Term of the Week: Content Engineering

Why does a content strategist need to know this?

Engineering applies scientific principles to the design, development, support, and use of systems that are themselves made up of structures and processes. The challenge of engineering is to design systems that balance and integrate a variety of considerations including usability, sustainability, affordability, manufacturability, efficiency, and effectiveness. To overcome this challenge, engineering approaches these objectives with a methodical use of precedents, standards, frameworks, measurement, testing, and state-of-the-art technologies.

It has become increasingly obvious that, in the 21^st century, the business of content cannot continue to operate as a cottage industry. However well-intentioned they may be, professionals working in isolation and leveraging their preferred desktop tools and personalized techniques simply cannot keep up with the demands of a rapidly evolving, and increasingly digital, global economy.

Content engineering seeks to bring the business of content into the modern era by ensuring that content structures, tools, and processes are designed in a way that will make the most of current best practices, proven content technologies, applicable design patterns, and existing implementation experience.

Simply put, the discipline of content engineering represents the context within which content strategists, and indeed everyone involved in the content lifecycle, will operate from now on.