Gerry McGovern
"Have you heard the expression 'killing people with kindness'? Well, governments, for laudable motives, are killing people with information. Many countries are initiating Freedom of Information acts, when what we really need are Freedom FROM Information acts."
Gerry McGovern, New Thinking
"Universities... are growing websites like mushrooms, and have an amazing capacity to publish large quantities of irrelevant and confusing content."
Gerry McGovern, New Thinking
"In a world dominated by information, publishing skills are no longer something that's nice to have. They are a must-have."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 4.
"Every day 7 million new documents are published on the Web, where there are already more than 550 billion."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 5.
"The Web is like the Trojan Horse of information overload. It promised information nirvana and delivered overload hell ."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 5.
"A modern manager would never let their factory floor get in the state they let their websites get into... few people realise the true value or cost of content."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 6.
"Publishing is about quality control. You will reject far more than you will publish."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 7.
"In publishing, less is invariably more. Critical content is precise and to the point. In this information overloaded world there has never been a greater case to keep it short, simple and snappy."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 7.
"The key difference between commerce and e-commerce is that commerce is selling with people and e-commerce is selling with content."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 12.
"The dirty little secret of the web is that the majority of content published ranges from poor to downright awful."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 31.
"The Internet can support more efficient publishing processes. But it's the classic 'garbage in, garbage out' mantra; no amount of clever processes will turn poor writing into good writing. The 550 billion-plus documents on intranets, extranets and Internet websites today merely inform us of how many awful publishers there are."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 32.
"The benefits and costs of content are difficult to measure precisely. That does not mean that they cannot be measured. In fact it is vital to establish a cost-benefit model for content, otherwise it will be managed in an ad hoc manner."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 34.
"Content is critical to the modern organization. It is how the organization increasingly communicates and derives value from its intellectual capital. However content is poorly understood, measured and managed within organizations today."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. .
"It's a strange and fascinating thing how easily content gets disassociated from its reader. There are billions of documents on the Internet today. A great many of them were not written with a reader in mind. They are boring, too long, verbose, incoherent, misleading, out-of-date, unreadable."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 45.
"Publishing skills are far more important than publishing technology. It would be better to have 500 words of the right content handwritten on scrap paper, delivered by snail mail, than to have 5,000 words of waffle sent by high-speed wireless to your mobile phone."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 46.
"People are under a lot of pressure today. We live in the age of information overload. Whether reading on the Web or in a newspaper, the average reader doesn't have the time for content that doesn't get to the point."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 48.
"Your readers are in a hurry. The most precious commodity to them is their time. When they come to your website looking for content, they want to find it as quickly as possible. The longer it takes them to find what they are looking for the more dissatisfied they become."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 50.
"Publishing is as much about what you don't publish as what you do."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 53.
"Don't publish content just because you have it. Only publish content that is relevant."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 55.
"Do not believe the reader is dying to interact with the organization and will do so at every opportunity. A wll-designed website will minimize the amount of unnecessary interaction by having content that answers reader's questions."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 58.
"If you want great content that is well written so that it can be easily understood, you have to pay for it."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 97.
"If workers are aware that creating quailty content is an essential skill, they are more likely to want to learn how to become better at it."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 97.
"Quantity is often the enemy of quality publishing. Less is invariably more."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 111.
"Editing is about making sure that the good stuff gets published and the poor stuff doesn't. It's about making sure that what is published reflects the publication scope, the key messages, the agreed style and tone, etc. Good editing makes for a good publication. Poor editing makes for a bad one."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 111.
"Much web content is poorly edited, and as a result the Web is seen by a great many people as an environment of inferior content."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 111.
"Even the best writer needs an editor. Good editing is what sets the best publications apart from the rest."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 122.
"Most headings and summaries you find on the Internet are poor. Headings often give you very little clue as to what the document is actually about. Summaries tend to grab whatever 30 words they can find, regardless of whether they 'summarize' the document or not."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 173.
"If an online publication wishes to increase the chances that its readers will 'click for more' it needs to focus on improving the heading and summary writing skills of its authors."
Gerry McGovern and Rob Norton, Content Critical, p. 173.