Content is King

And the more I talk to my co-workers, friends and customers, the less contentment I am seeing. I have been working on a document for some time now that tries to make sense out of how to build a goal driven web community with a good chance of success- sadly my actual work schedule and minute aspects of real life keep getting in the way of completion.

Frustration abounds from all side- perhaps a function that should be self-evident doesn’t work as expected (stupid developers) or a site suddenly isn’t available in the middle of a meeting (stupid back-hoe drivers ripping out power lines) or someone has tried 38 times to retrieve their password and no ones helping (stupid site admins- oh wait- that’s me); or maybe you’re just planning to deploy something and while your head is swimming with all the options another stakeholder steps in with a new requirement (it has to be blue).

Your users have no faith in wikis because they don’t understand them and the site’s down for 8 minutes- no longer believes in the technology: time for a level set. Righteous indignation is not conducive to a productive business environment- as much fun as it might be.

Deep breath.

You can’t move fast without some pain (just ask anyone who runs track) and every new tool requires some getting used to. If something doesn’t work out after making a reasonable amount of effort, even in failure you have succeeded in learning that your original expectations were off and have the opportunity to re-adjust and try again with better understanding and direction.

The best way to proceed, I have found and empower the people I work with (and play - I manage a “guild” site for World of Warcraft players- talk about an ugly [literally- they are Horde] intolerant demanding bunch) is that rather than guaranteeing a result, promise the journey itself will be rewarding- bruises and charley horses and all.

To quote Lou Reed (wholly out of context of course) it’s the “Beginning of a Great Adventure”.

Or at least an interesting one. That should be enough to make anyone content.

-Kip