Content is your platform, built for channel neutrality

Peter Buckley of Dorling Kindersley appears to have his head screwed on straight:

Flat content. That assumption that “something else will come along” is also driving what Buckley calls the “flat” content model: that is, content is increasingly conceived and created with a view to it potentially getting used in a number of ways—whether as an app, an e-book, a website, or even a printed tome. What’s also interesting is that Buckley appeared less preoccupied with what “the next big platform” might be—just that his company is prepared for it, regardless.

Anyone with a serious stake in content production should be doing everything they can to structure their content production and storage so as to create a content platform layer that can be expressed through multiple output channels. As those channels proliferate with ever-increasing speed, it’s the only economically sensible method of managing the change.