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I’ve spent my whole working life helping people to keep their writing clear and simple, so it was an honour to be asked to help judge the 2012 Centre for Plain Language ClearMark Awards.

This March a panel of plain language specialists from all over the world will be going through nominated websites and print documents with a fine-tooth comb. Or is that fine-toothed comb? There’s nothing like the judging process to keep you on your toes – as I’ve found through being involved with New Zealand’s own WriteMark Plain English Awards.

One thing I like about being part of a judging  panel is it really challenges your assumptions and habits. It’s also a great opportunity to stand back and take a good look at what’s happening in your industry. There is much cross-checking, discussion, and questioning – and utter delight when you come across an entry that clearly nails it. I can’t wait.

Find out more about the ClearMark Awards

The WriteMark New Zealand Plain English Awards winners have been announced and we are delighted to say that one of our clients has won the private sector web content category.

Optimal Usability specialise in design that makes things easy. Their web content was no exception.

The judges said:

“This site has a clear, straightforward purpose with highly targeted, engaging content. The services are explained very well and as a new user it was easy to find and follow every section.”

I should point out that because Writeclick had created content for the site, I had no say in judging Optimal Usability’s entry. It was assessed by Annetta Cheek – Chair of the Centre for Plain Language, and Marieke McCloskey – user experience specialist with Nielsen Norman Group (both USA).

Thanks again to Write for organising the awards, which continue to encourage more Kiwi businesses and public organisations to communicate clearly. As the Centre for Plain Language states on its website, plain English is a civil right. Too right.

Winners and finalists – WriteMark New Zealand Plain English Awards 2011
Centre for Plain Language
Optimal Usability

It’s half time in the judging of the web content categories in this year’s WriteMark New Zealand Plain English Awards. A good time to take five and reflect on the quality of the writing on New Zealand websites.

This year’s entries represent a diverse bunch:  lawyers, financial advisers, web designers, health and fitness people, HR types and the anticipated slew of government organisations.

They have all made a great effort to get their sites as clear and user friendly as possible. Hooray! Your clients will love you. Or at the very least they’ll like using your websites.

Cheers once more to Write Group for organising the awards, finding the wonderful overseas judges, rallying the entries and generally championing the plain English cause in New Zealand.  It’s an honour to be asked to help with the judging again.

Winners will be announced in the Listener on Saturday 19 November. Check them out and revel in the clarity.

WriteMark New Zealand Plain English Awards

We are currently working with a dream client – a high profile public organisation that’s redesigning its already popular website. Our brief: to help them make their content even better.

This project has been different in every way to every other project we’ve ever worked on. And because of the rise of content strategy in New Zealand, I know it’s a harbinger of things to come.

Here’s what’s so good about this fabulous client, who I’ll name when their new site is up and you can judge the results of their on-to-it-ness yourself.

CONTENT STRATEGY
Before they got external web writers in (us) they did their content strategy. The results of this thinking are summarised in five short, sweet pages.

It’s all there: site and business objectives, audience groups, content structure/ high level information architecture, style and tone, how content will be created, published, governed and measured – and a timeline for what’s happening when.

This is the stuff we usually help people to work out, so we were delighted when they said they had not only made a start but had a complete content strategy!

CONTENT INVENTORY
Our client had drawn up a spreadsheet documenting source, writer, owner and reviewer for each page of the new site. We use content inventories all the time so it was great to have one ready to go. They’re a handy project management tool that shows what content is signed off, being reviewed or still to write.

CONTENT PAGE TABLES
Content inventories, or ‘content plans’, have been a regular feature of our projects since 2005 – page tables are another great planning tool. In this case, our client sent us a page table for every page. Half content template half page schematic it’s a beautiful thing.

Each page table briefly noted audience, purpose, key messages, keywords, source content and links for each page. Writing from a detailed content inventory is fast. Writing from page tables is faster. Thanks I’m sure to Brain Traffic for sharing this format and approach.

REALISTIC TIME FRAME
Perhaps the best thing about this project is that the timeframe was set by someone who has written a lot of content, and knows how long it takes to plan, write, review and publish.

This person has a lot of other things on their plate. But being proactive, realistic, and experienced, they got in touch with us a full six months before their site was due to launch. Stop it! Six months? Really.

We are writing the content in blocks so our client’s small team can review it in manageable bursts while juggling everything else they’ve got on. Stress free content. It’s the way of the future.

When the new site is up I’d like to post an interview with the smart cookie who drove this project from the inside, to get his perspective on the joys of starting a website redesign with content strategy.

He represents the new guard of online managers who are taking a strategic and systematic approach to their content because A) it just makes sense and B) they can’t afford not to.

Found: one brilliant content strategy podcast. I’ve just been listening to Daniel Eizans and Kristina Halvorson and must share now!

Daniel is a content strategist at the bold and beautiful American ad agency Campbell Ewald. He nonchalantly tells us they’ve had a content strategy group for three or four years. Hear that New Zealand agencies?

He tells us ad copy doesn’t work online. True, but too many agencies in this country have been slow to catch up. Maybe tuning in to talks like this will help turn the tide.

Daniel worked as a content strategist for Chevrolet. His reflections on that project show how content strategy can work in practice alongside design, development, content creation and user experience, to ultimately drive sales through a large international site.

Not that it’s all about sales – whatever your site goals are, you need to be able to measure them. Metrics take centre stage in this enthralling little chat and Daniel connects the dots between analytics, user behaviour, content creation and the post-launch conundrum.

Campbell Ewald apparently do a lot of content strategy work for government agencies who are realising their behemoth sites packed with years of legacy content are in quite a state.

Metrics again come into play. ‘Time on site’ on these sorts of sites usually isn’t something to be proud of. That 15 minute visitor isn’t lapping up your content, they’re lost!

Bookmark the podcast – Kristina chews the fat each week with a new and infinitely interesting digital content person. Previous chats include Blake Eskin, Editor of the NewYorker.com, Peter Merholz, founding partner and CEO of Adaptive Path, and Ann Rockley, founder of the Intelligent Content Conference.

http://5by5.tv/contenttalks/

http://danieleizans.com/