Not this post. This one.
It wasn’t intentional; I’ve given the author of these ideas, Kristina Halvorson, president of Brain Traffic, credit on this blog before. I wrote a review of her book, Content Strategy for the Web, on amazon. I’ve tweeted about it, commented on her blog, and even got to ask her a question at her SXSW session.
That doesn’t matter.
I remember seeing a tweet from @halvorson one time a while back that read something like (I’m paraphrasing): It’d be nice if I got credit for my ideas from the person who put them in their slide deck. Of course, she’s right. Take out “slide deck” and insert “Ben Curnett’s blog”.
Since her book came out, I’ve been initiating more and more ideas about content strategy into our proposals and work. A lot of those ideas have come directly from its pages. It’s been an incredibly helpful resource, and I’d recommend it to anyone that’s making the transition from mild mannered web writer to content strategist.
The nature of my particular bit of plagiarism shows that I have a lot to learn in that arena. I had convinced myself that the progression that I outlined in my post was the outline for content strategy. It’s not. It’s Kristina’s. She developed it through hard work and experience.
There are other formulas for content strategy. Kristina’s has worked best for our clients. If I write about what I’m doing with content strategy, she deserves the credit for it.
It’s not an easy thing for me to own up to; plagiarism’s just not me. I’m a person who never once cheated on a test, and was actually falsely accused of plagiarizing in 10th grade (yeah, I haven’t forgotten that, Ms. Thompson). But I made a mistake, and I need to be honest about it with anyone who reads what I write. My apologies to Kristina, the content strategy community, and our readers.
Tags: mistakes, plagiarism