Intransitive Motivation

Content Strategy covers every stage of the content lifecycle, and as soon as it is applied in the context of the people involved, it also covers many stages of the corporate lifecycle, simply because it is not the company that is creating content, but the people within.

In an ideal world, those people are authentic writers (designers, photographers, artists, etc.), slurping their craft lattes while typing away happily. In our world however, it’s hard to find and keep those ideal content creators. So, knowingly or not, companies make ends meet with the people they have — and complain about how hard it is to get them motivated to create authentic and thus effective content.

— Wait, what? How do you get someone motivated?

The thing is, you can’t. Dictionaries list motivate as a transitive verb, but in the real world, it’s only transitive if the object refers to the speaker. “I am getting myself motivated” is entirely possible, while “I am getting him motivated” is not.

Get people to ask themselves the right questions that make them reflect about their own motivational strategies. These, in turn, can enable them to be authentic within corporate structures.

When content strategy and human resou^H^H^H^H^Hs intersect, your employees don’t need fancy lattes to develop into the creators that you [singular] need to move your [plural] business forward.