heeding advice from the MCN 2014 session, “How to Be an Agent of Change,” co-group organizers were established and adopted this work as part of their jobs.

Session themes will explore:
- The balance between quality, design, and usability standards and staff autonomy
- Project filtering processes that address institutional priorities, institutional strategies, and sustainability (including sustainability of existing content)Content development processes and systems that enhance creation, sharing and repurposing of content and foster collaboration between departments
- Evolving staff roles - balancing the traditional role of service areas (like web, IT, media and marketing) with capacity building across other staff and related HR policies and organizational structure