\u201cAnyone familiar with the ancient Egyptian fixation on felines (cat statues, cat pictographs) and the mid-century American obsession with TV would at least have some pretext to accept that one of the largest conglomerates on the planet is the owner of a massive video site with millions of cat clips.\u201d<\/p>\u2014 Zeynep Tufekci* <\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Now that was surprising! I could hardly contain myself!!! It\u2019s\ntotally true!! Our lives (or those of my friends and I) revolve around the\nfeeding, cleaning-up-after, and placating of cats. That aside, humanity, if I\ncan be so bold as to comment collectively, really hasn\u2019t changed\u2014despite the evolution\nof our tool set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We remain as selfishly stupid and as supremely susceptible to the seven sins as at any time in history before. So where, I must ask, is the value proposition in that? And are ALL those cat clips really necessary?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which leads me to the next rail car on my thought train: Outcome vs. output and how it contributes to value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As has been documented many times over, we are a world obsessed with output. And our clients demand it. What they don\u2019t tend to think about in marketing and content strategy is that to be truly successfully, content output must be matched up to a content strategy<\/a> and an outcome. Otherwise, where is the value add?<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be truly successfully, content output must be matched up to a content strategy and an outcome. Otherwise, where is the value add? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Confession<\/em>: A highpoint in my life is viewing a stymied subject matter expert, generally an MD in my industry, as I debate with them pros and cons of content output vs. content outcome. Does the content truly help us meet our goals? I\u2019m sure my glee is palpable\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, here is some of our top performing content of all time: interviews with subject matter experts published with transcripts to our website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Out of all our content, approximately 30 assets (.002%) our of 15,000 drive almost a quarter of all our web traffic. (See Fig 1. Note that I added 10 of our top performing blogs to 20 of our interviews for the 30 assets, which I didn’t show in the figure\u2014sneaky. Sorry about that. They do exist!!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n To me, this sparks multiple suppositions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In slowing down to consider more fully however, are these really should-do\u2019s or are they rather could-do\u2019s? Where is this traffic going after it arrives? And what outcome are we looking for? The further research I conduct into this question, the more I question our content machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t get me wrong, I believe you must have that eternal balancing\nof the scales. A conglomeration of high performing cat clips was not established\nwithout much experimentation and mass quantities of cats. But I do believe we\nmust create with an eye towards quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t fret overly much about keeping the content scales balanced with both quantity and quality. A conglomeration of high performing cat clips was not established without much experimentation\u2014and mass quantities of cats. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n And I\u2019m grateful to note that in my organization we are also\nbecoming obsessed with outcome and quality of outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I find that sometimes our higher quality content is not\nnecessarily our highest performing nor are we producing it in high quantities.\nHere I must pause and identify a value add for our organization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For my team, we have determined that measurable outcomes consist of, essentially, lead generation. How many clicks on the \u201cSchedule an appointment\u201d button can we track? How many taps on the scheduling phone number? Can we get all this data lumped together onto a dashboard that reflects in a quantifiable number the difference our team is making?**<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alas, there are major gaps in our data collection. We cannot\ntrack if an appointment was actually requested once a lead has called the phone\nnumber. Nor can we track if a request form submission has led to an appointment\nscheduled. We also cannot connect whether a particular lead driven by video or\nwritten content has resulted in a higher value patient for the organization\n(namely resulting in a surgery\u2014something our specialists find extreme value in\u2014and\nnot only for the revenue).<\/p>\n\n\n\n And for other teams creating content in our organization, quantification and value remains somewhat mystical. What is the value of that high performing content that drives so many site visits? Since it was technically created in the name of brand recognition, how can it hurt us to have such massively successful content?^<\/p>\n\n\n\n One also can\u2019t negate the benefit of this content for our internal\nstakeholders. Is some volume necessary to keep the peace even if the long-term\nvalue is negligible? (Btws, I\u2019d say yes. If you have to create something for a\nstakeholder to give them a twinge of joy or that, hopefully, leads to data\ncollection on why it\u2019s not a value add\u2014BY ALL MEANS VINDICATE YOURSELF. And if\nyou fail, it was in the spirit of experimentation. We must keep our sense of\nhumor about us.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n But still I do pause to wonder, could quantity hurt us? When\ndoes quantity negate a value add? (More on that in an upcoming post as I have\nbeen watching some experimentation in our content ecosystem.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n When does quantity negate quality and therefore its value proposition? <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Sidenote in the name of quantity: #DYK that the monuments of ancient Egyptian culture morphed from pyramids of massive size to smaller hidden tombs to temples that remain UNESCO heritage sites to this day? We all have heard of the Egyptian obsession with a life after death, but did you also know that they massively stockpiled provisions and small representations of servants (ushabtis) and the like to aid them in their next-life journeys?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes I can\u2019t help but think that the ushabtis and cats mummified for this cause, while probably high in quantity and supportive of Egypt\u2019s economy, probably did not return the value expected by their purchasers\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enough already now though of the musings and questions and\nassumptions. Let them have solutions! Let us unsheathe the teeth and claws.\nWhich of these propositions leads in a bid for value?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I dare you to identify frameworks in your life that are hybrid\npartners vs. centralized in nature. A few come quickly to mind:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Notice that in all of these situations, there are a variety of models, from rebel (Seraut’s points) to central (Google) to hybrid (the US of A). There is no clearly dominating model that seems to work better than any other.***<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dennis Shiao, for Content Marketing Institute writes that companies, much like those parallel examples above, organize around content<\/a> in three different models (as illustrated in Fig 2):<\/p>\n\n\n\n And here I make my stand and offer my solution for the pursuit of value: With the caveat of leadership influence, I make a bid for the hybrid model. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I proffer the proposition that true value lies in a balance between the content created by rebels and the overlord conjointly, for these reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n And therefore, my value proposition: Don\u2019t dismay if you\nhave content creators who aren\u2019t following all the best practices or centralized\nstandards. Some of the stuff they create is amazing and resonates with an\naudience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Do strive to represent a unified brand and style guide<\/a> to represent consistency and quality in your work. Do work towards data collection and quantification of output in the hopes of demonstrating good practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hybridize and experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My value proposition: Work towards a hybrid content model where you empower individuals but maintain a strong centralized brand and structure around desired content outcomes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n While I like to think that I am the alpha (and can site\nevidence towards this theory), I must acknowledge that I often bow to the\nvagaries of my felines. Without their hidden depths and uncanny ability to surprise\nme, however, I would not be such a delightfully centered eccentric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are, of course, each a singular sensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *\u201dFree Riders\u201d by Zeynep Tufekci. Wired Magazine<\/em> Sep 2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n **Let me refer you here to an amazing podcast from Brain Traffic with Kristina Halverson and some content data analysts at Harvard who have been able to create such a magnificent dashboard. I am simultaneously immensely envious that they have an actual data scientist and extremely chuffed that my department is also dabbling in this. Democratizing Data at Harvard<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n ^I want to assure you that I have plans around establishing and assigning a measurable value to this. If only I could find the time for the analysis!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n ***I\u2019m ignoring the fact here that Google basically owns all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Outcome vs. Output, Quality vs. Quantity, Hybrid vs. Central I was recently reading an article in Wired magazine that postulated time traveling (not surprising) and used it to put forth a commentary on our contemporary society (not surprising). They posit that a social scientist plucked from the eons of time is brought forward to 2019. … Continue reading The Value Proposition & Cats<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13],"tags":[26,5],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","category-strategy","tag-cats","tag-u-of-u-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":45,"href":"https:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":677,"href":"https:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions\/677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Cats](\"http:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/cat-emojis.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nOutcome vs. Output<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"A](\"http:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/top-performing-1024x659.png\")
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/scales.jpg\")
Quality vs. Quantity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Hybrid vs. Centralized<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Fig](\"http:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/content-organization2.jpg\")
![\"Sketch](\"http:\/\/jenbrassjenkins.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/singular-sensation.jpg\")
<\/a>
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