I can understand how content that is moulded and shaped by several departments may have lost some of its initial verve when published. But errors like misspelling a name, listing the wrong phone number, or misquoting someone to such a degree that the information they’ve divulged can only be misinterpreted can easily be snuffed out with even a simple set of quality control filters.

These filters exist in any sizeable organisation, but when the heat’s on (when isn’t it?) they can be disregarded and that’s when common errors creep in.

There was a story over here recently about a British soldier’s grieving mother who was upset that the Prime Minister had misspelt her son’s name in a handwritten letter of condolence. One of the national papers decided to make a huge fuss over the issue and then went on to make a similar error on their own website. Needless to say an apology was swiftly issued.

The only possible antidote is usually a healthy contempt of knowledge =). How would otherwise any journalist be able to interview a scientist for 30 minutes (who has worked 10 years on a project), write it down in 2 hours and then send it to print?

Ok, that is an extreme and not correct when it comes to organisation communication. But it has some valid correlations. One of the biggest problems with getting stuff on the corporate site is that too many (read legal department and product experts) wants the information to be so correct that it is impossible to misinterpret. That usually needs advanced technobabble or 2 page legal document.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by richardjingram: New blog post: Don’t compromise the quality of your content by rushing to publish http://bit.ly/caAb27 #contentstrategy…