In a land far far away in a place that looks a little bit like the world does today, there existed something that we used to call paper [pey-per]. Paper was a tool that people used to write with. For centuries upon centuries, men and women and boys and girls lost hours upon hours searching for the single paper that they needed to send to their friend or colleague.

The world continued like this until, one day, a little boy came along and thought, “there’s gotta be a better way.” So he invented what he called the “folder.” It was a little accordian-like tool that was used to house documents.

As young bucks, we used to go to that boy’s house and play a game called, “I call out a folder and you run around the folder library looking for it until you find it and once you find it, you pull it out and give it to me so I can open it and use the documents.”

Despite the long title, it was quite a fun game. But after years and years of this, and after papercut after papercut, that little boy (who was now a venerable grandpapa) decided to abandon his charts and papers and collaborative tools (jump ship, really), and dedicate his life to clementine farming.

In 1984, we scooped up the dream and we put it in a little jar and we watered it every day with love and hope and milk (whatever, dreams like milk!). Finally, 8 years ago, we looked and noticed that our dreams were too big to stay in the jar. So we put them online, where they could be safe.

Jumpchart grew a little bit in these 8 years, and we’ve done some cool stuff. Like all the other 8 year olds you know. Only Jumpchart lives inside a computer and not your house. Oh yeah, and Jumpchart doesn’t scream at you to get us a bowl of cereal every morning, so that’s gotta count for something. Check out our stats.

• Users: 132k
• Projects: 192k
• Pages: 1.6m (That’s right. Million!)

• Jumpchart users are most active on Tuesdays. They create about 309 thousand pages that day.
• Our single most loyal active user has been with us since September of 2008, and they have over 7 thousand pages written!
• The largest project in the app has 2315 pages.
• Saturday (not Sunday) is the slowest day for page creation.

If you have an emergency during that time, though, just shoot us an e-mail – we’ll do our best to get you taken care of as quickly as we can.

Happy Holidays!

- Paste

The Old Way

Before, during and after the website architecture/content creation jobs, I’m writing other stuff, too, like blog articles, support documentation, internal communication, and newsletters. I used to have my own external system to keep track of research and notes for these projects. I won’t lie, it was messy. It involved a notebook here, a spreadsheet there, a list of URLs in an email somewhere else. One day, after searching for half an hour for a page in my notebook containing some crucial interview information, I knew something had to change. I needed an app, a tool, something to keep all my crap in one place. Then it dawned on me that I already had the perfect tool for this type of organization. Ever since my “duh” moment, I use Jumpchart for pretty much everything.

Blog Articles

When I write for blogs, my drafts all begin in Jumpchart. Yes, even this one! To streamline the process, I created a project titled “Blog Articles.” Then I made three primary pages, one for each of the blogs I write for. I decided to get even more specific to help with my (dis)organization. I broke my subpages for each blog into four sections: In Progress, Out for Review, Edits Needed, and Published. With this system, I can quickly see the status of each article. For me, this makes it really easy to jump right in on actual work without having to try and remember where each article is in the publication process. The best part? Organizing is done by drag and drop. It literally doesn’t get any easier.

So here’s an example of what your “Blog Articles” navigation might look like:

The navigation gets long sometimes, but that’s okay because I don’t always have to look at the whole thing. I usually keep the “Published” and “Out for Review” sections collapsed, and the others expanded. I set calendar reminders to follow up with the articles pending approval.

Sometimes, if the research process is intensive enough, I’ll make a whole new project for one article so I can store images, notes, and other resources. But most of the time, the main “Blog Articles” project works great for me.

Newsletters, Support Docs and the Rest.

This “Blog Article” format works for pretty much everything else, too, with minor tweaks here and there. The Jumpchart project I created for “Newsletters” is especially helpful because I have all my previous newsletter content in one place. So in just a couple clicks, I can quickly and easily reference the content I’ve already covered, double check formatting from previous issues, and make sure to stay consistent with tone and subheads.

Distraction Free Writing.

I’m bad about getting distracted, I really am. All it takes is a notification to go off, or an alarm to sound and I’ve abandoned my writing project and I’m checking email instead. But Jumpchart has a really great feature that I’ve fallen in love with – the distraction free writing mode. This feature gets rid of all the extra stuff on your screen, and leaves you face to face with nothing but the words on the page. I still have to summon the internal strength to turn off my email alerts, but once I’ve done that the rest is history. For those times when the words are flowing like an avalanche from the top of the Rockies, there’s nothing better than being able to really zone in.

Ideas Under One Roof.

If you’re a writer, you know ideas for all these pieces come in just that – pieces. I might get an email with the word count specs, a Skype message with a reference link, and a Twitter DM with an interested interviewee. That’s not even counting how the actual ideas enter my head – freaking all over the place. Jumpchart has proven to be a great place to hop in, jot down the idea, note, reference, or link, and get back out. No more scouring the pages of my notebook for that random thought I had over lunch… now when those ideas strike, I fire up Jumpchart on my iPad or phone. And of course since it’s a web app, I can access it from anywhere.

I’m proudly partial because I work for the company that created Jumpchart. But all biases aside, I love Jumpchart for more reasons than the fact that I know the designers and developers personally. I find this tool useful day in and day out and at the end of the day, it makes me better at my job. What more could I ask for?

The Blendtec videos were viewed over six million times within five days of their posting on YouTube and on Blendtec’s website. They’ve been viewed more than 100 million times since.

Blendtec’s “Will It Blend” video series is a primo example of effective content. Fearless and fantastic, this marketing tool offers up a rare gem in marketing – creative that NAILS everything beneficial about a product (pure advertising if you will) while APPEARING as genuine content (art for art’s sake, per se). Frankly, not everything your brand has to say can achieve this holy grail of communication. But finding the optimal balance between the two is part of having fresh, effective content.

Your company can learn a lot from Blendtec. Even if comedy isn’t in your wheelhouse, there’s pure value in this content. Here’s 7 things to consider when you’re planning what you want to say to your audience:

1.) Does your content humanize your company?

The challenge with digital communication is that it’s a medium where people are interacting in the absence of another person. However, the better your content, the more it will impart human feelings – happiness, joy, wonder, curiousity. However, just making people feel isn’t enough.

CONTENT TIP: Review your content from a 3,000-foot perspective. What’s the gist of the story you’re telling? Is it relatable? Could you order some coffee and genuinely explain it to a barista? Would they want to hear more?

2.) Is your content fun?

These videos appeal to our inner child. Even if you’re selling bank mortgages, there’s opportunities to impart wondrous moments – buying your first house, starting your own business – good content captures these feelings. The secret to being childlike is that it’s a state of mind conducive to possibility. A consumer who envisions possibility is a consumer who is more likely to make use of your product. But be careful….

CONTENT TIP: Find the balance between the real message and the imagined fun… If you’re working with a local brewery, your focus will lean towards the REAL offering. Whereas if you’re working with tax returns, you may need to push the BENEFITS of getting a tax refund (i.e. the imaginary)…

3.) Is your content real?

These videos ARE in fact, real. They are the product in question doing what these products are meant to do… blend… Imagine how different it would be if a company selling lawn gnomes and Christmas lights made this video. Although, perhaps if you were selling lawn gnomes by blending them maybe you’re onto a recent development in marketing…

CONTENT TIP: Think of content creation as a spectrum. Yes, you need to push the creativity, but make sure you don’t lose the message to the frills.

4.) Is your content interactive?

Maybe you asked your fans what else you can do with lawn gnomes and they suggested blending them. In Blendtec’s case, fans can suggest things for Dickson to blend and he listens. They engage with followers social media and they sound like people when they do it. If you make excellent content you have the chance now to share it many ways…

CONTENT TIP: Let’s talk about interactive… interactive doesn’t mean you automatically have to engage fans by having them vote, or by administering this week’s FWA Site of the Day cliché. Interactive means you understand your audience well enough to know how they’ll engage with your message.

5.) Is your content integrated into all appropriate channels?

Will it Blend is on Twitter, Facebook, a microsite, the company’s homepage, and the company blog. If you have something worth sharing, a design agency can and will get that message up everywhere it counts. Overlap and redundancy do not bode well when we interact, but one thing about excellent content, is that people won’t mind coming across it multiple times.

CONTENT TIP: Again, think spectrum… a good message in the yesteryears of advertising had “legs” and could sit well in all media. But today’s content is malleable. Remember that one of the most successful campaigns of last year, Felix Baumgartner’s jump from space, had NO broadcast media. Now, success hinges on putting the RIGHT message in the RIGHT place. That’s not always everywhere.

6.) Does your work show off your product?

These videos make it clear – that’s one hell of a blender. It costs $400, and it looks totally worth it. Business is business, and perception is part of my work as a content creator. It’s a good relationship: I put energy into presenting something; you focus on doing what you do best, creating quality goods/services. Case and point: the better your blender, the better videos we can make of stuff blending, metaphorically speaking.

CONTENT TIP: When organizing your content, it’s important to determine what the INITIAL impression is going to be. EVERY message shows off your product. But you’ll need to make choices about the hierarchy to attain the balance of pure product versus perceived benefits….

7.) Does it sell your product?

Bottom line is that you’re marketing efforts are there to increase bottom line. In Blendtec’s case, sales are up more than 700% since the campaign began. Pretty, pretty good.

CONTENT TIP: Trim the fat. At the end of the day, your message is really “buy this service”… which means that A) you need to talk to people who can make use of the given service… B) you need to make them really want it and C) you need to make it easy for them to obtain it… If something doesn’t do one of the three, let it go…

Images courtesy of Blendtec.com

Improved Print Styles
If you’re like us, you like to print things sometimes – helps to have something physical to mark up, and it gets old looking at the screen all day. Now your printout look more like what’s on your screen – with content and navigation organization fit to show clients if you so choose. We also eliminated all the extra browser elements that tend to crowd a page.

Export to PDF
Introducing one more way to share projects with collaborators and clients (in addition to inviting them to the project, or showing them a public wireframe, of course). Now you can export the full project to a PDF – and send that file however you’d like; via email, physical copy, zip drive – whatever. As you know, a PDF holds its formatting across browsers, and even operating systems. No matter how outdated your client’s computer is, they’ll see what you see.

Sitemap Printing Support
Now the sitemap is easier to print, too. The new graphically enhanced sitemap will show the organization of your project in a succinct layout you can pitch to anyone.

Export to Drupal
Jumpchart already supported WordPress exports – the most popular CMS on the web. Now we’re supporting another one of the biggies – Drupal. Your full site export is now only one click away.

Focus on Content
A clean screen is a must. Now you can zone in on the task at hand by eliminating all other elements on the page. You can even choose to work on a light or dark colored background. Don’t worry, your editing menu will still be accessible with a quick click.

Dumpster Divers – Rejoice!
Just because something is in the trash doesn’t mean it actually belongs there. If you’ve ever accidentally deleted a page (and all its subpages…), you know the feeling of panic that immediately ensues. Now, recovering your “lost” content is as easy as reaching into the trash and pulling it out.

The More, the Merrier
Add another win for efficiency – now you can invite multiple collaborators to your project at once. There’s plenty of room in the invitation field – and you can still add a personal message to them.

The hard part is deciding when. Early? Before you get into the nitty gritty? Or later? After you’ve already done the hard stuff? There are pluses and minuses to both. But because you’re using Jumpchart, you’re lucky… you can go either way and still stay on track. Here’s how.

Getting Feedback Early.

Getting Feedback Later.

So, as you can see, whether you decide to get feedback out of the starting block, or halfway down the yellow brick road, Jumpchart helps make sure you do your job the best you can.

Keep adding content. How? By developing a content strategy. This is totally a 30,000 foot view of what content strategy really looks like, but there are others who do a much better job of getting down to the gory details. In a nutshell, figure out a plan that answers these questions: How will you let people know you exist? Will you blog? Will you tweet? What will you say? Can you pull this off using one voice? Have one underlying message?

Having a content strategy is good for many reasons. Readers like to know an actual human is involved with the site. They want to know the thing is maintained, and not just stuck online and forgotten about. Google actually feels the same way; as many times as that search results algorithm changes, fresh content has always ranked high in “must-dos.”

I wrote a post a couple years ago called A Million Little Finish Lines, and now I realize it’s relevant to more than just app development. I’ll spare you the philosophical rant about how it’s applicable to every aspect of life, but I will say this: preparing and implementing your content strategy can get really overwhelming. Setting little goals for yourself helps keep your motivation up, and your sense of accomplishment high.

How you implement a content strategy is up to you (and all the actual experts out there). But there is one piece of advice I’ll toss up. Make your goals realistic and don’t be afraid to adjust them. It’s incredibly easy to miss a deadline (even if it’s self-imposed) and continue slipping after that. If your goal is to post new content twice a week, work for it. But if you find that goal harder to reach than you thought, bring it down to once a week. You won’t feel the stress of having to publish something, or the resentment of posting something good that could have been great with a little extra finesse.

Architecture.

You know, the real backbone of the site. This is actually my favorite part of planning a site (nerd alert, I know) because it forces me to really focus on what the site’s purpose is. Kicking off content creation for a project, I have a bunch of notes scribbled in my notebook: headline ideas, tone concepts, calls to action, or things the client has mentioned they want included. It starts to pile up on my desk, but before I pay attention to any of it, I put together the thing that will tie all that chicken scratch together. 

I know a lot of people do it differently, but I start with a blank page, and a pen. I jot down everything I think might be useful. If it enters my head, it hits the page. The list grows quickly, but I don’t leave anything off. It’s the writer’s version of a free-write for navigation – I let my thought process sort of run wild, but the end result is an all inclusive list of what might make this site great. Then I tear it apart.

This is fun because I get to temporarily step out of my role as “architect,” and step into the role of the client’s client. If I’m a client visiting their webpage, what am I looking for? What buttons will get me there the fastest? If this website is going to be as helpful as possible for me, what’s on it?

As I step back into the role of architect, I switch my viewpoint again. As an organization, what is the overall goal of the website? What’s most important to the client? Is their website serving an educational role in their customer’s lives, or acting as a store?

By the end of the process, I have it. The short list of top level navigation items, and a slightly longer list of subpages. Then it gets really real: I fire up Jumpchart and give those pages a home.

Now, let the real work begin…

When you explain to your client that you work with a content first approach, you might be met with a raised eyebrow. You might feel like you have to defend your process – but you don’t! Instead, educate them. Convince them. Remind them that their project is going to turn out great, and this is why.

When you invite someone to a Jumpchart project, you have the option to include a personal message with the invitation. We have some default content there that explains what Jumpchart is, and I think a variation of it can be used in this situation, too.

Here’s the content as it stands in Jumpchart now:

You’ve probably heard us mention Jumpchart in bits of our conversations- here’s a little more information on it as we move forward.

When putting together your website, there are certain steps we take to make sure we give you the best finished product possible. The first step is figuring out what order your site’s pages will go in, and what content will go on which pages. The next steps include designing and programming. Jumpchart is an online tool we use specifically for the first step of this process. 

It gives us visual access to what the site will look like from a navigational and content point of view. Jumpchart helps us optimize the layout and content of your site: the backbone. It gives us a really solid foundation to build on.  

This is your invitation to the Jumpchart we created for your site. When you accept the invitation you’ll be able to see progress we’ve made, as well as make your own suggestions in the comments section. You can even edit content on the actual pages. It’s like a meeting room between us- but we don’t all have to be there at the same time!

But with a little tweaking, it can be transformed into an elevator pitch you could use in front of a client anytime, on demand.

Check it out:

As we’re building your site, we’ll follow a time-tested, creative process that helps make sure we give you the best finished product possible. The first step is making sure we have a clear picture of the BIG picture. So we start with what pages will exist on your site, and what content will go where. The idea is to provide a really strong foundation to build on so the design and programming phases go smoothly from square one.

The decision to jump on board with the content first approach is an incredibly important one. I think it’s also important that your clients hop on the bandwagon, too. So hold their hand if you must, but try your hardest to make them see things your way. If they don’t believe in your approach, maybe you should take a minute to evaluate the relationship. If they hired you, the expert, to build them something great, but fight you every step of the way, maybe they’re not worth fighting for.