Is it soup yet?

Frank Chimero has a great post up entitled On Content, in which he explores serving bad soup in a fancy bowl. Content strategy anyone?

…and everyone is running around screaming “No one wants to buy our soup!” Then they start looking for different ways to distribute the soup. Do they buy new ladles? Would people like it if the ladles were fancier? “Let’s buy new bowls. People would enjoy the new bowls,” they say…. Would people want the soup if it came without a spoon? It could be called “undesigned” or “naked” soup.

In many of the organization I have worked with, design (or redesign) has been tried as a way to fix bad content. Even though design is hard, it’s still seems easier than fixing content (content is hard work). But it’s not effective. If you want good soup you need a good chef and good ingredients. Slurp.