In episode 63 of The Content Strategy Experts podcast, Sarah O’Keefe and Chip Gettinger of SDL chat about subject matter experts and their role as authors and as reviewers of content.
“One of the most important things about working with SMEs is to meet them where they are. It’s important to understand where they’re coming from and their perspective. Understand what issues matter to them.”
—Chip Gettinger

Related links:

* Content strategy pitfalls podcast: change management
* Change management during mergers

Twitter handles:

* @sarahokeefe
* @cgettinger

Transcript:
Sarah O’Keefe:     Welcome to The Content Strategy Experts Podcast, brought to you by Scriptorium. Since 1997 Scriptorium has helped companies manage, structure, organize, and distribute content in an efficient way. In episode 63 we talk about subject matter experts, and their role as authors, and as reviewers of content. Hi everyone, I’m Sarah O’Keefe, and I’m delighted to be here with Chip Gettinger of SDL.
Chip Gettinger:     Hi Sarah, hi everybody. It’s great to be on the podcast today, looking forward to it.
SO:     Yes, we are delighted to have you here, glad we get a chance to chat because we don’t as much as we might want to. Chip is over at SDL, where he manages the global solutions team focused on structured content management, working directly with customers and partners. And for someone like me maybe more importantly, has been in this industry for a while, and knows everybody, and perhaps everything. For those of you that have also been in the industry for a while, you should know that he was an actual typesetter, so he comes by his interest in content honestly.
CG:     Yes Sarah, I remember the days fondly of teaching typesetting picas and points to my students, it was really fun.
SO:     Alright, well now that we’ve lost all the millennials we can move on to our actual topic. So, a little bit about subject matter experts and their relationship to content. I guess traditionally, a subject matter expert would be somebody who, who’s what? What is a subject matter expert?
CG:     It’s a great question Sarah, and I think it does vary by industry, but let’s start with high tech manufacturing organizations. I think one of the first things I see frequently are software, hardware developers, engineers. These are experts in the company, who are developing products, writing software, developing hardware, and they have so much knowledge, and so much expertise. But, they’re really driving the production, the development of the products. And this information is so critical that they have about how those products work, how they operate, and how they can get that information out.
SO:     So you’re talking about somebody who’s an expert in the product, but not necessarily somebody who is an expert writer?
CG:     Correct, correct. Unfortunately we’ve all read content that’s written by somebody who really is not a good writer. Our professional writers, the industry has grown up over many decades of skills and so forth, working very closely with SMEs to ween out that information. And then, professionally write it and present it typically for customers, or internal use for their organizations and products.
SO:     Yeah, so I mean traditionally is kind of a loaded term. But, it seems like what we have had with the rise of professional technical writing, typically is that your subject matter expert reviews content,