I’ve found myself recently wondering why we haven’t figured this all out yet. Humanity’s been around a long time, and the internet has also been around long enough that we should basically get the principle of it, right?

One of my own issues is that I very often theoretically know how to achieve most things with content. I had a case recently where I came up with audience segments and content pillars after a day’s workshop, then found out the organisation had paid £14k to a consultant to come to the exact same conclusions (but with more detail and evidence, to be fair). Yes this is a humble brag. Not even humble. Just a big old brag.

But the painful bit comes in implementation. Even when you’ve tailored the approach to the organisation’s capacity, skills, audience and objectives you still have to write the things, have the energy to organise everything, and come up with original ideas that stick to the plan week after week.

And there’s no one way of making that work. Some people need structure to keep them honest, some people need a blank piece of paper and full creative freedom. But what a lot of plans and strategies miss is how to keep that momentum up and satisfy the emotional/intellectual labour of the people doing the content.

I think it’s somewhere between the rigidity of a strategy and the malleability of a team that works well together. Humans are messy, and culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Content of this week

I mean, the content of the week was my chat with Danyele but I also saw some other things:

• My boss sent me a voicenote is the new ‘this is my first day as social media manager’.

• Every art gallery can take notes from the Burrell Collection. Nice clean fun for a more prosperous social media landscape.

• I came across McKay Williamson recently, who channels the kind of ‘I’m an expert but not a twat’ energy that all art gallery content should aspire to.

• Didn’t know I needed UK Prime Ministers as Inbetweeners clips but it turns out I really need it. Like really needed it.

• A classic ‘Hey, I do that’ bit of content.

• You can just put a guy in front of a map telling an interesting story about history and people will like it. People who spend days painstakingly planning, scripting and collaborating on a video that gets 15 likes hate this one trick (and people is me).

The bullet point bit

• Daniel Pett’s 3D scan of the Rosetta Stone on Sketchfab is coming up to 600k views, all thanks to probably a couple hours work eight years ago. Social media is great, but it’s this kind of evergreen content (alongside articles and YouTube) that will outlive your time at an institution. He also recently shared a load of links to interesting digital projects and resources for a talk he did.

• Some interesting insights and practical tips on redesigning website UX from the BFI team. Just see what people are complaining about, run your own research and talk to other teams. ‘Just’ is doing a lot of lifting there if you’re in a team of one though. (h/t Ash Mann’s newsletter)

• I haven’t read anything else because I couldn’t be arsed.

Personal stuff I do for me and you can just skip this if you like

🎮📖 what I’m consuming as a consumer

One of the main reasons I missed the newsletter last week is because Europa Universalis 5 came out, a grand strategy game where you steer a civilisation from 1337-1837. It is, in the words of Parks & Rec, punishingly intricate, but the satisfaction I felt beating France in the Hundred Years’ War has pipped the birth of my daughter as a formative moment.

🐕 Keith

Here he is