Digital Strategy
John Eckman @jeckman http://www.openparenthesis.org/
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Who am I?
• Digital Strategist at ISITE Design
• Mythbuster at CMS Myth
• Blogger (openparenthesis.org, goatles.org)
• Founding Organizer, WordCamp Boston
• Open Source Developer: WordPress, Drupal
• Webmaster for the Boston Vegan Association
• Volunteer at Design 4 Drupal, BarCamp Boston,
PodCamp Boston, etc.

What is Digital
Strategy?
“Helping organizations effectively
leverage digital technology &
apply (limited) resources to
achieve their mission”
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Strategy
• Goals
• Audiences
• Digital Channels
• Resources

Awareness
• Of an issue?
• Of your
organization?
Action
• Contribute
• Volunteer
• Share
Service
• Direct
• Indirect
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/01/02/funny-pictures-goals-i-haz-dem/

Audiences General Public
• Segments
• Local / National
Volunteers / Donors
• Current
• Prospective
Press
• Professional
http://failblog.org/2011/08/03/epic-fail-
photos-classic-knowing-your-audience-fail/
• Local / National
Note: You probably have different goals
with different audiences

http://www.isitedesign.com/insight-blog/12_03/six-stages-pinterest
Digital Channels
• Website
• Social
• Facebook
• Twitter
• ?
• Mobile
• Email
How many can you sustain?
Which help you meet goals?

(Limited) Resources
Money
• Where will it be most effective to buy?
• What can we simply not do ourselves?
Time / People
Knowledge

Content Strategy
• Content Inventory
• Recency
• Frequency
• Clarity
• Potential for Re-use
• Message Hierarchy
• Core messages
• Tone / Voice
• Creation / Curation
• Editorial Calendar

Responsive Design
“an emergent discipline called
‘responsive architecture’ has begun
asking how physical spaces
can respond to the presence of people
passing through them. . . . rather than
creating immutable, unchanging spaces
that define a particular experience,
they suggest inhabitant and structure
can—and should—mutually influence
each other”
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/

Mobile First
1. Mobile is Exploding
2. Mobile Forces Focus
3. Mobile Extends
Capabilities

Analytics
• How will you
know if you are
successful?
• What data can be
easily gathered
which will show
trends over
time? http://rosskimbarovsky.com/2010/03/not-
everything-that-can-be-counted-counts/
Many organizations spend more time collected data than
turning it into insight – don’t gather what you don’t use!

Take-Aways
1. Your website is not a project
2. Focus is better than breadth
3. Build only what you can sustain
4. “Keep Everything” is not a content
strategy
5. Optimize continuously
6. Crawl -> Walk -> Run -> Fly

WordCamp Boston
July 13, 14, 15th
Boston University
boston.wordcamp.org
D4D Boston
MIT Stata
Site TBA
June 30-July 1

Questions & Answers
John Eckman
@jeckman
http://www.openparenthesis.org/