Episode 54: Ann Rockley, The Rockley Group - Reflecting on a career in content

Kristina Halvorson:
This is the content strategy podcast and I’m your host, Kristina Halvorson. On each and every episode I interview someone I admire who’s doing meaningful work in content strategy and all its adjacent disciplines. If you care about making content more useful, usable and inclusive for all, welcome in, you have found your people.

Hello again. Welcome back to the Content Strategy podcast. It's me, Kristina, and today's guest is... I don't even have the words. This human being was one of the first two people I ever learned the phrase Content Strategy from. She is one of my lifetime heroes and all around just extraordinary person. And I'm going to introduce her to you by sharing her bio. Ann Rockley is the CEO of The Rockley Group. She's known as the mother of content strategy. She has an international reputation for establishing the field in content strategy, content reuse, intelligent content strategies for multichannel delivery, and structured content management best practices. Ann introduced the concept of content strategy with her groundbreaking book, Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy, now in its second edition. She's the creator of the concept of intelligent content, and founded the Intelligent Content Conference, which is now part of the Content Marketing Institute suite of conferences. She shared these concepts in Intelligent Content: A Primer.

Ann has achieved remarkable success traveling the world, sharing her methodology, keynoting conferences, and growing and mentoring teams, and key people. And unknown to anyone until now, she did it while learning to manage her lifelong chronic health. And now after 32 years, Ann has made it her mission to help people fulfill their health and career potential by focusing now solely on health coaching and career mentoring, which we are going to hear more about. Ms. Rockley, welcome to the Content Strategy Podcast.

Ann Rockley:
Thank you, Kristina. I'm so excited to be here.

Kristina Halvorson:
You might be excited. I am, I guarantee, 1 million times more excited than you are excited, because you can't possibly be as excited as I am. Ann, your book... I'm going to try to talk about this without crying. Your book was probably... your book and Gerry McGoverns' books, were the two that sat on my shelf long before I understood that content strategy was a thing that I could be doing, or would be interested in doing, or would be capable of doing, that I knew how important it was to my work as a website writer at the time.

And the fact that I get to just chat with you now, however many years later, I mean, we're talking, I don't know, it feels like 20 years later just is mind-boggling to me. So I will stop fawning over you, for now anyway, because everybody's like, it's four minutes into the podcast, Kristina, let's get on with it. And I will start by asking you the same question that I ask all of my guests at the top of each episode, which is I wonder if you could share with me a little bit about your journey into content strategy.

Ann Rockley:
Well, I came at content strategy just through working with client after client, after client, after client, and finding that there was so little knowledge of their content. They didn't know what they had, they didn't know where it was, they didn't know how effective it was. They didn't know if it was useful or not. They didn't know if it was current. There were just so many things that they didn't know about it. And it was chaos. And I mean, there were some companies that just had countless, countless, and I'm using air quotes here, I'll say pages, because yeah, I started a long time ago that started with print, and then moved into web and mobile and things like that. But I had to find a way to help these organizations to get a handle on things, to figure out what they've got and what to do with it, and then to manage it, which is extremely important and deliver it effectively.

So in doing that over and over and over again, I found that I had developed a methodology, and I operationalized first that methodology, and sort of wrote it down, and taught my team how to do it, and I taught my clients how to do it, and I just was spending a huge amount of time educating people on this over and over and over again. So I decided to write a book, and as I was writing the book, and this was in the early 2000s, it was like, what am I going to call this? What am I actually doing? What am I sharing with people? And it was really, really obvious that I was helping these organizations to come up with a content strategy. I mean, they had strategies for so many things. They had strategies for operations, they had strategies for marketing their products, or how they developed them or things like that.

But content was kind of an afterthought, they didn't really think of necessary evil maybe, but not exactly where they were focusing their efforts. And so it became the concept of content strategy because it's so incredibly important to an organization to have a content strategy, and to be able to pursue that content strategy, and adapt that content strategy as the nature of their audience and their products and everything else changes over time, because without content, an awful lot of times there is no product. There's nothing to sell unless you can communicate it. So that's how I came up to content strategy.

Kristina Halvorson:
What's incredible is that you talk about these problems, like yeah, 25 years ago, I can't believe people were struggling with this, and yet everything you're describing, is everything that everyone listening to this podcast is dealing with now. So just to be clear.

Ann Rockley:
It hasn't changed.

Kristina Halvorson:
No, it doesn't. The problems don't change, which is just mind-boggling to me. But it's the same thing though. I wrote the first edition of my book Content Strategy for the Web in 2009, and people are still like, "Oh, I read your book and it changed the way I do work", like last week. And I'm just like, "Oh, no, that's terrible. My book is too old", and yet I still reference your book all the time. And your last edition was what, 2012? Is that right?

Ann Rockley:
That's right, yes.

Kristina Halvorson:
Yeah, my goodness. So I actually am going to ask you to take a step even further back, because I know that you didn't come out of the womb doing content strategy. So where were you? Talk to me about what did you study in school? And when you're talking about, "Oh, I was dealing in pages, and working with clients in print", what was the connection there and where were you? What was the work you were doing there?

Ann Rockley:
Okay, this is going to sound strange, too. So I started off in university studying astronomy, and I was going to be an astronomer. And I had been fascinated with astronomy since I was a child. I got my first telescope when I was eight, and I pursued that, went through peer and applied sciences in high school, got into my university of choice, loved it. I was one of three women in this program among over 300 men. And I loved it, and I loved it, and I loved it, and I loved it. But in fourth year, I couldn't complete the program because it required a practicum in the mountains of Hawaii with a telescope there, and I have a severe lung condition, and I couldn't breathe, just couldn't do it. So I cried a lot, and then I tried to figure out, well, what is my second love?

And my second love was writing, and I had always loved creating fiction, and I was going to be a science journalist, and there weren't any programs in science journalism, I couldn't find anything. So I ended up enrolling in a program for creative writing, and I figured, well, I would hone my writing skills, and move into science-based writing after that. Well, I didn't actually move into science writing. In my final year of university. I had a very good friend who was a programmer, and he knew he didn't want to program, but he didn't know what he wanted to do. And so I had seen an ad for a technical writer, and I told him all about it, and he said, no, he didn't think it was for him, and why didn't I apply for it? And I went, I don't know if I really want to do this. I didn't want to program either.

I applied for the job, I got the job, and I loved it, because I could take my knowledge of science, I could take my knowledge of computer science, I could take my knowledge of technology, and all of those sorts of things, and communicate in a way that others could understand. So tech writing is my roots. And I was just in tech writing for, well, officially working as a technical writer, and then a technical manager, for just a couple of years. And then I got recruited by Apple. And so I joined Apple, and they were just launching HyperCard at that moment, which was all about hypertext and multimedia. And it was like, oh man, I'm having so much fun doing this kind of stuff. And I was teaching other people and communicating how we could create content online.

Kristina Halvorson:
Wait, I'm sorry, I have to interrupt. When was this? You just said hyper cart. Is that what the word that you used?

Ann Rockley:
Okay, 1989. I am old.

Kristina Halvorson:
1989. Okay, amazing.

Ann Rockley:
Go look it up.

Kristina Halvorson:
Keep going, keep going.

Ann Rockley:
Okay. So I was with Apple, and then I got laid off. I was offered the opportunity to move to Cupertino when I got laid off, but my husband didn't want to give up his job. And so I declined. And as they say, I took the package and I started consulting, and I worked for a huge diverse... I worked for nuclear plants where they have 100,000 pages of content. I worked with a medical devices' company who also had hundreds of thousands of pages of content, and educational institutions and universities. And it just kept growing from there.

And I became one of the early people talking about hypertext. Yes, the hypertext revolution. I spoke about that a very long time ago. And it just grew. I am fascinated with ways of effectively communicating with people. And so in the early days, it was online, and then as I said, web, mobile, all of that sort of thing. And so it grew from there. And I also found that I love to teach and I love to share. And so the content strategy came out of that because it was like, this is so logical. Everybody needs this. I need to tell people about this, I need to share. And it grew and it grew, and from there.

Kristina Halvorson:
I have asked, now, I don't know, 50 people, to tell me about their journey to content strategy. And a lot of us started off as an English major or a journalism major, or theater. You are the first person who started off as an astronomer. And I can't believe you had to abandon that dream because you had to go to a mountain in Hawaii. And I had no idea that you worked at Apple in the '80s. And I think I've known you, I don't even know how long I've known you, a very long time, and I didn't know any of that. Incredible. Thank you so much for sharing that journey.

So I do want to take a step, well, okay, a little step back, because we're talking about your methodology, we're talking about the problems you were solving, the new approach, the seemingly insurmountable challenges that you were tackling and helping these enterprise companies to untangle. Can you talk to me a little bit about the methodology that you're describing? We talk about intelligent content, we talk about structured content. What is that? What does that mean?

Ann Rockley:
Well, my methodology is really a process. So I began with what I call the substantive audit. So, I feel it's extremely important to begin content strategy by understanding what you've got. So yes, absolutely a content inventory, but so much more than a content inventory. So I interview writing teams, marketing teams, senior management to find out what's working, what's not working, where are the pain points, what are the obstacles, what are the issues, what are the goals, what's the vision? Because I don't feel you can build a strategy unless you know, as they say, what's working, what's not working, where you're going. So that was the beginning of the methodology with figuring it out. And it's a process that I did over and over and over again with small companies, large companies, global companies, many, many different groups, and just trying to understand, and of course, bringing translation into that and understanding all the issues there. So that's the beginning.

And then the next step in the methodology is to determine where you're going to go. So what's your vision? What's your process? How are you going to get there? What are the key things that you're going to focus on changing or maintaining? There are sometimes good things to carry through, but what are you going to change and how are you going to do it? And what is it that your audience really needs, and how are you going to deliver it? So that whole piece, that piece of the strategy of figuring it out, and building that vision. And then it's followed by content modeling. And so being able to model that content so that when people are creating it, and I'm very into structured content, so when people are creating it, they're creating it in a consistent way. It doesn't... some people are concerned about creativity, oh, it's going to inhibit my creativity because I have to do things in a certain way. We're not necessarily talking about the words.

So you might have a style guide, but it's okay. You want to start off with a teaser, you want to follow that by a description, you want to follow that by something else. So you've got a very, very clear understanding of how to do each and every type of content that you're creating, so it's consistent, so that no matter how many writers you have, no matter where they're located, you have a consistent voice. And then, of course, as I said, you've got the style guide, so you've got the words that you're using, you've got the way that you're communicating that information. You've got a standardized terminology, you've got all of these different things. So content modeling.

And then I can't tell you how many companies I worked with to help them select the technology, the content management system, whether it be a web content management system, a component content management system, all sorts of different types of content management system, because it's great having content, but if you can't manage it, if you can't push it through some sort of workflow where somebody reviews it, signs off on it, graphics become integrated with it, you determine when you're going to publish it, you determine when you're going to sunset it. Control, control, control, control. I really, it's so important because otherwise you have chaos and you go back to where you were in the beginning where you didn't know where anything was or what stage is at, or is it the most current and et cetera, et cetera. And so pulling that in.

And then my final methodology, which of course would be different for each, but I personally would mentor teams, to actually become a content strategy team, to actually develop this on their own, to grow, to be able to make the decisions, help them to understand the reasoning behind different decisions, until they could fly on their own. And I just thought that that was awesome, that you had so many successful teams. I could see them grow and get their feedback years later on, five years, 10 years, this is working, this is working, this is working. We're doing this now. So that was my methodology.

Kristina Halvorson:
They were extraordinarily lucky to be working with you because I know firsthand what a fantastic teacher you are. I want to go all the way back to the beginning when you were talking about that, what I tend to call a situation analysis, which is a really dry way of saying what is going on here?

Ann Rockley:
Yes.

Kristina Halvorson:
Can we all sit down and take a second to talk about what's actually going on? When you're in that process, a thing that I find is really critical, is getting people aligned on what we're talking about in the first place, and what's real and what's not. Talk about some of the obstacles that you ran into during that process. Is there a wall that you might hit or an answer to a question that you would hear where you would think, oh boy, this is going to be a difficult thing to navigate around?

Ann Rockley:
Well, I must say that one of the biggest things that we encountered a lot when we talk to the teams, we don't want any management in the room or on the call. We want people to be fully comfortable with what they're saying. And we actually moved away from in-person interviewing to on the phone and, of course, later ZOOM and things like that, because people feel more comfortable saying what they really want to say if you're not looking them in the eye. And they just... there's so many different voices in a call with five, ten, twelve, fifteen people, that it's not possible to truly know exactly who said what. So we found that we got a lot more information that way. And it would sometimes be difficult to have management understand that. We certainly absolutely always talked to management, but we talked to them separately. And when the results were delivered, we often had to do a lot of work with management to understand those pain points, and why they were pain points, and why people were not whining, that these were real issues that needed to be addressed.

So that was probably the biggest one. But we would also have issues with content creators who felt what they were doing was just awesome, and it really was overwritten, not well-written, poorly written, verbose, all sorts of different things like that. So that would be an obstacle, how to help people learn to work in a different way. It was an obstacle bringing in new technology because wow, we already have X. Why do we need Y? Well, because it doesn't work for what people need. I mean, there were those sorts of things. And there were money issues. It's going to cost you this and it's going to take time, and nobody wanted to spend time. There was... it often boiled down to not so much... I mean, absolutely, there were many, many things that we could recommend in terms of content improvement, but it was often change management and people issues that slowed us down.

Kristina Halvorson:
And so if you had to name, let's say three, I'll call them secret weapons, even though we don't want to weaponize our content strategy, but well, maybe we do. Maybe in certain instances we need to wield them as weapons. But if you had to name sort of three core strengths of yours over the years that you felt like brought you the success and recognition frankly for your work, your approach, your values, what are two or three of those things that you would name for yourself?

Ann Rockley:
I think one of the big things was the ability to see the big picture, and to understand the ramifications of all of the different aspects of what I was seeing, and being able to communicate that. I also think the ability to create an ROI, or return on investment, and I know that sounds a bit strange in the sense of a silver bullet, but it was the easiest way to communicate to management and everybody else who had to make decisions about money and change and things like that.

But it wasn't so much just doing the ROI, it was the ability to look at the issues and be able to figure out what that cost is. And I don't mean number of hours of writing and things like that, but the cost of not doing it right, the cost of keeping on doing the same thing and having the same problems, the loss of customers, the huge costs in translation, the costs in team dynamics, and all those sorts of things that I think when most people do an ROI, they just go, okay, well, the content management system's going to cost X and well, we're going to need to hire a few new bodies. And they don't look at it. What is the real cost to you as an organization and being able to pinpoint those things.

And then I think, as I said before, teaching, I think I'm a really good communicator, and I can help people relate and I can help people to understand not just how to do something, but why are we doing it that way and what makes it different and better, and how they can bring their wonderful strengths to the table to create this amazing content, because people are so skilled and you just point them in the right direction and help them understand the why is so important. Off they go, they just take off. So big picture, being able to talk to management and make a business case and an ROI, and then helping people to grow into who they need to be and doing an awesome job.

Kristina Halvorson:
I would suggest, in there somewhere, is also your ability to connect the dots across different content functions within an organization. That is the thing that I see tripping up, especially enterprise organizations, over and over and over, is that they have this really strong brand function over here. They have this really strong user experience design function over here. They have a really strong team of tech writers and folks managing structured content, but those teams aren't really talking to each other. And if they do talk to each other, it's like clashing priorities, different sets of values. These folks don't really have any kind of common threads. And that to me, when I talk about enterprise content strategy at this point, that's what I'm talking about. And it seems to me that in the work that you did, you had to get really good at creating a common or shared framework between folks like that. Would you say that's true?

Ann Rockley:
Absolutely. I mean, the book is called Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy. And there were so many content silos, or divisional silos or areas, as you said, absolutely, that had their own focus, and they had their own goals, and they didn't talk to each other, and they may have overlapped each other, and not realize they were overlapping each other. And so I guess that that kind of falls into the big picture as I was talking about, and yes, yes, absolutely being able to see across all of these silos and helping them to see the single vision and the future and the way that they need it to come together. And it's hard. I mean, at the enterprise level, it is hard to get everyone walking and talking and believing and going in the same direction, but it's absolutely worth it.

Kristina Halvorson:
Yeah, I find that a huge barrier there is that people are worried you're going to take away what's working for them, or that you're going to kind of eradicate the territory that they have staked out for themselves over the years. People get very emotional when it comes to their content.

Ann Rockley:
Yes, they have strong feelings of ownership, they have strong feelings of pride in what they do, and they absolutely should have pride in what they do, but they also need to understand how it fits in the holes. Not necessarily that they're not going to do something anymore, but it's... hey, there are things called handoffs. There are things called integration, there is workflow, there is how they bring value to the table in their area. I mean, we're talking teams. We're not talking one or two people doing things. It's these teams and teams need to collaborate, and teams need to work together. And they may bridge many, many areas and silos and all sorts of things, matrix collaboration and all those sorts of things. So yes, they do get defensive, but it's the ability to help them to see themselves and the value that they bring in the big picture and be able to work collaborative together as they go forward.

Kristina Halvorson:
And we have a few more minutes, and I'd like to take us now to your present journey, because you're no longer consulting for organizations for their enterprise content strategy needs. You have left that part of your career behind. And I wonder if you might talk a little bit about why, and what you're doing now.

Ann Rockley:
So there were many different things that factored into my pivot. I hate to admit this. I turned 65 in 2022, and 65 is kind of one of those milestone ages. It's like, oh, no, I am 65. That means certain things to certain people. It used to be the standard time to retire, to enjoy life, to relax, to do all these kinds of things. And as we know, 2022, 2020, 2021, we were in the middle of a very difficult time in the world. So I think a lot of people were reconsidering where they were going to go. So the first decision that I had to make was, am I going to retire or not? And I chose not to retire. So if I'm not going to retire, what am I going to do? Do I want to keep doing what I'm doing? Do I want to change what I'm doing, but still pretty much do the same sorts of things, or do something entirely different?

And I looked around and there are so many fabulous people doing content strategy now, doing enterprise content strategy, doing some really fantastic work. And there are university and college programs in the area, and there are a lot of people growing and maturing, and they'll be the new stars of the future. And I felt really good about what I had done, the teaching and all that kind of thing then. And so I said, okay, so I don't think I want to do that anymore. But the pandemic brought home the fact that health is incredibly important to success. If you do not have your health, you have no career, you have no success. You can't do all the things that you want to do.

And I'll just tell you a little story here, going back, as we say, in time here, but I was laid off by Apple and I decided to go into my own business, and I had a 15-month-old baby, and it was really, really, really scary, as anybody who's ever been laid off nose and starting your own business is also a scary time. Well, 15 months after that, so when she was just three, I ended up in the hospital twice, in a six months period, once in ICU, once on a ventilator. The other time, I won't go into the details, but I was in the hospital for two weeks, and I simply said at that point in time, I can't do this anymore. What was it I couldn't do? I had to change my job, maybe? No furious, absolutely no way, no how, was I going to give up what I was doing because I loved it and I knew that I could be good at it. So that meant that I had to figure out how can I do what I want to do, and be healthy enough to do it?

I can't tell you how many times as a kid, I was told, oh, you won't be able to do this, you won't be able to do that. You won't be able to live a normal life, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I just said, "No". And so I began a journey which took me over a decade to figure out me, to find my triggers, to find the things that made me really sick, and to be able to manage it so I could travel the world. I mean, I was a top tier traveler for years. I have huge food restrictions. I have all sorts of other things that I couldn't do, but it was like, okay, I can't do that, but what can I do, and how can I do it? And as you said, at the beginning of the show, most people, I would say 99.9% of the people, had no idea that I was managing chronic health.

And I just thought, okay, I've done all this for people, and now I want to... well, actually, I did it for organizations, and I help grow people, but I want to now focus on people people. And I want to help people to reclaim their health. They don't have to have chronic health issues like I have, but I mean heck, diabetes, allergies, intolerances, autoimmune disease, all sorts of things, all of those things can be managed, and I can teach you how, and I can help you find your path to health and success. And so I decided to pivot in late 2022, and become a health coach and a career mentor. And I largely work with the same people I've always worked with over the years, but the people, and not their organizations. And I hope I can help others forge tremendous success in their career and have robust health at the same time.

Kristina Halvorson:
How could you possibly be any more inspiring?

Ann Rockley:
Thank you.

Kristina Halvorson:
I can't do the math to figure out how that might be possible. And, can you tell our listeners where they can find you online if they're looking for this priceless support with managing their health and being able to thrive in their careers because they're feeling better?

Ann Rockley:
Well, my website is still the same, rockley.com, except the information there you will find is entirely different, of course, but it's still rockley.com. Email is still rockley@rockley.com. I am very active on LinkedIn. I share a lot of my tips and techniques, and I have started a multiple series of health when you travel constantly, like I did, two to three weeks out of the year for 30 years, all sorts of different tips and techniques. So you can follow me on LinkedIn, and I also have an Instagram, AnnRockley1, and I get a little bit more into this sort of nitty-gritty and how can you substitute one thing for another and still eat great at the same time? Things like that. So I haven't changed in my contact, I've just changed the message in my contact.

Kristina Halvorson:
You are tireless and brilliant and kind hearted and just extraordinary and it is an honor to know you, and to have you as my guest on this podcast. Thank you for being a hero to me and to thousands of other content strategists and would-be content strategists all over the world. You are just the gift that keeps on giving.

Ann Rockley:
Well, thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to be on the podcast and hear your feedback. You're making me blush literally here, and thank you for the opportunity. I'm glad I was able to help you and inspire others, and I know that you do the same for so many others, as well. And just keep on doing the awesome stuff you're doing, too. So thank you, again.

Kristina Halvorson:
Well, I stand on the shoulder of giants, that is for sure. Thanks, Ann.

Ann Rockley:
Thank you.

Kristina Halvorson:
Thanks so much for joining me for this week’s episode of the Content Strategy Podcast. Our podcast is brought to you by Brain Traffic, a content strategy services and events company. It’s produced by Robert Mills with editing from Bare Value. Our transcripts are from REV.com. You can find all kinds of episodes at contentstrategy.com and you can learn more about Brain Traffic at braintraffic.com. See you soon.