Collaborating with competitors on digital content
How can publishers turn content assets and data into new digital content businesses, and what can they learn from the digital transformation of healthcare, aviation and public sector organisations? The creative database engineers at MarkLogic have summed up the experiences of over 300 customers into four steps to guide your digital content transformation, with case studies from around the world…
At MarkLogic we are often asked for our thoughts on how to make the transition from Print to Digital based on how our 300+ customers around the world have done it. The journey is unique for every organisation but there are some key topics to consider for your company and its customers/ stakeholders:
1. Know your audience . . . really know your audience
How well do you know the people that use your products? Not just the decision makers that bring your information and tools into their organizations, but the actual workflow and processes the individual users take.
Questions to consider include: What are the gaps? Where else are they looking for content and information? How often do they switch between applications to compile the information that they need to complete their tasks? Do you need to add new data sources? Are there comparisons and queries that could save your users time?
Some of our customers have really had to consider their users’ particular needs and provide information in a way that can be easily consumed. Click to learn more about ALM Media a media company with a Legal & Commercial Real Estate audience and Mitchell 1 a division of Snap-On Tools providing repair, diagnostic and estimating information to the automotive industry.
2. Collect the data and content
The more information you can collect to present to your users, the more value they will get from your products. In addition to original, high value content, users benefit from all the relevant information surrounding it. Regulations, expert commentary and input from fellow users can broaden the topic and shorten information access times. If you can make it easy for all of the data sources to be combined together then you make it possible to include more sources more quickly. Fairfax County consolidated all its property information across Virginia and the FAA enabled ad-hoc users of spreadsheets and other data to provide their information to be brought together with other, larger data sources.
3. Deliver it in context
As more information becomes available, its delivery needs to be more precise. This can be tailored based on the user’s role, details they have provided (eg. location, subject matter) and their actions. Users most highly value products that are relevant to them. Accuracy can be critical in applications such as healthcare ; delivery flexibility is very important if your workers are mobile and the ability to be prepared for anything that users will want from your content and predict demand for it in the future is key.
4. Do it again
Content solutions must be repeatable and available in real-time – all the time. Information consumers wait for nothing and such is the pressure to keep up that previous competitors have been teaming up to service the needs of these consumers. Here is an example of Newz, a service set up and run by 12 competitors in The Netherlands in order to collaborate and control their content jointly. Referring to point one of this article – if you are an information consumer that likes bite-size chunks – then the summary of the Newz application starts 7 minutes and 20 seconds in to the video….
About the author: Adrian Carr is VP, EMEA at MarkLogic, and is chairing a session at the SIIA Digital Content & Media Summit on “How to think like a tech firm” on 24 September.
MarkLogic are a gold sponsor of the event and will also run a practical workshop on building digital content businesses featuring a range of case studies and opportunities for Q&A.
The SIIA Digital Content & Media Summit takes place 23-25 September at One Wimpole Street, London.
More about the full schedule and speakers here.
Register now to save £200 on your ticket.