A month ago, I began my adventure in the master program “Content Strategy”, at first I thought I did my homework well, searching, researching and learning everything possible on the internet about what Content means and I already knew what strategy means so I just combined the two words together to have “Content Strategy” , every now and then I decide to reflect on my decisions and at the beginning of the program I was sure that this program was the best approach for my future career, at the beginning we had the communication phase when we as student started knowing each other and forming small groups either for chit chat or for small tasks, I was the only one coming from the middle east and still living there too, I was beginning to feel some tension and fearing of being an outsider, as we managed ourselves through the first three weeks I was feeling much better and blending in, after three weeks of this satisfying approach the first lecture hit us and it was titled: “Kickoff-Workshop : what is content strategy”.
By that point, I already knew that “everything is content” and that content strategy is NOT and never will be content marketing, but then the first lecture hit us and then the second one and so on, the struggle begins, but in a nice way. We started hearing about all these new terms, definitions, and meanings, as a forever learning person I was on cloud nine but I also have to understand everything Rahel was saying even though I am at home tackling the idea to stay in my PJs and drinking my casual green tea, it was not my first experience with webinars and online teaching but it was the heaviest in terms of understanding the “content” and staying focused.
What stuck in my mind was a lot, what I can express I guess will be less:
· Content Strategy is the umbrella strategy.
· Content is the stuff between the tags and the substance in the container.
· Data + Context = Content
· Content lifecycle consists of 4 stages: Analyze, Collect, Manage, and deliver.
· Practicing COS is having a methodology to use as a framework.
· Content have hugely business benefits and business drivers.
· How to implement 5 pillars, gap analysis, and road map on a business.
After all these information I felt what she told us was perfectly logical, make sense and make me want to learn more, the presentation was perfectly structured and the books we had to read amplified our information on the topics, at that point I was and still is full of enthusiasm and ready to get lost in the content strategy jungle.
After finishing three lectures, the workshop in the presence week hit us, it was planned to accommodate online students hopefully! As a student who couldn’t be present at the presence week, Rahel session went smoothly and in the most comfortable way for me, by the time of the presence week my stress about the program and how it will go and all the technical questions I had in mind had already been answered and everything was running smoothly, so it was easy to follow and we had real case study with Sharifa which made implementing all the techniques we learned much more interesting and logical.
What I took with me from the workshop:
· The problems and consequences of product content.
· Mind mapping for complexity, content operations, and contentOps.
· It was the first time I heard about Taxonomy and Ontology, apparently Ontology is Taxonomy + relationships.
· And lastly Content Management: domain models, content types, content flows, content models, data security, media law, and ethics, accessibility, and inclusivity.
After the “Kickoff-Workshop: what is content strategy” I am perfectly aware of what content strategy means, I have a lot of new information and ideas in my head and feel more connected and more involved in the content world, I am sure now more than ever that this master is what I have been searching for, the most precious thing I learned is we as students together we can save each other by helping and being there for each other as we are all trying to blend working, social life, different responsibilities, and master program together, for myself I can add working on my German skills to the equitation, the adventure is still at its beginning but it will be a nice one and I am more enthusiastic than even to perceive the many opportunities for improvement and change.