January 2020
(3-minute read)
Note to the reader: the term bid is used here for consistency but also refers to any other sort of proposal/RFP/pitch etc.
The evaluation has been done and you know what you need and want from your bid content library, you’ve spent some time figuring out where you are going to build it and locate it, and you have done some planning… Now it’s time to start building that library.
The great thing about this part of the project is that you start to see things take shape. You should have the location sorted – whether it was annexing a piece of the bid team’s shared drive or asking IT for a location on a SharePoint/Teams or other area that can be shared. Now is the time to put up the sign that says ‘BID CONTENT LIBRARY’ (or whatever you have decided to call it) in big letters, populate it with content (don’t worry if you have duplicates) and let everyone know where to go for up-to-date, organised content.
Be confident
If you’ve already collected all the content you have (or know about) into a folder(s) in your new space now is the time to start sorting that out. If you hadn’t been able to do that yet, now is the time to collect it all and start the process of sorting through it and dropping things into folders. If what you have was in lots of different locations and folder structures it might be simplest to drop it all into a clearly labelled ‘Collection’ folder, if there was already a good structure in place you may want to keep that together in a single ‘Old/Existing’ folder Drop it into a single ‘collection’ folder to start with if that works for you
Structure
Remember SLIC – Shared, Logical, Indexed, Central
With Shared and Central taken care of, Indexed and Logical are next.
LOGICAL
Let’s look at logical, a hierarchical folder structure is the most sensible way to go about organising information. Spend time thinking about what makes logical sense in terms of flow. Also remember you can always change it later if it doesn’t work as you’d imagined. Libraries, like the content that they contain are allowed to be dynamic. The best advice when planning it is to keep it as simple and clear as possible – LOGICAL.
INDEXED
Indexing is a little bit more work than simply having a ‘logical file name’. Bear in mind that some systems won’t allow very long and intricate file names, so best keep it short. Here is where tagging comes into it. Tagging is entirely independent of the file name and depending on the system you’re using you may be able to apply up to 50 tags to a file (again keep them clear and logical, have a set list).
The benefit – when a search is run using tags you can simply type in the relevant tag and every file that is tagged will be returned rather than every file that has the search term somewhere in the file or title.
Keep it real
Don’t attempt to shift all the information across in one day, unless of course you have a whole day free! The most manageable way to populate a library is in sections – decide which section is easiest or most needed and start there. Do a bit every day and it will be sorted out in no time at all
Up-to-date
Just as it’s important to keep the library up-to-date and current it’s important to let your team and library users know about what’s happening and where they can find the latest information. Ask them to give you feedback on the new structure, let them know how to search for tags (in the search bar type ‘tags:’ and the relevant tags and then search) and what the list of tags is that you’ve used, use their experience of the library to keep them interested in helping to keep it current and useful.
The Content Conundrum 