New content for the new year

What better way to start the new year than with the resolution to improve your web content? With E3 Content Strategy entering its second year in business, I'm making the resolution to heed my own advice. And I'm really excited about the content I have lined up!

First of all, I have 2 great new blogging partnerships. Ahava Leibtag and I are teaming up to bring you a series of videos that use real-world examples to demonstrate key content strategy concepts and practices. Ahava (@ahaval) is a content strategy superstar from Washington, DC, and founder of AHA Media Group. She's also one of the presenters at the upcoming Confab content strategy conference, and is a whirlwind of creativity and ideas. Then, I'm swapping guest blogs with Vancouver-based information architect and founder of Key Pointe Usability Consulting, Theresa Putkey (@tputkey). With more than a decade of content and usability experience behind her, Theresa is completing her Masters degree in Librarian and Information systems. She's an incredibly smart cookie, and I'm thrilled that she's agreed to contribute one post per month to E3 Content Strategy showing how information architecture and usability are essential to content strategy. In turn, I'll be writing guest blogs once a month for Key Pointe that show how content strategy integrates into the user-centred design process.

In addition to these partnerships, I'm going to focus on a couple of themes over the next few months. You'll see a lot of new stuff on content strategy solutions, best practices, and quality writing. We've all been talking a lot about the process and discipline of content strategy, so now I want to talk more about the actual solutions. What they are, what problems they solve, how to implement them, and when they're useful.

Throughout 2010, I've read so many great articles, and run across so many good books, that I've decided to share them with you this year. Each month I'll publish a list of the best content strategy content that I find -- articles, videos, presentations, infographics, books... anything that's interesting and relevant. I'll even be sharing new content Strategy people that I've discovered. Let's face it, they're cropping up everywhere!

And I'm going to implement a couple of improvements to make it easier to find and share my content. Towards the end of 2011, I'll launch a client e-newsletter and update my website to make it easier to find articles of interest.

The biggest challenge will be for me to stick to my editorial calendar and regular blogging schedule. I like to set things up, come up with topics, make charts and put dates beside everything. Sitting down and getting it done is not always so much fun. But that's what resolutions are for. One blog per week, minimum, no exceptions. Bonus points if I publish two. There, I said it. Now you can hold me accountable.

So, between that and my client work, contributing to Firehead's Bitesized Content Strategy initiatives, and attending some great industry conferences (the Content Marketing Retreat and Confab are currently booked, yay!), I'm really excited about 2011. It's shaping up to be very busy, but very fun.

What would you like to see more of in the new year? Are there any topics you're particularly interested in? Or, what do you plan to contribute to the content strategy arena? Please leave a comment and let us know!

I wish you all an incredibly happy and successful new year, and thank you most sincerely for being part of my success in 2010.