This presentation was first created for an opening keynote at Documation 1999 and it has evolved to reflect ongoing evolution ever since. The Brief History of Content explores how we came to look at content as a discrete entity and as something we needed to think about, manage, and perfect separately from how we conduct our routine information exchanges. Information carries content and when we are put upon to deliver content in many ways simultaneously we have no choice but to treat content separately and in a way that is more open, adaptable, portable and processable than what any single information transaction, in being concretely rooted in a specific transactional context, will ever need to be. The Brief History of Content chronicles the emergence of content technologies that now make it possible to manage and evolve content as strategic enterprise assets.

1. A Brief History of Content
Joe Gollner
Gnostyx Research Inc.
www.gnostyx.com
www.gollner.ca
@joegollner

2. In the Beginning
Content was really static
It was the polar opposite from today – people travelled to view the content

3. And then there were
… table(t)s…
…and
books…

4. Paperwork: The Empire of Documents

5. Memex & a New way to Look at Documents
Adapting to the Exponential Growth in
Knowledge Resources
Seeking a new
medium in which
documents would
become more
manageable &
more dynamic
1940 1960 1980 2000

6. Knowledge Application with Technology
Leveraging Knowledge through Automation
The modern organization cannot survive
without automation as a means to
encapsulate & leverage knowledge
1940 1960 1980 2000

7. Augmenting Human Intelligence
Leveraging Automation to Assist Personal and Team Productivity
Douglas Engelbart
Workstation - 1966
Workstation - 1968
An integrated working environment
in which “paperwork” was
performed electronically
& with great efficiency
1940 1960 1980 2000

8. The Internet & the Flow of Information
Connecting Organizations
to form Knowledge Enterprises
Combining the capabilities
of research facilities to undertake
more challenging projects
1940 1960 1980 2000

9. A Vision of Hypertext Documents
Theodor (Ted) Holm Nelson
1940 1960 1980 2000
Exploring the Anatomy of Document Content

10. Standards for Digital Document Exchange
GOAL
Supplier and Client
STDS
INTERIM SOLUTION
Supplier ClientSupplier
PROBLEM
Client
1940 1960 1980 2000
Continuous Acquisition & Lifecycle Support (CALS)

11. SGML: A Grammar for Document Content
1940 1960 1980 2000
Charles Goldfarb
The Father
of SGML
Standard
Generalized
Markup
Language
This was when content was first truly considered as
something that could be managed as a precursor
to multi-channel information events

12. The Web as the Triumph of Simplicity
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
The Father
of the Web
1940 1960 1980 2000
“to allow
information
sharing within
internationally
dispersed teams”
Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML):
a simple application of SGML

13. Elevating the Intelligence of Web Content
Yuri Rubinsky
Spiritual Father
of XML
1940 1960 1980 2000
The Extensible
Markup Language
is a simplified profile
of SGML designed to
support Web applications

14. XML in the Wilderness
The driving force behind XML
immediately became
facilitating new ways to
integrate, adapt & deploy
technology applications
Represented the
accumulating pressure to
build truly open & extensible
applications
This focus explains a great
deal about the character of
XML

15. The Rapid Rise of Social Media
1940 1960 1980 2000 2010
Technically
enabled by
the integration
capabilities
provided by XML

16. The Semantic Web
Introducing a formal, interchangeable
expression of meaning suitable to
automated processing.
Essential for marshalling radically
distributed services.
1940 1960 1980 2000 2010

17. Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)
Distilling two decades of experience in applying markup languages
to content resources that exhibit high levels of reuse & are delivered in many ways
1940 1960 1980 2000 2010

18. Office Open XML (OOXML)
1940 1960 1980 2000 2010
ISO/IEC 29500:2008
(not without protest)
Ubiquitous XML

19. The Mobile Revolution & Adaptive Content
The mobile revolution has been enabled in part by the widespread
deployment of standards for adaptive content (XHTML/ePub/HTML5)
and integrated services leveraging interface standards & semantic technologies
1940 1960 1980 2000 2010

20. The State of the Content Art: Content Solutions
Technology
Knowledge
Business
Content
Solutions
Content
Management
Knowledge
Management
Business
Systems
Documented & Integrated
Global&Dynamic
Open&Extensible
Content Solutions
leverage portable & processable
content to bridge gaps that
cannot otherwise be bridged
Content Solutions
integrate the three
key enterprise domains:
- Knowledge
- Business
- Technology
Historically, the inability
to move content across
boundaries has thwarted
all efforts to fully integrate
the modern enterprise.

21. The Anatomy of Content Solutions
Content Technologies
Content
Acquisition
Content
Management
Content
Delivery
Content
Engagement
Content
Strategy
Content Engineering
Content Solutions
The Content
Life Cycle balances
four primary activities
- Acquisition
- Delivery
- Engagement
- Management
under the direction
of Content Strategy
Content Engineering
marshals Content
Technologies to build
scalable & sustainable
Content Solutions

22. Content Engagement
Stands out as the
most novel element
in the core Content
Life Cycle
It focuses resolutely
on how content is used
& and how the user
community can become
actively engaged in a
process of continuous
& constructive change
The Radical Element: Content Engagement

23. Content
Is what we plan, design, create,
reuse & manage so that we can
deliver effective information
transactions.
Content is potential information
(an asset).
Information
Is the meaningful
organization of data
communicated in a
specific context with the
purpose of influencing others.
Information is a transaction
(an action) that contains & delivers Content.
An Inescapable Definition of Content Emerges
An information transaction is composed
of numerous content components
coming together to create effective
information events. From this insight,
all else can be derived.

24. Moving Forward
The Content Disciplines
Are approaching
a point of maturity
& convergence
that makes it possible
to enable highly
efficient & responsive
Content Life Cycles
The Next Phase
We will see what
happens when content
is unleashed & when people can leverage this capability
to make a whole new world of connections…