This is probably my weirdest blog post ever. That’s including the one where I DJ’d a house party using applied content strategy.

I know I am work-obsessed sometimes, maybe it’s the run-up to Congility 2014 starting, but last night I dreamt a workshop, and one which I think targets a really big gap in the market.

Seriously.

I had a dream I was delivering this workshop (at Confab Barcelona, funny enough as I have to-date never presented at Confab). I got about 15 minutes in, with introduction to the subject, some conceptual slides and such, and then my alarm went off.

I realised that I’d just literally “dreamt up” my next workshop idea with zero effort! I got up, and went straight to work on this description:

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Writing for 4 dimensions, 5 senses and multiple devices

You’re at your desk, or your second desk – your corner of your favourite coffee shop, and a little tension forms around your brow. This nagging thought returns: You keep hearing that we need to hyper-personalise content and write for multiple users. People keep saying, “It’s the future of writing for digital – if you want to thrive and survive…” but how does one actually write like that? The growing tension starts to spread to your neck as you look into the middle distance. Google has even said that the new updates will favour semantic content over traditional mark-up…

There are several tension-building issues in our communicators community. On one side, the web world has been dominated by visual design. Practitioners have agonised over the colour of lorem ipsum text with only a foggy sense of what might one day need to fill the boxes. On the other side, the world of multichannel and semantically linked content often focuses on structural aspects, sometimes seemingly almost in denial of the importance of core writing principles or great visual design. How are we supposed to actually write for a plethora of devices and contexts, and make it all look and read great, when no one is helping bridge the gap between writing and these diverse requirements?

In this session we will work through some techniques for intentionally designing content for the four-dimensions (length, width, depth and time) of the consumer’s real-life world; and writing to delight all their 5 senses. A mixture of information architecture and empathy building, the material will bridge voice, tone and style-guide concerns with omnichannel, structured content.

Who should come:

• Those who are responsible for writing style guides and defining voice and tone
• Content Strategists who write, communicators and writers of all kinds
• Especially suitable for those who work with products that exist primarily in the physical world (devices of all kinds, vacations, FMCG as opposed to financial services or education)

What you will learn:

• You will walk out of the room with a new or renewed appreciation for writing, contextualised for cutting edge omnichannel environments
• You will learn what linked data and semantic content are, how they change process and UX, and how they can coexist with great writing

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Need to be committed?

I have now decided that my subconscious is telling me I need to be committed – either to an asylum or to preparing all the session materials. One or the other. I have a lot of the material from my recent sessions on adaptive content modelling, I just need extend it and mesh in the in-depth writing exercises and style stuff and, voilà, I have my next session!

If you’d like to express pre-interest (no commitment of course – just to get contacted or maybe just make sure that I don’t go off the idea once the dream-haze wears off) then leave me a comment or a twitter.

Until next time, keep dreaming!

Image: “Dreamcatcher” by Ren Kuo