Leveraging Content Pt. 1

So what does it mean to "leverage"? In short, it means to create something once and then reuse it elsewhere. A pretty simple but valuable concept. In the financial industry, the word "leverage" means: "The use of a small initial investment...to gain a very high return in relation to one's investment" (Dictionary.com). Note the phrase "a very high return." Ideally, that's the goal of well-leveraged content--you invest once in its creation to see a return on that investment grow as the content is reused.

Thinking about this reminds me of a conference call with a gentleman in the online courseware industry several months back. He too was very familiar with the concept of leveraging content and knew the significance of its potential ROI. He spoke unabashedly about creating a course once and then reselling it to a broad spectrum of customers. He could switch out one color scheme and company logo for a different one, and bam, he'd have a branded course ready to go for the next customer. In every case, his initial investment was blown out of the water by the amount he made back. (Before we go leaping from our seats to enter the online courseware industry, it is important to note that he also had several elements in his favor--in almost all cases, he was his own subject matter expert, course designer, and content creator, reducing his overhead, and he focused on soft skill learning.) His enthusiasm for his courses was infectious and serves as a good example of an individual successfully leveraging content.