Reuse and content management

There were a number of interesting papers at the Content Management Strategies Conference 2006 on reusing content. In particular presentations by Jan Johnson-Tyler and Liz Augustine. The following are the some interesting comments from my notes:

Reuse

- Types of reuse 1) modularization (chunking, components), 2) Cloning (similar but not identical, derivatives) 3) Profiling

- Write once, use repeatedly.

- You need to manage components, especially items that may be used in multiple documents (examples include copyright statements, titles, slide background, logos). If you change them in one document you need to change them in all.

- Use need a consistent organizational reuse strategy. Content should be organized by subject, not deliverables. Reorganize content around reuse goals. Books should be prepared using consistent logic, not a book-by-book basis (in otherwords, build the book in reusable chunks).

- Multiple formats are a challenge. Need to convert before reusing. This is a real challenge in legacy document.

Templates

- Templates should look exactly like the product you're producing, so authors can see the playing field that they're working with.

- Define format, font size, use of colors and size of papers.

- Use colors consistently so they can serve as visual cues, not just to look pretty.