The create once publish everywhere myth: October 15, 2001 issue of New Thinking

October 15, 2001 New Thinking:
The create once publish everywhere myth

Website content management

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October 15, 2001

The create once publish everywhere myth

By Gerry McGovern

An unhelpful myth is being spread about content. Content management products are being sold with the promise that you can create content once and then publish it everywhere – to the Web, print, mobile phone, interactive TV, etc. This concept of ‘reusable’ content takes a very simplistic commodity-based view of content.

The reality is that it is difficult and expensive to create truly reusable content. In many situations, the extra expense may be greater than the benefits delivered by reusability.

Reusable software has been a bit of a Holy Grail for the software industry. The principle is simple: Instead of just writing bespoke once-off software, why not write software that can be used again, thus saving costs.

The theory of reuse is great. The key problem is that to create software or content that will be genuinely reusable requires changes in work practices and greater expense. Software developers realized that if they wanted to create reusable code they would have to add more steps, thus adding more time and expense, to the software development process.

Creating reusable content is not impossible, but it faces a number of challenges. When exploring a strategy whereby your content might be reused in a number of media, keep the following in mind:

Creating content that is reusable is more expensive. Someone who is writing an article that will appear in several media needs to take more time about ensuring that the content can indeed be published in several media, or indeed in different places within the same media. For example, if you want a piece of content to appear under several; classifications on your website (geographic, subject, etc.), then, at a minimum, you will need to spend time properly classifying that content.
Creating reusable content is more difficult. Quality content very much depends on the target reader and the context within which they will read the content. Creating content that communicates to several different readerships in several different media is a major task.
Creating reusable content is in danger of falling into the ‘jack of all trades and master of none’ trap. Let’s say you want to create content for a website. A good approach will be to mold that content in with other content on the website, by referencing and linking. However, if that content needs to be used in a print media, the references will have to be removed. This could have a major impact on the message being communicated.
Creating reusable content requires careful planning. Let’s say you want to create content for website and mobile phone use. The content might be 500 words long for the website, but that won’t do for a mobile phone. Instead you could structure it so that you start every document with a very short heading and descriptive summary. The heading and summary is then sent to the mobile phone. The writer will need to understand this in advance. They will need to write the heading and summary with the understanding that it must stand alone.
Creating reusable content may not be cost-effective. Careful analysis needs to be made so that the benefits derived from the reuse of the content is greater than the extra cost involved in making it reusable.

Gerry McGovern

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