As varied people intersect focused on a particular issue, we can have several outcomes (and plenty of opinions)

1. We can continue to see things as individual contributors.

2. We could interpret and integrate the best ideas of all contributors

At the end of the day, I think the varied opinions and experiences will benefit the whole. I hope you agree.

All the best,

Seamus

If your website is brochureware and does not give users the ability to book orders with future delivery I think you are safe for now. But anyone who is selling customized products, services or are allocating finished goods work-in-process to customer orders it is a necessity.

You know much more about the automobile industry then I, but the scenario holds true for many product and service industries. I walk into a showroom and don’t order off the lot (current in-house inventory.) Instead I order a car for a future delivery with custom features, integration is required for insight into raw materials, labor requirements, ship dates etc.

Even product companies like Nike and Timberland, mass produce custom products. As clients and customers expect more, we all need to have web integration to enterprise applications for insight that can serve the customer the details about the order.

There is no doubt, the barriers the naysayers are many, but as companies integrate the web more and more into the customer’s buying life-cycle the silo’s will have to come down.

Agree with you on this one. Firguring out what to actually call this was something I admittedly struggled with and I agree that it presumes the Web should drive everything, which I certainly don’t support.

Agree with your point as well on the fact that social, product and consumer insights are often part of enterprise content strategy, but I’m of the belief that many big agencies, think tanks and content producers don’t approach it in the same order and way that content strategy does.

I’m finding that many brands aren’t asking for these deliverables in their enterprise-wide strategies.

For example, in my experience (which admittedly is within an advertising agency) many brands view ‘personas’ as what they are receiving from a media buying partner as opposed to the deeper variety that would come from strategists that gather everything from social technographics to Forrester data, etc. That leaves creative direction on content to production to client direction or creative direction only, which can result in a huge content failure.

I guess it’s my true hope that we’re able to start showing how success in the digital space via a strong strategic framework and rigid testing, can provide huge wins in every other communication medium when planned with the same care that some firms are now giving their web contnet.

Perhaps I’ll go through the exercise of changing it. Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Hoping some other folks chime in with their experiences with barriers to developing on the enterprise side as well.

- Dan

All of the processes that you describe as web content strategy-oriented, like:

“Through synthesis of strong consumer, social and product insights that lead to several personas, content creators have shorter creation cycles due to laser focused content goals and reduced maintenance cycles.”

are done for enterprise-wide communications strategies all the time. That’s what I’ve spent my last few years doing.

The web is an element in a company’s communications strategy. It’s one gun in the arsenal. It can be an cannon or a rifle, depending on personas and business needs (retail business=very important, vs. retirement home=not so much). One communications channel shouldn’t drive the communications strategy for everything else.

Just my 2 cents!
Katie