Content Curation 101 by Beth Kanter Photo: Stock in Customs

Content curation is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme.  The work  involves  sifting, sorting, arranging, and publishing information.  A content curator cherry picks the best content that is important and relevant to share with their community. It isn’t unlike what a museum curator does to produce an exhibition:   They identify the theme, they provide the context, they decide which paintings to hang on the wall, how they should be annotated, and how they should be displayed for the public. Content curation is the organizing, filtering and “making sense of” information on the web and sharing the very best content with your network.

Why should you and your organization care about content curation?

The exabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one quintillion bytes

800 million users on Facebook http://www.flickr.com/photos/dkalo/4815259737/sizes/z/in/photostream/ 800 million users on Facebook Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month Flickr photo by dkalo

Content Curators: Provide trust, context, and meaning to content Collaborative human filtering

Keep Informed of Your Field In the industrial workplace, our training programs could prepare us for years of work, but much of what we learn today will be outdated in months or even weeks. http://www.flickr.com/photos/elitepete/442095833/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Content Curation: The Practice SEEK SENSE SHARE http://www.jarche.com/2010/10/network-learning-working-smarter/ Framework: Harold Jarche Networked Learning Is Working Smarter

SEEK SENSE SHARE Content Curation Keeping up to date in your field and finding content that will help you be more effective at work or build your organization’s reputation as thought leader Make sense of the information by creating a product or applying what you’ve learned. Exchanging resources, insights, and conversations with people in your network. http://www.jarche.com/2010/10/network-learning-working-smarter/ Framework: Harold Jarche Networked Learning Is Working Smarter

The Ideal Practice SEEK SENSE SHARE Define topics and organize sources Product – writing, report, presentation, memo, Understand Privacy Scan more than you capture Annotate, Archive , Apply Feed your network a steady diet of good stuff Don’t share unless it adds great value Must add value to your work Comment on other people’s stuff Time: 15 minutes Daily Time: 30-60 minutes Daily or 3 x per week Time: 15 minutes Daily

Each one of these curated lists is supports a self-directed learning goal or project -Blogging -Workshop Curriculum -Presentation -Keeping Up To Date

http://www.scoop.it/t/content-curation-social-media

Bruce and Judy Case Studies Bruce Lesley is one of a growing number of  nonprofit executive directors and senior leaders that use Twitter.  And, he isn’t tweeting about what he ate for breakfast or one of his personal passions, basketball.   He uses Twitter to curate information related to his organization’s mission and work as a bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making children and families a priority in federal policy and budget decisions.   He also uses content curation for sources for his guest blogging.     His use of Twitter (and his organization’s use of Twitter and all communications channels for that matter) serve this intent: First Focus is working to change the dialogue around children’s issues by taking a cross-cutting and broad based approach to federal policy making. In all of our work, we seek to raise awareness regarding public policies impacting children and ensure that related programs have the resources necessary to help them grow up in a healthy and nurturing environment. If you take a look at Bruce Lesley’s Twitter stream, you will see that he is curating information on public policies impacting children.   Bruce does his own curating, using Google Reader and FlipBoard.   Any individual or nonprofit organization can curate information using these tools.  They can make it strategic by linking the information to their mission.   But what is the secret sauce to doing it well? Bruce and Judy Case Studies

Content Curation: Step-by-Step Goal Topics Sources Sense Making Sharing Curation Mini-Plan

Curation Mini-Plan Exercise 20 minutes 10 minutes – report out What is your goal? What are your topics? What are the best sources? How can you link your sense-making to a work task? What networks do you want to share with and through? How to stay disciplined about sharing only the best stuff? How can you integrate curation into your work flow?

Information Overload