As industry leaders are waking up to the value of Content Operations, it is becoming a foundational practice for delivering
Intelligent Customer Experience. Improving throughput of content supply chains, Content Operations is the dedicated practice in ensuring adherence to an organization’s overall Content Orchestration Model.
Content Operations collaborates with both Content Strategy and Content Engineering. Working with Content Strategy, Content Ops helps create processes and solutions to best serve business goals. With Engineering, Content Ops ensures the systems and infrastructure support an efficient content supply chain. The ultimate result? Healthy internal rhythms and workflows, and customers rewarded with intuitive and seamless content interactions.
As the Content Operations practice at [A] expands ,
Kit Brown-Hoekstra has joined the team as the new Content Operations Lead. She is responsible for the day-to-day building and direction of this practice. Content Operations is one of the three key practices (in addition to Content Strategy and Content Engineering) behind a successful Content Services Organization. Kit Brown-Hoekstra manages [A]’s Content Operations practice with over 25 years of experience in technical communication, much of it working with life sciences companies and localization teams.
Even though we’ve always had content operations as a management function within our profession, it’s only recently that we’ve started talking about it as a discipline. [A] is at the forefront of this discussion and evolution. I’m looking forward to elevating these discussions amongst our colleagues, refining the definitions, processes, and building on the efforts that have gone before to help our clients build toward their content intelligence transformation
Kit’s extensive experience with Society for Technical Communication as a well-known STC Fellow and former STC Society President, and certified trainer for the STC Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC) program only skims the surface of her relevant qualifications.
The team at [A] has a breadth and depth of knowledge about all aspects of content. I’m excited about working with and learning from this smart, dedicated team. I love that we focus on learning and sharing knowledge both internally and with our clients. Our clients are often leading the way in implementing new ideas, and have interesting and challenging content issues.
The value of Content Operations
A simple way to understand Content Operations is to think of it as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the enterprise’s content.
Content Operations creates and manages the frameworks that empower Content Strategy to work more seamlessly with Content Engineering. It benefits stakeholders across teams and departments by improving efficiencies and communications.
When the content frameworks and processes function well, teams can be more effective and efficient in their work, which not only saves costs, but also improves time to market, builds customer engagement, and improves the overall customer experience.
As Content Operations Lead, Kit not only builds and directs the practice at [A], but also works with Strategy and Engineering to develop the frameworks for managing content throughout its lifecycle. She identifies productivity savings through content supply chain efficiencies, such as improving content global-readiness, improving QA and change management processes, and facilitating cross-organization collaboration. She also leads active training and strategic engagement of client workshops, as well as training and empowering [A]gents in [A]’s Content Operations practice.
The role of the Content Orchestration Model
One of the driving forces behind Content Operations is the Content Orchestration Model (COM).
The Content Orchestration Model lays the groundwork for a new way of working with the knowledge assets within an enterprise. They can become part of an integrated whole, paired in a service-oriented environment with the rest of the enterprise and external partners and customers. It takes real orchestration, and that requires discovery and strategy before it happens. Content Operations has dedicated staff to make sure that all aspects of content coordination work smoothly and are scalable.
A major part of Kit’s charter is driving and designing Content Orchestration Models (COM) both as a methodology and as a client deliverable.
Further Content Operation Resources
More about Kit Brown-Hoekstra
Kit Brown-Hoekstra brings a background in life sciences, medical, and localization industries, as well as 25+ years of experience to [A]’s Content Intelligence team. As the Content Operations lead, Kit works with the Content Strategists and Content Engineers to help companies build better frameworks so that they can create global-ready content that effectively serves customers wherever they live and work.
A Fellow and former Society president for the Society for Technical Communication, Kit brings a deep commitment to the field of technical communication and to growing the value of the content teams she works with. She mentors, acts as Principal for Comgenesis, LLC, speaks at conferences globally, regularly contributes content to industry magazines, and has published two commercial books: T
he Language of Localization (2017, editor) and
Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and Other Collaborative Tools (2007 with Brenda Huettner and Char James-Tanny).