Right now I'm designing integration guides for 3 major cloud platforms, one with multiple languages, and each docs how-to will have a corresponding video version. But they are not exactly the same, the videos are beginner-oriented and targeted at 5-8 minutes and the docs are more comprehensive so they can "round out" the learning experience if/when people want to dive deeper. The docs (and README) will also have the video embedded at the top so people can choose the learning they prefer. The READMEs are treated separately, more like a reference doc so as not to increase maintenance by duplicating docs.
This way, each one is connected to the other in a nice rounded way.
I'm tentatively calling this idea "Developer Content Meal Planning" and it looks something like this:
It is a thought in progress (read: half-baked).
But the crux of the idea is that it provides a framework and strategy for lean content planning using many of the same tactics and strategies used in real-life meal planning, which I happen to practice. Sharing of ingredients (knowledge, tools, planning, artifacts, etc.), connected experiences that make sense together, iterative planning, and more ideas are part of this. Entrees, sides, and appetizers. Snacks. Drinks (?).
I am not sure what everything is yet – but I think entrees represent where the majority of consumption happens for a specific meal. Sides and appetizers less so, in relatively-sized amounts. Social media posts, for example, would be snacks or appetizers I would guess.
Entrees like the how-to docs guide will take much longer to consume and be more involved than the 5-8 minute video. The GitHub repo might have a README that has more reference-style docs so there's some consumption happening but not to the same extent (otherwise that'd be a big meal). There is this idea of balance and right-sizing meals, and deciding what meals might share ingredients with each other. Not shown here are the other two cloud integrations – but they can share similar ingredients like structure/planning but maybe won't share knowledge (one cloud vendor's docs !== the other's).
The reason why I think this idea could be helpful to DevRelers is that in content marketing I see, it feels more like how the average American tends to eat. Day-by-day instead of a planned, week-by-week schedule (or even month-by-month). As a result, experiences feel disconnected, ad-hoc, and... expensive. Wasted cycles. Like someone who eats out every day instead of cooking.
Anyway, food for thought. It's something that I've been thinking about really since September (you can see the hints) but haven't fully formed it. The "thinkpiece" is still in draft. I need to put it into practice more and see the tangible results. But it has helped me create content planning templates and I've found that I need something better than Google Docs to maintain the connections between content, like maybe Obsidian or the new kid on the block, Tana.
Have a lovely day,
Kamran
