Sessions

In a perfect world, IA would be at the heart of every digital publishing project, and personalization would be just another tool to deliver the best results. In reality, however, most IA practitioners encounter “personalization” initiatives long after critical decisions have been made. Too often, a product is demo’d (or sold) to a high-level marketing stakeholder, then content specialists and information architects are tasked with spinning straw into gold.

The goal of this talk is providing a meaningful high-level framework for personalization planning that leads to more successful initiatives AND more effective reality-checks when the product sales team comes calling. It provides set of questions and decisions that matter regardless of the personalization product a company is using, the CMS they’re running, or the industry they’re in. These questions and the answers they tease out can help cut through product-centric sales pitches and reconnect executive mandates to the reality of the underlying content.

Key takeaways from the session:

If your business publishes to the web, odds are you’ve heard the sales pitch for content personalization. Content marketers, enthusiastic CEOs, and thirsty vendors all seem to agree that visitor-tailored content is the future, but the reality on the ground rarely lives up to the promise of well-polished demos.

In this talk, we’ll step back and study four building blocks of tailored content: the stuff bot you and your boss need to understand *before* launching a bold new personalization initiative or purchasing a cutting-edge product. Along the way, you’ll learn how to save your sanity when the rollout arrives.