I recently started a new job on the Training team here at ServiceNow where I am digging into how we are making decisions about what types of learning content we should create and how that content is experienced. We want to engage with our ServiceNow customers and partners in ways that are meaningful to them and help them to achieve their goals, all while providing great learning experiences everywhere they interact with us and our content.
I have been thinking quite a bit lately about what a content strategy for learning looks like and a 3 circle Venn Diagram (remember those??) keeps coming to mind.
- Clinton Forry & Content Strategy
The first time this happened I was listening to the Content Strategy Podcast (yes, there is a podcast for that, there is a podcast for everything!) where the OG of Content Strategy Kristina Halvorson and Clinton Forrey of Shopify are discussing his definition of Content Strategy. He says, “content strategy helps align an organization’s goals with audience expectations via sustainable online content,” and he has created a Venn diagram to show how these things intersect.
Source: https://www.content-ment.com/2017/06/content-strategy-aligns-you-your-audience-and-your-content.html
He goes on to outline what is in each circle.
- First, the organization’s goals are the things that the organization needs to do.
- The second circle details audience expectations.
- The third are the things that you can create.
If you are operating in the middle where what you need, what people want, and what you can create overlap, the end result will be the most efficient and effective content for the consumer.
- Past Lives and Content Strategy
The second time Venn Diagrams recently popped into my head I was reflecting on similarities to work I have done in a previous work life. I come from the taxonomy and Information Architecture world and whenever I was asked to create a new taxonomy, I used the following methodology (adapted from http://www.greenchameleon.com/uploads/Taxonomy_Process_Poster_A4.pdf) to create the taxonomy.
- First, I aimed to understand the Business Goals; this is defined as what the business wanted to achieve with the taxonomy.
- Second, through research, I would try to understand who the primary users of the taxonomy would be, what tasks they would be trying to do, what goals they were trying to achieve, or the “User Warrant”.
- Thirdly, I would perform a content audit to understand what can existing content and organization systems tell me about what is currently in use – and this I would call the Content Warrant.
Anything that landed in the overlap of Business Goals, User Warrant, and Content Warrant was where the beginnings of the taxonomy structure would come from.
- Towards a Content Strategy for Learning
All this brings me to my third Venn Diagram, where visualizing the overlap between a business' goals, learners’ goals, and what learning content can be produced is helping me to think about how to develop a content strategy for learning.
- Business’ goals are to change the behavior of a specific audience.
- Learners’ goals are to learn something to improve performance, get skills to find a new job, or enhance their life.
- The content is what can be produced with existing tools, workflows, and standards.
The union or overlap of these three circles clarifies where the business’ goals and learners’ goals overlap with the types of content you can create. This can help you to make good decisions and answer questions about what type of learning content you should and can produce.
The ‘rule of three’ principle suggests that things that come in three are inherently more satisfying and effective than any other number of things. I don’t know if this is actually true for content strategy, but I will continue to explore the topic by continuing this blog series to dive further into learning content strategy topics. I will discuss what a good content strategy looks like, examples of content strategy we have implemented here are ServiceNow in our training department, and other related topics. Comment below to let me know your thoughts on this topic or if there are other topics you would love to read more about!
