One of my favorite magazines, Real Simple, has a regular feature called "New Uses For..." where they take something everyone has laying around and show how useful it is. Last month it was "five new uses for milk": stain pre-treater, bath soak, shoe shine, burn soother and plant rescuer. When I go to the store to buy milk, I don't necessarily think of doing anything but drinking it, but this was a good reminder that with a little imagination, even milk can multi-task.

The Real Simple feature reminds me of the fifth rule from Content Rules by Handley and Chapman: don't recycle: reimagine. The authors differentiate recycling (an afterthought) from reimagining by starting the process at inception of content, rather than after it's produced.

Reimagining starts with an editorial calendar. I use an Excel spreadsheet for mine, and have several columns: Posting date, type, purpose bucket (borrowed from Jason Falls), media/links, comments, subscribers, other. My spreadsheet has a dual purpose, schedule and brainstorm. But after reading Content Rules, I decided I needed two more columns on my editorial calendar: reimagine and purpose bucket.

For instance, I have a couple projects in the pipeline that could be a resource of reimagined content for the editorial calendar.

1. Major research piece
2. Video of a live event

I can reimagine these projects into different pieces, and pencil them in on the calendar:

1. The major research piece can give birth to a case study series on organizations that stood out in the research study.
2. The research piece can produce a series of infographics for blog entries.
3. The research piece could become an opportunity to write a series of guest blog pieces that can be pitched to other blogs that cover similar topics.
4. The research piece can produce a free download white paper that gathers email addresses for my monthly newsletter.
5. The live event video can be segmented into several shorter pieces or a series that highlight simple "how-to's" from the event sessions.
6. Content from the live event can be put into blog entries for a series of FAQ pieces.

Also, I can reimagine some of my blog pieces as well:

1. Produce a series of quarterly blog "snippets" with links to the full blogs that were the highest read posts on specific subjects I regularly write about-a top ten or top five series.
2. Using the same idea as #1, post a piece on the most commented blog entries.
3. Pull a couple of the most popular blogs from years past and update them.
4. Be on the lookout for real-time news events that may link to a blog I've already written and be ready to reimagine in light of the event.
5. Regular book reviews can produce follow-up blog pieces that highlight practical applications of the book's content (like this one).

The advantage of using an editorial calendar for reimagining is that you can space the media appropriately so it doesn't look like you are always regurgitating the same stuff. It gives a big picture view of where your content is going and keeps the content engaging. Reimagining produces fresh, relevant content that serves a new purpose-just like using milk to shine shoes.

I'm looking for some inventive ideas on reimagining content-anybody have any? Please share in the comments.