When I was working in the trenches of retail, my favorite days were inventory day. It was an entire shift designated to being locked away in a stock room. Surrounded by hundreds of boxes and tasked to count and organize them all. This typically took hours and was the perfect foxhole to hide out in. My escape from retail evidently was done in order to permanently lock myself away from shoppers. However, I hung up my sales apron up and walked away with inventory skills that I carry great pride for.
Dr. Kim’s lecture in module three uncovered that I will utilize these skills into my technical writing career. Content strategy development cannot be left to the wind. It is something that must be organized in order to set up for success. Further exploring the steps outlining the plan of strategy development gave me a clear insight. An insight that cleared the storm clouds that covered my goal of becoming a technical writer.
One of my struggles with grasping the courage to become a writer (in any sense of the word) is understanding what is expected of me. The ugly truth is that only I can find my own expectations. Cultivating that confidence has required me learning what exactly a technical writer does. Before taking this course, I was unable to even define what a content inventory or audit was. However, since learning these two terms, I have found more confidence in my own writing.
Content Inventory
The retail infantry I had chosen to serve in was Bath & Bodyworks. Our inventory included candles, body sprays, and lotions. If you can, imagine a room created with hundreds of boxes containing thousands of these items. Each box was indistinguishable and it took hours of work to organize the walls of boxes through strategy and insight. This was inventory day. I still feel sparks of excitement when I think back to creating my list of inventory.
Although content strategists don’t have to comb through boxes of inventory, they still have their own rendering of an inventory room. This inventory must be listed, thrown away, and organized. Excel is the preferential way to list out and sort the inventory. Digital content is captured by the raw data such as URL, format, and categories. With a completed inventory, an audit can then be conducted.
Content Audit
Content auditing was quite possibly the most intentional piece of information this module taught me. Although I knew how to create an inventory, I was unskilled in analyzing the quality. This quality assessment is actually easy: keep, edit, or delete. Much like with the candle boxes I once handled. Are the candles going out on the floor? Is it this season’s scents or next seasons? Would it be beneficial to throw out the candles? Or, should we keep the boxes for the next mega sales?
The same can be – and should be – done to digital content. How can the content be sorted? Is any of the content outdated or repeating? How is the quality? Does the content meet the clients goals? These are all questions left to the strategist. A strategist locked away on their computer and left to create inventories and analyze these lists for quality control. Somehow, I still feel the same spark of excitement that the inventory room gave me. The only difference being that I don’t have to list heavy boxes (thank the retail heavens).