Jack Molisani Finding the right job in the content strategy field has always been a challenge, and it's getting harder as computers take over more of the applicant screening process. Changes in the industry - especially the convergence of technical and marketing communication duties - also mean that you you have to be proactive about managing your career, even if you aren't job hunting. Jack Molisani knows how to navigate this challenging landscape. He is both the principal of a staffing agency that focuses on content talent and the organizer of the LavaCon content strategy conference. We talked about: the origin story of the LavaCon conference the content management and publishing systems used to execute omnichannel strategy the convergence of marketing communication and technical communication what content professionals need to know to prepare for emerging trends in content practice the importance of speaking to senior management in their language how to deal with applicant tracking systems when you are preparing and submitting your resume how to completely skirt the automated job application world by working your professional network and improving your visibility Jack's bio Jack Molisani is the president of ProSpring Technical Staffing, an employment agency specializing in content professionals. He’s the author of Be The Captain of Your Career: A New Approach to Career Planning and Advancement, which hit #5 on Amazon’s Career and Resume Best Seller list. Jack also produces the LavaCon Conference on Content Strategy and Technical Communication Management, to be held in virtually 24-27 October 2021. Connect with Jack on social media LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/1he6YNdGkjc Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 107. As marketing communication and technical communication slowly begin to converge around omnichannel distribution strategies, content professionals need to stay on their toes. Both the details of the work and the ways that employers seek out content talent are changing. Jack Molisani can help you navigate this new terrain. He runs both a content staffing agency and LavaCon, a big content strategy and technical communication conference. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 107 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to welcome back Jack Molisani. Jack, you may know, he does a lot of stuff. He's runs ProSpring Technical Staffing, an agency that focuses on content professionals. He also organizes the LavaCon conference, which is ... Well, tell us more about LavaCon, Jack, because that's coming up pretty quick and you've been doing it how long now? Jack: This is our 19th annual conference. We've survived a dot-com crash, two recessions and a pandemic. Larry: Wow! Way to keep it going. That's amazing. I just want to observe just for the folks who are listening, that I put on a Hawaiian shirt for this because the name LavaCon comes from ... Well, tell the origin story real quick. Jack: The conference started in Hawaii back when there was STC region seven and eight. We had a combined conference in Hawaii in the year 2000 and everyone kept saying, "I can't wait till year." I'm going, "There is no next year. Hmmm. Maybe there's an opportunity here, but what's my niche?" Right? There's the STC conference. There was Win Writers at the time. I said, "There's not enough conferences with us, with a little gray in our temples." Jack: I did a content strategy conference and content documentation management, and that worked and we had it in Hawaii. That's why it's called LavaCon. That worked until the market crash in 2008. After that, I brought the conference to mainland U.S. cities, but I wanted to keep that aloha spirit that we were known for. The local music, the local foods,

Content Strategy Insights

Jack Molisani: Content Strategy Career Management and Job Hunting – Episode 107

John Collins John Collins is a content engineer at Atlassian, where they are well along in their transition from old-fashioned bespoke content models to modern connected content. Creating and managing content for intelligent content ecosystems requires a fresh approach and a new set of skills. This new content engineering discipline helps enterprises address the biggest challenges of the digital era: personalization, omnichannel strategy, and localization. We talked about: his work as a content architect and engineer at Atlassian and his background in journalism and technical writing the maturing of content professions and the emergence of specialties like content engineering Cruce Saunder's seven disciplines of content engineering: model, metadata, markup, schema, taxonomy, topology, and graph the move from bespoke content creation to new kinds of connected content how he has helped authors adapt to the new kinds of creativity that decoupled content requires the different approaches to content strategy and information architecture necessitated by the emergence of content engineering the three trends driving enterprises to decoupled content solutions: personalization, omnichannel strategy, and localization the relationship between localization and the technical writing concept of conditionalization how modern CMSs permit more robust uses of metadata in content management the need for more people with content backgrounds to get into the content engineering field John's bio John Collins is senior content architect on the Content Platform team at Atlassian. Long ago, John was an award-winning community journalist, but he made the move to the software industry more than a decade ago and has extensive experience with technical writing, UX writing, content strategy, content design, and localization. He has spoken internationally, but John is still learning and exploring content, design, and how best to get users the content they need. Connect with John on social media Twitter LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/cszmfIvAP98 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 106. As online content becomes more complex, and as the content itself gets decoupled from its ultimate presentation, new specializations are emerging in the content profession. Content engineering is the new discipline that builds content assets for decoupled content ecosystems. John Collins and his colleagues at Atlassian are adapting their approach to content strategy and information architecture to engineer these new content experiences. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 106 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us, John Collins. John is a Senior Content Architect at Atlassian, the big software publisher. So welcome, John, tell the folks a little bit more about what you do there at Atlassian. John: Yeah. So I'm in a new role at the company as Content Architect. I've kind of been doing this for a few years under the title of Content Designer, but we've made this move, we're trying to make this more of a practice at Atlassian, of engineering content or architecting content. And trying to build that up as kind of a community of practice, or whatever of those kinds of terms you want to use. I come from a content background, I was actually in journalism years ago, and I was a content designer and technical writer in software for many, many years. And I've always been kind of drawn to the underlying systems and structures of the content, and that has morphed into what I am doing today. Larry: That's great. And I love it. Well, I want to say, in terms of the way you contextualized it, that's such a common pathway into this, and I love that you've gone down the more technical part of it. But I think the way we first connected was you did a ...

John Collins: Content Engineering – Episode 106

Preston So Preston So is an expert in both omnichannel strategy and voice design, as well as a number of other digital business and design practices. As communications channels proliferate and the variety of digital devices grows, we need strategies to give our customers and users a consistent experience, no matter where they are or how they are consuming our content. Preston weaves together elements of omnichannel strategy, voice usability, and other modern digital practices into an "immersive content strategy" that can help you craft content programs that address these new challenges. We talked about: his new book, Voice Content and Usability, his product work at Oracle, and Decoupled Days, an event he organizes "immersive content strategy" - a way to deal with both channel explosion and the need for a central content repository to execute your omnichannel strategy the proliferation of devices and the implications for omnichannel strategy the importance of providing a consistent content experience across all devices and channels a pragmatic approach to single-sourcing content that arose in a project he did with the US state of Georgia the difference in mental models between content that is presented on a website vs. content that is delivered via a voice interface the implications of omnichannel delivery for your information architecture the benefits to analytics, benchmarking, and metrics of sourcing all of your content from a single CMS the use of "dialogue traversal testing" (DTT) in conversational design one of the huge differences between web and voice navigation: the lack of menus in voice interfaces the importance of a comprehensive omnichannel content audit that evaluates all of the possible contexts in which your content may be presented, and that also considers both the discoverability and the legibility of the content in each the generic navigational benefits of voice interfaces over web interfaces the opportunity that voice interfaces give us to return to more natural human communications methods the importance of "letting our users see themselves in the voice interfaces that we build and the content that we deliver to them" Preston's bio Preston So (he/him) is a product architect and strategist, digital experience futurist, innovation lead, designer/developer advocate, three-time SXSW speaker, and author of Voice Content and Usability (A Book Apart, 2021), Gatsby: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly, 2021), and Decoupled Drupal in Practice (Apress, 2018). He has been a programmer since 1999, a web developer and designer since 2001, a creative professional since 2004, a CMS architect since 2007, and a voice designer since 2016. A product leader at Oracle, Preston has led product, design, engineering, and innovation teams since 2015 at Acquia, Time Inc., and Gatsby. Preston is an editor at A List Apart, a columnist at CMSWire, and a contributor to Smashing Magazine and has delivered keynotes around the world in three languages. He is based in New York City, where he can often be found immersing himself in languages that are endangered or underserved. Follow Preston online Preston.So Twitter LinkedIn email: preston dot so atsign oracle dot com Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTYy_kWVwpU Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 105. Our customers and users need content in many different settings, and they consume it on a constantly growing number of devices. Omnichannel strategy is the new business method for dealing with this growth of communications channels and content-consumption modes. Preston So is an expert in both omnichannel strategy and in voice interaction design, one of the new user experience practices that has arisen to address these content strategy challenges. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone.

Preston So: Omnichannel Strategy and Voice Usability – Episode 105

Aaron Bradley Aaron Bradley uses knowledge graphs to create intelligent content experiences at Electronic Arts. Knowledge graphs are a relatively new technology that lets content engineers create more meaningful and versatile content experiences. We talked about: his work as a knowledge graph expert and content modeler at Electronic Arts (EA) his definition of a knowledge graph: "machine-readable facts about things derived from one or more sources" the role of knowledge graphs in content work the two main benefits of content graphs for intelligent content: providing structure and assigning meaning the need for different ways to handle content to execute omnichannel strategy the extra work involved in precisely describing content but also the benefits of that work the use of knowledge graphs to facilitate personalization the importance of being able to connect your content how knowledge graphs can help connect content across organizational silos the makeup of the team he works with at EA the meaning behind his title "knowledge graph strategist" how to prepare to become a content knowledge graph specialist the arrival of headless CMSs as a content management option the not-immediately-apparent ubiquity of knowledge-graph technology already Aaron's bio Aaron is a knowledge graph strategist at Electronic Arts. He is a linked-data enthusiast, search veteran, and compulsive categorizer. Connect with Aaron on social media Twitter LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/CO5wKV84N2M Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 104. The content industry is in the midst of an exciting transition, from old-school publishing and media workflows to new practices that create, manage, and present content in dynamic and more efficient ways. This new world needs content that is thoughtfully structured and meaningful to both the humans who use it and the machines that manage it. Aaron Bradley and his colleagues at Elecronic Arts use knowledge graphs to craft this kind of modern, intelligent content. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 104 of the Content Strategy Insights Podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us, Aaron Bradley. Aaron is a knowledge graph strategist at Electronic Arts, the big game company. And welcome, Aaron. Tell the folks a little bit more about your work there at Electronic Arts. Aaron: Hi, Larry, a pleasure to be with you. As my title suggests, I am indeed someone who deals with the strategy and then application of knowledge graph technology. The less glamorous part of my job, and something I'm sure that we'll get into in some depth, is as a content modeler. So I take conceptual models developed by our ontologist and convert them into logical models for use in our content ecosystem. So dealing a lot with modeling, but over the past many years I've been involved with what was at one time called semantic web technology morphed into linked data, and now is typified by the phrase in all of its permutation, knowledge graph. Larry: I think, I don't know how common the knowledge is of the knowledge graph concept. Can you define that for folks what a knowledge graph is? Aaron: Sure. There's about two dozen definitions of knowledge graph, lingering around there. So I've developed one of my own, what I hope is somewhat comprehensible, and a knowledge graph is a knowledge base of machine readable facts about things derived from intelligently connected, facts about things derived from one or more sources. Each of those phrases in that is doing a lot of work, especially the intelligently connected. So knowledge bases are something people are well familiar with, and you can even think of some sort of relational database tables or spreadsheets as being a type of knowledge base. But I think the big innovation of the knowledge g...

Aaron Bradley: Knowledge Graph Strategy for Content – Episode 104

Margot Bloomstein After showing up in the content strategy world and generously sharing her expertise for more than 20 years, Margot Bloomstein has earned the trust of this community. Margot's new book, Trustworthy, shows you how to earn the trust of your customers and users. As reliance on experts fades and is replaced with crowd-sourced trust, the work of content strategists must evolve to account for these new dynamics. We talked about: the cynical era we live in and its implications for business our turn from trusted sources to distributed, democratized sources of expertise the corrosive effects of "marinating in a culture of gaslighting" how to help people learn to trust themselves again and to once again value good sources of information the three hallmarks of her approach to developing trustworthiness: voice - engaging users with content that sounds and feels familiar volume - understanding how much content is enough vulnerability - how to own up to stumbles and big mistakes and how to communicate in ways that build rapport examples of how "all businesses, regardless of their size or industry or budget, have the opportunity to engage in the work of rebuilding trust and gaining consumer confidence" the importance of undergirding trust-building work with a message architecture the shift over the past 20+ years in the understanding for the role of content on the web, from an experience that content creators thought they could control to the modern understanding that users bring a lot to content interactions her observation that content strategists are more empowered than we might think how content strategists can apply her insights to cultivate more trust in our work Margot's bio Margot Bloomstein is one of the most prominent voices in the content strategy industry. She is the author of Trustworthy: How the Smartest Brands Beat Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap and Content Strategy at Work: Real-World Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project and the principal of Appropriate, Inc., a brand and content strategy consultancy based in Boston. As a speaker and strategic adviser, she has worked with marketing teams in a range of organizations over the past two decades. The creator of BrandSort, she developed the popular message architecture-driven approach to content strategy. Margot teaches in the content strategy graduate program at FH Joanneum University in Graz, Austria, and lectures around the world about brand-driven content strategy and designing for trust. Connect with Margot online Appropriate, Inc. Twitter Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBEzV4wmP6g Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 103. Nowadays, trust is hard to come by. With authoritative figures like Walter Cronkite fading into ancient history, experts are dismissed, and people are reluctant to accept information from unknown sources. These dynamics create a number of challenges for content strategists. Margot Bloomstein's new book, Trustworthy, shows how to create strategies that meet users on this challenging new terrain, how to get their attention, and how to earn their trust. Interview transcript Larry: Hey everyone, welcome to episode number 103 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really delighted today to have with us Margot Bloomstein. Margot is the principal at Appropriate Inc, a consulting agency, but you probably know her, if you've ever been to any content strategy conference or your content design, any design conference, you've probably seen her on the slate. She teaches workshops all the time, you might've seen her in one of those. But anyhow, welcome Margot, tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Margot: Thanks so much, I am thrilled to be here, thrilled to be talking with you,

Margot Bloomstein: Trustworthy – Episode 103

Lisa Welchman Lisa Welchman recognized early in her career that companies would need help managing the business challenges that come with new technologies. In the ensuing 22 years, she has become the leading expert in the new field of digital governance. Today, Lisa helps large enterprises, NGOs, and other companies develop frameworks, policies, and standards that let them collaborate effectively and operate responsibly. We talked about: her education as a philosopher and how logic and coding were a good professional fit her early work as a front-end web developer at Netscape and Cisco how the "back-pocket skills" she had cultivated earlier in her career helped her succeed in web business her focus on organizational dynamics the difference between understanding technology and managing it as close as you'll ever get to getting a definition of digital governance from her: "creating a collaboration model so that people can intentionally build something together" one of the big challenges of doing governance work: the lack of a common understanding of it across organizations the importance of agreeing on a defintion of "digital governance" before implementing it why she would rather see digital governance capability embedded across and within an organization than ensconced in a silo-ed role like Chief Digital Officer the difference in governance needs between legacy businesses and digital-first businesses how digital-first companies can be immature as business entity even as they use the latest technology how mature legacy organization can often more quickly implement governance frameworks, policies, and standards the maturity curve that she uses to help companies identify where they are in their digital growth a simple accounting method for digital governance how to create a basic governance framework the challenges of integrating digital governance into any kind of organization her gentle reminder to folks who are feeling challenged at work right now: don't get discouraged and "do the best work where you can" Lisa's bio For the over two decades, leaders of global 1000 companies, NGOs, and other organizations have turned to Lisa to analyze and solve their digital governance challenges. Lisa speaks globally on issues related to digital governance, digital safety, and the path to digital maturity in the enterprise. Lisa is the author of Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design, and co-host of the Surfacing podcast. Connect with Lisa online LisaWelchman.com LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE1o2MlYnu4 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 102. There's a big disconnect in many businesses between how well they apply the power of technology and how well they manage their use of it. Governance is the management practice that gives you the frameworks, policies, and standards to make sure that you and your team collaborate effectively and that you're using technology responsibly and ethically. Lisa Welchman is one of the world's leading authorities on this important digital business practice. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 102 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Lisa Welchman. Lisa is a speaker, consultant, and coach, and works in the area of digital governance, which is what we're going to talk about today. So, welcome, Lisa. Tell the folks a little bit more about your background and how you got into digital governance. Lisa: Sure. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. I have a kind of interesting background. I was a philosophy major at university, spent a lot of time working with symbolic logic, which is the same thing as code logically in your head. I've always had a affinity for structure. That was in the late eighties when the web sort of ...

Lisa Welchman: Digital Governance – Episode 102

Kristina Halvorson Kristina Halvorson is to many the face and the voice of the content strategy profession. She came to prominence a dozen years ago with the publication of her book Content Strategy for the Web, and she had been practicing content strategy for a dozen years before that. Since 2011 she has organized Confab, the leading content strategy conference, and founded in 2020 the Button conference, which focuses on digital product content. She hosts the Content Strategy podcast. And she leads Brain Traffic, a top content strategy consultancy. She is working now on her second book, about customer experience leadership. We talked about: her forthcoming book on customer experience leadership her focus on people and culture and leadership whether "content strategy" is the right label for our industry how she's not mad at the content marketing industry for its use of the term how well her original definition of "content strategy" has held up the evolution of the Confab conference the new Button conference for content design practitioners the difference in her leadership approach between Confab and Button the arrival of the content design profession (and its surprisingly long history at companies like Atlassian) the recent alignment of many companies around the job title "content designer" Beth Dunn's approach to content design as set out in her book "Cultivating Content Design" the difference between content designers and UX writers the difference between job titles and actual roles and responsibilities content and design practice maturity models the number one thing on her mind about content strategy currently: increasing diversity in the field Kristina's bio Kristina Halvorson is widely recognized as one of the most important voices in content strategy. She is the owner of Brain Traffic, a content strategy agency; the author of Content Strategy for the Web; the host of The Content Strategy Podcast; and the founder of the Confab content strategy conferences. Kristina speaks worldwide about content strategy, educating and inspiring audiences across every industry. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her two teens and very good doggo. Follow Kristina on social media Twitter LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iz7FNh3Kd4 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 101. It's been a dozen years since Kristina Halvorson published the first edition of her book, Content Strategy for the Web. She would be the first person to point out that many had practiced and talked and written about the field before then. But it's also true that her book paved the way for a deeper appreciation of the practice of content strategy. She continues to advance the profession with the Confab and Button conferences and her always-sassy Twitter feed. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone, welcome to episode number 101 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I am super delighted, beyond thrilled, just ecstatic in every way to have on the show today, Kristina Halvorson. Larry: Yay, happy, welcome, Kristina. Now, Kristina, maybe for the one or two of you who don't know she's the founder of Brain Traffic, big content strategy agency. She runs Confab and the new Button conferences, and she's just the public face of content strategy. So welcome, Kristina. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Kristina: You just did a really great job. Right now in this very moment, we have just wrapped our second virtual Confab and we're getting ready to go on sale for our second Button conference. At the very same time, I am working on finalizing contracts for in-person Confab and Button next year so the whole thing is ... What is time anymore for anybody. So that's what's happening with me right now.

Kristina Halvorson: Content Strategy Community Leadership – Episode 101

Jeff Eaton Jeff Eaton looks at content modeling two ways, both the traditional boxes-and-arrows way and the title-case Content Modeling way. Thinking about how you'll structure and organize your content will always be important. But the real power of content modeling emerges when it rises to a higher level and accounts for the shared understanding the people across your organization have of your content. Jeff calls this more sophisticated approach "The Content Model." We talked about: his work with Karen McGrane and Ethan Marcotte at Autogram his definitions of content modeling: 1) a relatively simple boxes and arrows approach and 2) The Content Model, a higher-level, big-picture look at your content and the shared understanding of it in your organization "what we talk about when we talk about content modeling" the truth behind the old joke that "the real content model is the friends we made along the way" the inevitability of spreadsheets in content modeling work some of the benefits of content modeling: communicating consistently across different teams getting clarity around how to structure content for various end uses how taxonomy and ontology practices can help bring order out of chaos the lack of agreement among content modelers about standards in modeling terminology the importance of stepping back and thinking about what you want your content modeling to do for you Jeff's bio Jeff helps large organizations understand, model, and manage their content. Whether he’s fixing problems with CMS architecture or editorial workflow, his solutions sit in the overlap between design, communications, and technology. Jeff’s website is eaton.fyi. He can also be found online at Twitter and LinkedIn. Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWTF0kn5nhk Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 100. You can look at any organization's content through two lenses: either as a fairly simple body of work which you can contain in boxes and connect with arrows, or as a complex and nuanced ecosystem that shows the shared understanding of your content across your organization. Jeff Eaton finds value in both approaches to content modeling, but his most impactful work always includes a rigorous and robust accounting of the systems that drive the content. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 100 of the Content Strategy Insights Podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Jeff Eaton. Jeff is a partner at Autogram, the legendary new digital agency along with Ethan Marcotte and Karen McGrane. But welcome Jeff, tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to at Autogram. Jeff: Well, it's a pleasure to be here, especially for the monumental 100th episode, the entry into triple digits. So at Autogram, we're basically a consultancy agency. We focus on organizations that are building and maintaining complex content systems, communications oriented systems, and are facing challenges both with their governance models, how to transition from a rigid template-oriented approach to a more fluid compositional approach, and how to grapple with questions like transitions to decoupled and headless approaches and omni-channel and multi-channel stuff, and the role of design systems and what they're doing, that cluster of interrelated concerns is something that we've found as very rarely being dealt with holistically. But you start talking on one of them and yeah, the sweater starts unraveling and you find out that they're all related. Larry: No, the way you just said that and it's not like they're buzzwords, those are actual things happening in the discipline . . . to handle content, right? Yeah. We were talking before we went on the air and we were getting a little worried, this could go forever, but today we're going to focus this part of the conversation on...

Jeff Eaton: Content Modeling – Episode 100

Beth Dunn Beth Dunn is the author of Cultivating Content Design, a book that shows content leaders how to create the kind of successful content design program she has built at HubSpot. The secret to Beth's approach is communication. First, she listens intently to her colleagues and stakeholders. Then she invites them to workshops and other activities where they co-discover content concerns and figure out together how to address them. The key to Beth's success is her pragmatic approach. She always focuses on the issue at hand and always works with what she finds, not with "best practices" or other off-the-shelf solutions. We talked about: her career path at HubSpot, including the day that she learned from her new boss that she was a UX writer her layers model of content design - surface, structure, and strategy/scope - and how her articulation of them helps her communicate with colleagues the pragmatic nature and thrifty approach that drives her work her approach to organizational change, include a lot of "Tom Sawyer-ing" her "find your five" workshops how she scales her content design work how unhelpful it can be to compare what you're doing with what other organizations are doing how her coaching practice influences her content design work what she thinks we need to do as a profession to mature (hint: it might have to with content itself) Beth's bio Beth Dunn is a content and communications leader, speaker, author, and coach. She pioneered the content design practice at HubSpot, then developed and led the global HubSpot content design team. Her workshops, classes, exercises, and guides have helped scores of leaders, practitioners, and teams design better content, confidently and at scale. Beth Dunn lives on Cape Cod in her hometown with a charming husband and some quality cats. Connect with Beth on social media Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67djFuc5Rzo Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 99. Many professions, including content strategy, worry about not having a seat at the table when it comes to influencing business decisions. Beth Dunn's solution to this is simple: Build your own table. This stance exemplifies Beth's scrappy, pragmatic approach to content work. She invites her colleagues to the table, listens to them, and then co-creates with them tailor-made content programs that grow and scale with the organization. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 99 of the Content Strategy Insights Podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Beth Dunn. Beth does content and communications at HubSpot, but more importantly, to me anyway for this podcast, she just wrote a book called Cultivating Content Design. So welcome Beth, tell the folks a little bit more about your work there at HubSpot and how you came to write your book. Beth: Absolutely. Well, thank you for having me on here. So, it's so thrilling. So I'm a long time HubSpotter. I was one of those people that started off when it was like a really small band of weirdos. And now it's just a large band of weirdos, which is great. So I started there in January, 2010, and kind of started off as the person who would annoy the engineers and say, could you please make the wording on the screen make more sense. Beth: I was in a customer service role, but in a room full of, I think there were 50 people at the time, I immediately sort of stood out as the one who was harassing people and saying, can we make this more clear, it would be more clear to the customers. And that just sort of evolved over time into an official role as a UX writer. We actually ended up hiring our first director of design, who was Joshua Porter, who people might know as Bokardo on Twitter. And he was kind of one of the first popularizers of the idea of microcopy as a scien...

Beth Dunn: Cultivating Content Design – Episode 99

Patrick Bosek Patrick Bosek helps businesses author and manage content that is structured so that it can be used for many purposes, not just one-off publications. Structuring documentation this way creates intelligent content that both addresses current customer needs and anticipates future demands. The DITA standard underlies this approach to creating and managing the smart, adaptable content that modern businesses need to complete their digital transformation. We talked about: the benefits of componentized content over systems that work from a page paradigm the benefits of a future-looking approach to content distribution the difference between operating from an "authored" perspective and a "published" perspective the use of DITA and XML in structuring enterprise content the benefits of DITA, a stable, battle-tested standard the differences between how you store comment and how you format it for delivery on the web his thoughts on "digital proximity" - the idea that shoes the importance of putting your content to the user in a way that is sensitive to their context in the moment and in the language they speak how componentizing your content future-proofs it for presentation in new contexts his take on digital transformation as it pertains to content Patrick's bio Patrick Bosek is a co-founder of Jorsek Inc, makers of easyDITA. Since beginning with Jorsek in 2005 Patrick, has worked on a wide range of projects all focused on improving authoring, production, and distribution of content. Most recently, his primary focus has been empowering the users of easyDITA and generally advancing the product documentation industry. Follow Patrick on social media Twitter LinkedIn Write The Docs Slack Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGcsSDarrTs Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 98. Mention the word "content," and most people immediately think of publications like books, web pages, and social media posts. Patrick Bosek is quick to point out that we live in a post-publication content world. Yes, books and web pages still exist, but nowadays your content needs to be created and shared in ways that let you use and re-use it intelligently. The DITA standard drives his approach to managing the smart, adaptable content that modern enterprises need. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Episode Number 98 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Patrick Bosek. Patrick is the CEO of a company called Jorsek which makes easyDITA and other products. Welcome, Patrick. Tell the folks a little bit more about your role there at Jorsek and a little bit about easyDITA. Patrick: Yeah, sure. Thanks, Larry. So easyDITA is our primary product. It's a component content management system. It's really focused on product reference and knowledge content. So you can think of that as being a full range of things, from knowledge bases, help articles, to product documentation that would more typically, or maybe historically, be delivered as a longer format. So it can really handle everything from very componentized, atomized content, all the way up to very large books, thousands and thousands of pages, and then it manages the whole content life cycle around it, and presents a platform for actually getting it out through different channels to the end user. Larry: Nice. A lot of my listeners, I know, work in... There's a whole range of ways you can publish stuff in the digital world now, but a lot of people come out of the conventional CMS world, where it's kind of like the authoring process of putting the thing in the CMS, and then how it's stored, and then how it's ultimately displayed. There's almost, not quite a one-to-one correspondence, but it's a pretty... the same blob going through the system.

Patrick Bosek: Structured Authoring for Future-Proof Content – Episode 98

Patricia Gomez and Mario Ferrer lead the content design team at King Games, the makers of Candy Crush and other popular mobile games. Patricia Gomez Mario Ferrer They operate at a scale that might intimidate some people, designing experiences for nearly a quarter of a billion users. Serving that many customers forces them to be thoughtful about the tools they use and about how they work with their colleagues. They and their team have become the "glue" that connects designers, developers, product managers, support staff, and other teams at King, always keeping in mind their motto: "make friends, break silos, build bridges." We talked about: the rise of the content design trade (and how it's always been there, just maybe not called by that name) Patricia's evolution from localization practitioner to content design leader the unique challenges of running a content operation in a product organization the origins of the content design team and UX writing practice at King the unique meaning of the word "content" in the game world and how it affects how they label their work the differences between narrative design and game design, and its relevance to their work the relationship between content design and product design how the evolution of content design fits with the evolution of product design, interaction design, and UX design how content strategy fits into their work their role as "the glue" that connects trades at King how, despite all of their accomplishments, they are still a relatively young craft at King how they show their collaborators how content design can contribute at each stage of the product process (and how copywriting is only about 20% of the contribution) how the variety of experiences on their team enrich their operation the surprising effects of the COVID pandemic in democratizing their team's access to stakeholders another surprising result of the pandemic: better documentation of what happens in meetings how their localization needs and the need to scale helped guide the creation of their CMS the evolution of the tools and technologies that they use the motto they've adopted - "make friends, break silos, build bridges" - and their commitment to challenging the status quo and trying new things Patricia's bio Patricia Gomez is Associate Director of Content Design at King, based in Barcelona. She is building the first Content Design craft at King, managing a team of content designers and leading content operations. Previously, Patricia was the Head of Content at eDreams Odigeo, leading a team of UX Writers and Localization specialists. Patricia started her career in the Localization industry and worked 6 years as Localization Manager at Google Spain and Portugal. Follow Patricia on social media Patricia on LinkedIn Mario's bio Mario Ferrer is a Lead Content Designer at King Games, the makers of Candy Crush. He strives to help and guide people across digital products and services with the content he designs. He's a firm believer that the collaboration between research, design, content, and development is what allows teams to solve complex design problems. He started Content Design España, a local community of practice that helps newcomers learn more about Content Design and UX Writing through mentorships, workshops, and events that explain how the role provides value to product teams and their design processes. Mario is always trying to find the best tacos in town, listening to stand-up comedy, and teaching his two kids about Mexican Lucha Libre. Follow Mario on social media Mario on LinkedIn Mario on Twitter Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu3qZfIvlcI Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 97. When you play Candy Crush, you see very few words in that game's user interface.

Patricia Gomez and Mario Ferrer: Content Design “Glue” – Episode 97

Cheryl Platz Modern digital experiences meet humans where they are. Talking to a voice assistant. Typing on a keyboard. Reacting to a vibration delivered by your smart watch. Operating a VR game character with a gesture controller. Wherever you want to be, there is now a device and an interaction modality to take you there. Cheryl Platz is the expert guide who can help you navigate the practice of multimodal design, the new UX approach that connects these many interactions to create one coherent human-centered digital experience. We talked about: what multimodal design entails the inherently inclusive and humanistic nature of multimodal design how a storytelling framework that professional improv actors use can be repurposed as a research framework for designing multimodal experiences how multimodality is a new layer on top of existing design practice how this new design lens shows the need for designing for transitions between modalities the importance of storytelling, especially in the early stages of the design process the possibility of single-sourcing content for multimodal experiences the unique challenges of designing a CMS for conversational agents, like the need for multiple responses in voice interactions metadata strategy for multimodal the inherently collaborative nature of multimodal design the importance of accounting for interruptions and notifications in a world where attention is a precious commodity Cheryl's bio Cheryl Platz is a world-renowned designer, author, actress, and speaker whose work on emerging technologies has reached hundreds of millions of customers across multiple industries. Her professional passions include natural user interfaces, applied storytelling in design and research, and taming complexity in any manifestation. Cheryl’s first book, Design Beyond Devices: Creating Multimodal, Cross-Device Experiences, was published by Rosenfeld Media in December 2020. Cheryl’s career spans a wide variety of high-profile projects at employers including Amazon (Alexa), Microsoft (Azure, Cortana), Electronic Arts (The Sims series), Griptonite Games (Disney Friends, Chronicles of Narnia), Disney Parks (PhotoPass), and presently the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Cheryl also owns design education company Ideaplatz, LLC through which she shares her experience with conferences and companies worldwide. Her work and insights have been featured by outlets including the BBC, Huffington Post, Wired.com, Forbes.com, Adobe, and at venues on 5 continents. Learn more about her unique career - from design to acting - at cherylplatz.com - and follow her on Twitter at @funnygodmother. Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/mLq1YDQ2Mxw Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 96. In the modern world - where you might be asking a smart speaker about online shoes stores in one moment, then looking up size information on your phone, and then sitting down at your laptop to place an order - you really appreciate it when the transitions between those experiences are smooth. Multimodal design is the new UX practice that makes this possible. And Cheryl Platz is the go-to expert on this new approach to designing human-centered, cross-device experiences. Interview transcript Larry: Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode number 96 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Cheryl Platz. Cheryl just published a book called Design Beyond Devices, and I'm really excited to talk to her about that, but she does other stuff as well. So welcome, Cheryl. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days and how you came to write the book. Cheryl: Thank you so much for having me here, Larry. I'm so glad to be here, and I'm really excited to talk to you about multimodal experiences and cross-device experiences, which that's...

Cheryl Platz: Design Beyond Devices – Episode 96

Marcelo Lewin Marcelo Lewin focuses on content modeling, a long-standing practice that is growing in importance as the need for intelligent content emerges. Content modeling helps you manage your content separately from its presentation in any one medium. This skill is crucial in the new world of omnichannel content delivery, where your content is as likely to show up in a voice app or chatbot as in a mobile app or website. Marcelo is a natural educator and evangelist who can help anyone - content creators, web developers, or business executives - appreciate the benefits of understanding your content's purpose independent of its presentation in any one communication channel. We talked about: his work at HeadlessCreator.com, which offers free courses for content modelers his take on the current state of the CMS market his perspective on the benefits of a headless CMS his theory about why organizations are slow to adopt headless solutions the main reason to go headless: the ability to build intelligent content his definition and description of content modeling the collaborative nature of any content modeling project - the need to involve subject matter experts, authors, developers, and others the importance of always staying focused on the intent and purpose of the content you are working with, not its presentation in a specific context the ongoing need to educate and evangelize this new way of handling content his perception that executives get the benefits of decoupled content systems more readily than authors and developers the importance of adopting good content modeling practice to future-proof your content investment Marcelo's bio Marcelo is passionate about Content Modeling, Content Architecture, Content Strategy and Headless CMS technologies. He is the founder of HeadlessCreator.com, where you can enroll in free online courses about content modeling, headless CMS authoring, administration and development. He is also a Senior Content Solutions Architect for ServiceTitan. To learn more, visit HeadlessCreator.com. Follow Marcelo online: Twitter LinkedIn YouTube Facebook Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/zjS6jfSN-Vo Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 95. Marcelo Lewin can help you navigate the new world of content management. In the modern omnichannel world, it's important to store and manage your content in a way that lets you can present it in any number of channels: on a website, in a mobile app, or via a voice assistant. A headless CMS is the technology that makes this new way of managing content possible. Content modeling is the practice that ensures that your content's purpose is clear wherever it appears. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 95 of the Content Strategy Insights Podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Marcelo Lewin. Marcelo is the founder of Headless Creator. Marcelo, welcome first of all, and tell the folks a little bit more about Headless Creator and what you do there. Marcelo: Hi Larry. Thank you for inviting me. I'm very happy and honored to be on your podcast. 95 episodes. Wow. That's a lot of episodes. I give you major kudos for total consistency on continuing a podcast. That's a lot of shows you put on there, so awesome. Larry: Thanks. Marcelo: But thanks for inviting me. I appreciate it. Like you said, I'm the founder of HeadlessCreator.com. It's a website that offers free courses supported by the community. Meaning that I have corporate support from the headless CMS companies to keep the website pretty much free. And people can attend courses on a variety of topics, all on headless CMSs content modeling, which is my passion. I also work as a senior content solutions architect for a major SAS company doing content modeling on a daily basis on a variety of projects.

Marcelo Lewin: Content Modeling for Headless CMS – Episode 95

Patrick Stafford Patrick Stafford has a unique view of the state of content work in the fields of UX design and product management. As the CEO of the UX Writers Collective, his livelihood depends on understanding where the profession is going, which skills are in demand, and how writers and designers can best prepare themselves for UX writing and content design careers. We talked about: his new role as CEO at the UX Writers Collective the current scope of courses they offer and their plans for the future the range of students that the UX Writers Collective serves how he demonstrates the benefits of UX writing to designers the range of job responsibilities and job titles associated with product and UX content work the importance of adopting a content strategy mindset regardless of your role how to build your content strategy thinking muscle the growth of the UX writing profession and salaries the growing body of skills you need to be a UX writer now the variety of pathways into a content design/UX writing career his desire to see more UX designers in design-management roles and less developer-centrism in product management the benefits of a T-shaped skills set for any design professional the need for ongoing learning and professional development to keep up as expectations for the profession rise Patrick's bio Patrick Stafford is the CEO and cofounder of the UX Writers Collective. He is a former Lead Digital Copywriter for MYOB, the largest accounting software provider in Australia, and has consulted with several businesses on UX content strategy. He also hosts the podcast Writers of Silicon Valley, which features interviews with UX writers and content strategists. Follow Patrick online UX Writers Collective Twitter Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/OHu4gf_-WO8 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 94. Patrick Stafford knows the fields of UX writing, content design, and content strategy better than most. As the CEO of the UX Writers Collective, he carefully follows the UX and content professions to determine how to design and develop courses for them. As a UX writer and content strategist himself, he has developed some well-informed opinions about the importance of content-strategy thinking and about how he'd like to see the field develop. Interview transcript Larry: Hey everyone. Welcome to episode 94 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Patrick Stafford. Patrick has recently ascended to the position of CEO at the UX Writers Collective. And it wasn't just that that I wanted to have him on the show. He's a font of useful information about UX writing and that whole field. So welcome, Patrick. Tell the folks a little bit more about your role there at the UX Writers Collective and what you're up to. Patrick: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. I recently took the position of CEO at the UX Writers Collective. We sell education and training courses in UX writing and related disciplines like content testing and chatbot design, and a number of other courses. Prior to that, I was the lead digital copywriter at MYOB, which is Australia's largest accounting software company. Digital copywriter is a weird title. And I know we'll probably talk about that in a little bit. But it's essentially a content strategist. And so I worked on a number of initiatives there related to logged-out states and a few web apps and things like that. I've also conducted a number of freelance UX writing and content strategy projects in my time for a number of consultancies and organizations down in Australia. But yeah, most of my time now, well, in fact, all of my time is now running and growing the UX Writers Collective. Larry: Okay, well, let's start there. Because I've been following you I think since pretty much the start,

Patrick Stafford: UX Writing and Content Design Education – Episode 94

Rachel McConnell In Rachel McConnell's world, if content strategy is the engine, then content operations is the oil that keeps it running smoothly. Rachel leads one of the biggest content operations in the world, a team of 100 content designers and editors at BT, a large communications services company in the UK. Her team is a mix of content professionals from both UX and publishing backgrounds who work across a variety of products. This gives her plenty of opportunities to optimize their internal systems and plenty of ideas for both formal training programs and informal knowledge sharing. As her team increases its capabilities and design maturity, they also help raise the digital maturity of the whole company. Rachel's bio Rachel McConnell is a content designer, strategist and consultant who’s used to building and leading content teams. She’s worked with brands such as Deliveroo, M&S, John Lewis and Virgin Holidays and also trains UX professionals in UX writing. She’s currently content strategist at BT and was the content strategy lead for Clearleft. Rachel is the author of "Why You Need A Content Team." Follow Rachel online LinkedIn Twitter Medium RachelMcConnell.me Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBIBwhWwiYA Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 93. Rachel McConnell leads a big team of content designers and editors at BT, the huge British communications services company. Her content operations include about 100 folks, spanning UX practice, editorial publishing, and content management. She focuses on creating and optimizing efficient business systems and helps her team members execute on BT's content strategy with regular trainings as well as structured opportunities for team members to learn from each other. Interview transcript Larry Swanson: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 93 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Rachel McConnell. Rachel is a content design manager at BT, and a lot of our listeners are in the U.S. and BT would be like the British version of Cox or Xfinity or any of those big... What is it, like phone, internet? Whatever the batch of services that you provide. Rachel McConnell: Yeah, telecoms and broadband. Yeah. Cable, that kind of thing. Larry: All that kind of stuff. Welcome, Rachel. Tell the folks a little bit more about what being a content design manager entails. Rachel: Thanks, Larry. Yeah. Hi, everybody. I am a content design manager at BT. That means I'm responsible for the content designers within a specific alliance. My alliance, which is a group of triads and squads, they have a particular focus on capability. My role is I specialize in content operations, which means I'm essentially responsible for looking at how the whole of the content team is operating from always a working point of view and also from a process point of view, capability point of view, and helping improve how everybody's working and how they're delivering work essentially and improving efficiency and effectivity. Larry: Right, and that implies a large organization. How many folks are you... How many content designers do you have there? Rachel: Our team is quite big. I'm pretty sure it might be one of the largest content design teams in the UK actually. We have about 99, 100 content people. About 60% of that is content designers and the other 30% are content editors. They're more like traditional content managers working within the content management system. Larry: Great. Content design is one of those fields where... In content strategy in general it seems like everybody comes from some kind of publishing or media background, but in content design you're as likely to have design-oriented people as you are editorial folks. Are there different considerations when you're managing a hybrid team like that?

Rachel McConnell: Content Operations Leadership – Episode 93

Interviews with content strategy experts: enterprise, UX, product, content design, content marketing, etc.

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Content Strategy Insights

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