Publishing in the Digital Age: Nimble Content

Tonight, instead of our usual potluck dinner social session, the #techgirlsdinnerclub hit the city streets for a talk on Publishing in the Digital Age hosted by UX Melbourne. The special event was held at Horse Bazaar, a really cool little hole in the wall with great decor and an impressive audio-visual setup catering to, I assume, many various types of arts/music/presentation events. They even had a Tuesday special $10 dumpling deal that included a 10 minute massage (!), and though their snack menu was tempting, it was the $6 mulled wine that won me over (a delicious tonsil town xmas party!).

Rachel Lovinger was the speaker, hailing from New York where she works for Razorfish, a marketing company whose mission intent it to ‘build great brands by creating engaging experiences for consumers’. If you ask me, this intent sounds much like what any marketing company would attempt to achieve for a client, but Razorfish has campaigns with Mercedes Benz, CNN, Microsoft, The New York Times… so they must be doing something right?

Personally, I’m interested in publishing because I believe in this crazy notion that one day we will all be publishing our own content based on our interests, as opposed to content being published for us in this respect. I’m not quite sure how this will come about, but as the ‘times are ever a-changin’ (and fast), it has become one of my goals to inform myself more on the topic.

So here’s what I was able to grasp/jot down:

NIMBLE content (Rachel’s specialty and emphasis) = Content that machines can understand.

Content needs to be free (like a bird, not like beer). ---> (Ha!)

It must travel freely, as in be: socially-enabled, mobile friendly and on-demand.

It must retain context and meaning, as in: content needs to include mark-up language/tags that provides and links to provides meaningful information.

It must be structured, well defined and well described, as in : information separated from presentation and segmented into usable bits.

An important aspect of Nimble content is Linked Data: Data that is related and already created by someone else, that can be mapped to your data.

So… Revenue Models?
- Provide premium services (apps, ‘pro’ accounts).
- Online advertising
- Thematic matching.

Revenue can come from: Customers, partners, advertisers, governments/not-for-profits.

Those working in the age-old publishing industry must look at their roles differently in the new digital age. Content distribution now = Channels, Devices and Platforms.

I found this part especially interesting – Editors now become Curators of content.
- They must compile content from a variety of sources.
- Use archived content, provide context and meaning.
- Manage ad partnerships.

I found all this information to be suitably simple and it provided great food for thought. If you’re more tech savvy, then have a look through this much more advanced slideshow I just came across, which is clearly what Rachel usually presents to IT crowds worldwide!

Also, if you’re interested in this conversation, be sure to check out Rachel’s super-fly web-publication on the topic @ http://nimble.razorfish.com/

Make Your Content Nimble

View more presentations from Rachel Lovinger

--- JGB (www.makingjgb.blogspot.com)

Continue Reading...

Life: Twitter Meetup & Market Day

Walked into the city from Richmond on a beautiful Friday evening (15k there and 15k back!). Australia Open (Tennis) made for crowds dispersed all over.

 

I made it to The Lounge on Swanston street and took a picture of myself in the bathroom to document my presence (?):

I had to pep talk myself on the way to the #MTUB meetup – even for social types, it’s unnerving to walk into a room full of people you don’t know and try to strike up a chat. I reassured myself of my bubbly personality and ability to make good conversation and made my way to the table with  Twitter nametags on it and donned my @JessGenevieve handle for the evening.

What I loved most about this experience was being able to walk up to anyone wearing a nametag and strike up a conversation in relation to absolutely anything. I chatted to complete strangers about film, social media, Twitter how tos, goals, project development, The Corner, career planning, Melbourne, swing dancing, snapping ankle ligaments, traveling, visas, and much more. I think it’s great that this group serves as an excuse for people to get out of the house and chat over drinks with like-minded others. It was great to have so many people out, I found myself jumping from one conversation/group of people to another.

After three glasses of wine, I found myself more socially lubricated than I was prepared to be around strangers and decided to head out and feast on my handy roadie burritos and bottle of water to sober up. The burritos was so delicious that I found myself commemorating it with a picture…

After sobering up I walked to The Arthouse where friends were abound. Had a good time being social, but spent all my money and drank more beer than necessary. My walk home with my ipod was fast-dance-paced, inspiring and invigorating, as it usually is in those situations.

I awoke to a sunny market-day Saturday. It’s insane how cheap the fresh fruit and veg are at the Richmond (Gleadell Street) Market. We usually head over before the stalls close up, so that we get the best deals. Our strategy is to walk to the end of the stalls and scope out the best deals and then walk back to grab up the best deals. Sean usually handles the grappling of goods as I get ridiculously claustrophobic around the frantic foreign old women, intrusive buggy carts and screaming sale seekers.

 

We try to scour cookbooks (which I borrow from the library) and make a list of ingredients for  recipes to make for the week. All of the goods pictured below cost a total of 20$!

To celebrate, we made ourselves a delicious breakfast with all the fixings!

Stay tuned for this week’s recipes!

Continue Reading...