I came across the Priceonomics Content Playbook -- a jumbo-sized blog post (that could easily be a book) that outlined a strategy for creating interesting content. The key idea is to tell a story using data that only you have (or are willing to research). By using your proprietary data, you can write posts that no one else can, which is critical in standing out in the crowded internet.
I did some brainstorming as an example of how to generate content ideas with this method. In this case, I wanted a list of blog topics for SEP's company blog. SEP is similar to other software development firms but there are some unique aspects that could turn into potentially great content:
We gave people unlimited PTO at our service company and we didn't go out of business
How much does it actually cost to build a software project?
How many lines of code does a software company write in a year?
How and why of becoming an employee-owned software company (ESOP)
I started a consulting company, how do I "exit"?
Success of projects with and without discovery
What kind of insurance does a software consultancy need?
How do enterprise companies hire a software company?
What does a software company need to do to get ISO certified? Why should they?
How do you lay out an office for a software company?
Investing in professional development / how to run a professional development program
Book clubs at work
The first five decisions your dev team needs to answer before starting a project
So you want to hire some interns, how exactly does that work? Career fairs, legal stuff, prep, on-boarding
How to reject a candidate when hiring / how to stop an interview
Basic financial literacy for everyone at a consulting company (capacity, effective rate, opportunities, bank account)
How much reserve cash should you have for a software consulting company?
I'm sponsoring a conference and have a booth, what am I supposed to do now?
Sharing weekly staffing meeting notes with the whole company
Tracking company project experience, why, how, and the troubles
And I thought of a few ideas that were heavier on the story and research aspects:
The history of sticky notes and their use in software
The same principles that Chipotle uses to make a burrito is used to deliver software
Why government software is so expensive (example: TSA screening app)
Once I started to think about things that people in our company had special knowledge about, it was pretty easy to rattle off ideas. Are all of these ideas winners? No. But I think there are some posts that are more interesting and would attract more readers than yet-another article on the benefits of TDD or how to get started with NodeJS.
Armed with this new approach, I turned my attention toward the product I am running: MoraleApp. In the past, our blog has featured analysis and commentary about team happiness studies, articles of conflict in the workplace, and so on. It was fine, but it was something that anyone else interested in employee engagement could do.
We were not making use of our treasure-trove of data. We had daily mood data for hundreds of teams, some of which had been tracking for years. This is our unique advantage that we could use for content creation. People are strong opinions about the impact of certain practices on team morale, but little to no data to support their views. But we have this data!
The impact of crunch time on team morale
Is "having a case of the Mondays" a real thing?
Do teams hate scrum planning meetings?
How does the size of a team effect morale? How does adding/removing people?
What if we applied traditional process techniques to managing team happiness?
Is there a measurable improvement in morale following a team celebration?
talk about the 40hour research/writing/editing/charting process
talk about contacting people and how cold-emailing is scary
I came across the Priceonomics Content Playbook -- a jumbo-sized blog post (that could easily be a book) that outlined a strategy for creating interesting content. The key idea is to tell a story using data that only you have (or are willing to research). By using your proprietary data, you can write posts that no one else can, which is critical in standing out in the crowded internet.
I did some brainstorming as an example of how to generate content ideas with this method. In this case, I wanted a list of blog topics for SEP's company blog. SEP is similar to other software development firms but there are some unique aspects that could turn into potentially great content:
And I thought of a few ideas that were heavier on the story and research aspects:
Once I started to think about things that people in our company had special knowledge about, it was pretty easy to rattle off ideas. Are all of these ideas winners? No. But I think there are some posts that are more interesting and would attract more readers than yet-another article on the benefits of TDD or how to get started with NodeJS.
Armed with this new approach, I turned my attention toward the product I am running: MoraleApp. In the past, our blog has featured analysis and commentary about team happiness studies, articles of conflict in the workplace, and so on. It was fine, but it was something that anyone else interested in employee engagement could do.
We were not making use of our treasure-trove of data. We had daily mood data for hundreds of teams, some of which had been tracking for years. This is our unique advantage that we could use for content creation. People are strong opinions about the impact of certain practices on team morale, but little to no data to support their views. But we have this data!