Developing a sustainable content strategy for a technical communication body of knowledge

Purpose: To explore strategies, goals, and practices that are part of a sustainable content strategy for the evolution and development of the technical communication body of knowledge and, by implication, other bodies of knowledge. Method: To develop a sustainable content strategy for the body of knowledge project, informed by content analysis, user generated survey data, and benchmarked trends from other knowledge bases. Results: An important part of content strategy for a large-scale knowledge base, such as the TCBOK, involves innovating practices with regard to the information taxonomy, tools, content assets, and information development standards, as the product and user base matures. Successful technical communication knowledge bases employ taxonomies with higher level topics that represent specific disciplines and subdisciplines within technical communication. Integrating the human user into content strategy involves a complex interplay of user expectation and feasible decision making. Conclusions: Developing a body of knowledge, particularly over time, may require an integrated or hybrid approach to content strategy, involving a complex set of factors that include the human user, content assets, and sustainable practices. Content strategy goals and objectives are also a function of the maturity of the user base and the content itself within a body of knowledge.