Organizations need a new Content Orchestration Model (COM).

The practices we have discussed need to be included in a full, holistic picture that includes a Core Content Model® and a Core Semantic Model ([A], 2018a). The standardized structural model is an orchestration layer for content schemas. The semantic model is an orchestration layer for taxonomies and vocabularies. The Content Services Organization is an orchestration layer for the applications of standards and workflow among diverse, far-flung authoring groups.

These standards, in concert with other orchestration artifacts and processes, are maintained by the tripartite functions of Strategy, Engineering, and Operations along with an overall content leadership function.

Harmonious results can only be achieved when the many aspects of content (from structure to intent) work together in a harmonious fashion, allowing “content flow.” The orchestration of content helps to reduce or eliminate friction, allowing content to become intelligent and alive.

Together, these form what [A] calls the Content Services Organization (CSO), ideally positioned as a centralized orchestration function across the entirety of the integrated enterprise. The CSO itself, defined and chartered formally within the Content Orchestration Model (COM), and charged with enacting the COM, forms a multidisciplinary epicenter for standards orchestration. 

The Content Orchestration Model (COM) is the deliberate, designed plan for the eternity of content workflows. A chartered orchestration methodology provides a centralized environment for enacting global patterns across content and metadata sets that impact broad business value, including, but not limited to: Accessibility
  • Localization
  • Industry Standards
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Privacy
  • Security
  • Analytics
  • Compliance


Each of these functions benefits from integration into content models, semantic models, and standards for customer experience. Each needs to both provide and inherit shared patterns, and each needs orchestration to drive efficiency and effectiveness. 

Valuing content as a broker of customer experiences requires cross-functional management, and operational models that put controls in place for the movement, efficiency, effectiveness, and measurement of valuable content assets. (For an in-depth look, examine our article, “The Value of Content Assets: Guidance for Enterprise Executives.”)

This is where C-level executives come into play: the primary content services leader, a Head of Content, that leads the CSO, can report to a CMO, a head of Customer Experience, COO, or even to the CEO. The key is that the cross-functional content organization must have efficient executive sponsorship and be empowered and funded to live up to its broad mandate to unify the Content Orchestration Model, and therefore the customer experience, across the enterprise holistically. 

Senior mandate and fiat figures in as a key success factor to a CSO successfully carrying out its mission. A CSO can exist in a subsidiary group or within a business function if an enterprise-wide mandate cannot be accomplished. However, functionally-isolated CSOs will only succeed to the extent of their mandate and empowerment as an orchestration function.

There is clear business justification for investing in a COM and CSO as an internal content standards orchestration regime. Tangible profits and customer wallet share benefits can be derived from omnichannel delivery, dynamic personalization of content, and facilitating scalable operations (van Dijk, 2017). Greater customer traction can be derived from moving content to a consumption-based model that enables content fragments to be compiled. More automated assembly of content appropriate to different locales improves localization for international markets.



[A] provides services and consulting in Content Operations, Content Strategy, and Content Engineering.

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