Content Strategy Interviews

Jason Barnard Like many digital practices, search engine optimization is becoming more conversational. Not long ago, SEOs had to make their best educated guesses about what was working to get their websites to rank better. Now, by focusing on both feeding information to and gleaning feedback from Google's knowledge graph, Jason Barnard helps companies craft content strategies and messaging architectures that keep their brand prominent in Google's search results. We talked about: his diverse background as an economist, musician, cartoon dog, and brand-SERPs expert how he got interested in Google's knowledge graph how Google can identify the author of an article, even without a byline how your content helps Google understand what your business is about how he uses Google's understanding of a business to plan content that can clarify that understanding his observation that "SEO is just packaging content you should be creating anyway, packaging it for Google" the importance of well-structured, c

Melinda Belcher As content design becomes entrenched as a UX design practice, leaders from the craft are beginning to move into design leadership positions. Melinda Belcher's ascent to her current design executive management role is an instructive and inspirational story of professional development, creative team leadership, and community building. We talked about: her path to her current role as the head of design for the Freedom and Slate credit card portfolios at JPMorgan Chase her history of building content teams in a variety of contexts her practice of creating user guides for herself and team members the importance of modeling the behavior that you want to see in others the differences between content design practice in the New York area versus Silicon Valley how she brings creativity into her work in the tightly regulated financial services industry her take on the differences between leadership and management and between being in those roles versus being an individual contributor

Scott Abel Navigating the complex and multifaceted online media landscape can be a disjointed and disorienting experience. Scott Abel has a method for smoothing out online customers' experiences. His "content unification" approach benefits both the organizations that create content experiences and the customers who navigate them. We talked about: the origin of his personal brand, The Content Wrangler, and his content strategy evangelism for Heretto the concept of content unification examples of companies that are benefiting from a more unified approach to content the relationship between content unification and customer experience the results of his survey of research on API documentation, which shows that, like most human beings, developers don't always actually behave in the same way that they say that they do the two kinds of developers that researchers have identified: systematic developers and opportunistic developers the need for AI superpowers across the content spectrum how AI, in

Dan Mall The basics of building a design system are fairly simple. Ensconcing a system in an organization's culture so that it's actually adopted and used is a more complex undertaking. Dan Mall takes a content-first approach as he helps organizations evolve their design systems from projects to products and ultimately to firmly embedded practices that let teams deliver the efficiency and consistency benefits that such systems offer. We talked about: his Design System University an overview of the professional challenges that come with building and running a design system his new book Design That Scales: Creating a Sustainable Design System Practice his addition to the conventional list of design-system benefits - in addition to efficiency and consistency - relief the tragically common story of how design systems can end up becoming "ghost towns and graveyards" how to ensconce good design-system ideas and practices in company culture how you can benefit by adopting a humble attitude toward d

Jarno van Driel Jarno van Driel is a true pioneer on the semantic web. Even before you could add machine-readable semantic markup to webpages, he was discovering ways to help search engines understand what web pages were about. Much of that success grew out of his early focus on accessibility and usability. When semantic markup was introduced, he was among the first cadre of experts on RDFa, Microdata, schema.org, and other semantic practices, and he is to this day one of the most respected practitioners of this craft. We talked about: how he arrived at his work at the intersection of semantics, accessibility, and SEO his early introduction to the importance of accessibility in content work his surprise and curiosity about how his small primary school websites were outranking big commercial websites how now-common practices like on-page navigation helped his SEO efforts 20 years ago how he discovered semantic metadata by reading Drupal documentation the dearth of ontology guidance and syntax

Steve Portigal To conduct a good research-focused interview, you need to cultivate a professional interviewing mindset. Steve Portigal has been doing this for years, and he has written a book to help other researchers and designers conduct better interviews. Now in its second edition, Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights (available at a 20% discount through December 15 by applying the code ELLESS at checkout), covers interviewing techniques, of course, but also research best practices, how to document your work, and how to make sense of your discoveries. We talked about: his work at his UX research consultancy the elements of a good interviewing mindset checking your own world view at the door embracing how others see the world building rapport listening the difference between chatting and interviewing how to stay mindful as you transition from one mode of communication to another, and the need to consciously cultivate new rituals in the modern, non-stop Zoom world

Michael Reid Michael Reid is a consultant who helps organizations with their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. A linguist by training, he is extremely attuned to the role of language in his work, which led to his explorations of the privilege given to English-language speakers in our modern, hyper-connected world. His discoveries can help content professionals of all kinds identify and address the dynamics and biases that arise from the pivotal role that the English language plays in modern digital business. We talked about: his background in linguistics, interpreting, higher education, and the nonprofit world and how they led to his current work in DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) the concept of a "pivot language" - a language that serves as an intermediary between two other languages how business and social dynamics can turn a pivot language like English into a mechanism of privilege how English language privilege can affect the quality of localization how the dominance of Engl

Lo Etheridge The arrival of decoupled content architectures and headless CMSs creates a new set of challenges for content modelers, authors, administrators, and others who work with content systems. Lo Etheridge does developer relations for Hygraph, a headless CMS company. Dev rel folks don't typically drive organizational change and stakeholder alignment, but Lo's unique background in social work uniquely prepares them to help customers with the human side of content management. We talked about: Lo's work in senior developer relations at Hygraph, a headless-CMS company their background as a team manager in the social work field and transition into tech how creating content in siloed organizations can limit an organization's visibility of its content assets their description of the role of developer relations how their focus on people and human behavior naturally led to Lo's expansive view of a dev rel role how their work on a team supporting a large university's many WordPress websites led to

Sana Remekie The emergence of modular web architectures and complex digital experiences has created a need for new content-management practices and for new enterprise tools. One of the most pressing new needs is the ability to orchestrate the assembly of content elements, which may come from a variety of sources and be used in a variety of distribution channels. Sana Remekie started her company, Conscia, to help large enterprises deal with these new challenges. We talked about: her work at Conscia, where she is the CEO and co-founder the rise of digital experience platforms (DXPs) and the subsequent arrival of "best of breed" headless and decoupled microservices and the ensuing need to unify and connect them how content presentation is managed in a complex, multi-sourced, composable stack the emergence of "digital experience composition" (DXC), a way to gather content from different systems for display on a web front-end Conscia's focus on digital experience orchestration (DXO) over DXP the u

Katariina Kari Knowledge graphs let people and computers work from the same body of facts to create uniquely informative and powerful experiences. Katariina Kari and her colleagues at IKEA use ontologies and knowledge graphs to drive applications like recommendation systems and to streamline back-end processes like image recognition. Katariina balances her engineering expertise with a deep appreciation for the humans who create and use AI applications like knowledge graphs. We talked about: her work on IKEA's knowledge graph, in particular how their ontology brings meaning to their data model how web standards like RDF and OWL undergird ontology and knowledge graph work the benefits of codifying domain knowledge in a way that permits it to be used in multiple applications, e.g., both IKEA's recommendation system and an internal image-recognition app their system to capture subject matter expert insight in the knowledge graph with intuitive authoring tooling for the SMEs the three-tiered view th

Jenny Scribani Aligning brand messaging for a variety of customer segments across a number of communications channels is a complex endeavor. Jenny Scribani has developed a messaging framework that streamlines the process of communicating brand messaging to colleagues across a variety of content practices, letting them focus on the task at hand. We talked about: her prior work at Shopify and many other companies an overview of a messaging framework that she has developed the principle of decoupling messaging principles from their expression the way she balances crafting core messages with the need for channel-specific presentation needs the axes in her messaging framework grid: brand pillars and audience segmentation how the modular nature of the content in her messaging framework makes it easy to share and update how her experiences teaching teenagers has helped her develop her framework some of the benefits of her framework: onboarding contractors, scaling up, updating and improving the s

Ann Rockley Ann Rockley first took the title of "content strategist" in 1989. Over the next 30 years she pioneered content management, intelligent content, and many other practices we now take for granted. Until recently few knew that she accomplished all of that while managing health challenges that would have sidelined most people. Ann now focuses on health coaching and career mentoring, two intertwined practices that help her clients, most of whom are content professionals, manage their health and wellness and thrive at work. We talked about: her pivot from content strategy to health coaching and career mentoring the parallels in the practices she uses across her two careers her personalized approach to her client work how she approaches the challenges of helping people change their behavior how she helps clients develop better habits how much some of her work looks like agile methods her tagline: "Be well. Be successful." the issues involved around deciding whether or not to reveal he

Alli Mooney Content leaders are beginning to ascend the corporate org chart. Alli Mooney is VP of Content Design at Mastercard, where she leads a team of content designers and guides big organization-change initiatives. Like many content professionals, she began her career in publishing and journalism, but her path also included a stint in trend reporting, which lead to a variety of leadership roles at Google. We talked about: her work as VP of Content Design at Mastercard her transition from publishing and journalism to trend reporting and how that led to her 11-year stint at Google her leadership style, which began developing at Google and which coalesced in her work with a leadership coach how to peer into the future by applying the mindset she adopted as Head of Trends and Insights at Google important lessons she learned in her journalism career: simplifying and storytelling how good storytelling skills help you be a better designer her advice about getting a seat at the table: be proac

Ginny Redish There are a lot of pioneers in the field of content strategy. One of them can make a strong case for being a true original. Ginny Redish was among the cadre of usability-testing professionals who founded the discipline of UX design. She was making government content usable, readable, and accessible decades before the famous GOV.UK makeover. She was talking about content as conversation years before chatbots and voice assistants became common. Her book, Letting Go of the Words, guided content practitioners and UX designers in the decade before the second wave of UX writing and content design books arrived. It's truly difficult to find an aspect of modern content practice that Ginny hasn't influenced or informed. We talked about: her pioneering role working in content and usability since the 1970s the origins of modern documentation and plain-language advocacy in the Carter administration her role in creating documentation for the first personal computers, including the first docs to

Elizabeth McGuane Content designers are word nerds by nature. Like many other craftspeople who are passionately immersed in their work, they can forget to step back and fully articulate what we are doing. Elizabeth McGuane has addressed this issue for the craft of content design. Her new book, Design by Definition, sets out the linguistic, rhetorical, and grammatical elements of content design and shows how they work together in design projects. We talked about: her work as a UX director at Shopify the origins of her book in a talk she delivered at a design leadership conference her writing process and how it relates to conversational design an overview of the structure of the book her transition from content design to design leadership the enduring strength of the relationships between visual and words people a great story about the utility and importance of metaphor in design work the importance of being thoughtful about naming things - and the idea that "words mean things" the importa

Abby Covert As the digital practices have grown and evolved over the past few decades, the job title "information architect" has become less common. That doesn't necessarily mean that the work isn't being done, but IA is now often in the province of a designer, content strategist, or other practitioner. Abby Covert sees this situation as both a sign of progress and as an opportunity to more deliberately democratize the craft of information architecture. We talked about: her current work on democratizing information architecture her take on the relationship between information architecture and content strategy how the apparent current dearth of IA attention may actually be a sign of success how IA work is getting done, regardless of whether practitioners label their work as IA the importance of incentives and incentive structures the origins of her democratization work her shift from teaching corporations about information architecture to focusing on teaching individuals the hazards of brin

Stephanie Lucas Designing for trust is a team effort, and it's crucial to keep everyone aligned on such important work. At LinkedIn, the trust team has created a framework to guide that alignment. The RISE framework is built on an acronym that describes how LinkedIn wants its members to feel: respected, informed, safe, and empowered. We talked about: her trust advocacy work as a content designer at LinkedIn the challenges presented by trying to measure trust the RISE framework they use at LinkedIn to help designers create trustworthy experiences its basis of the RISE framework in prior work at the company on codifying and articulating principles around trust the elements of the RISE acronym: respected, informed, safe, and empowered the importance of proactively engaging and involving a wide range of stakeholders when crafting a framework like this the key role of content design in designing for trust the way they have made trust everyone's job at LinkedIn the importance of instilling tru

Selene De La Cruz Before you let a business manage your hard-earned money, you need to trust them. Selene De La Cruz and her colleagues at Robinhood have developed principles-backed practices that earn the trust of customers who use Robinhood's brokerages services. We talked about: her work on brokerage products at Robinhood how they tailor in-product recommendations based on customer profiles her ABCs of building trust with content design: accuracy, brevity, and three Cs - clarity, consistency, and care the workflow implications of the legal and compliance obligations that come with financial products, and the way content designers collaborate with their legal colleagues how they decide to chunk the delivery of information in their user flows the three pillars of trust set out in Frances Frei's "trust triangle" TED talk: authenticity, logic, and empathy how their focus on reliability, accessibility, and care align with Frei's trust pillars how her shift into a management role has expanded

Donna Lichaw Crafting your identity as a leader is a lot like creating your superhero persona. You need to be able to discover your authentic identity and pursue a clear mission, and to do that you need to understand your unique superpowers. In her new book The Leader's Journey, Donna Lichaw draws on her experience as an executive coach and shows how she helps leaders transform themselves into true workplace superheroes. We talked about: the origin story for her new book, The Leader's Journey how leaders can identify and activate their superpowers the three things that all superheroes have: identity, superpowers, and a mission how you can begin your development as a hero from any number of starting points how to measure your impact as a leader the importance of building on your unique awesomeness over simply acquiring new competencies how her background in documentary filmmaking has influenced her work how the best stories that leaders share demonstrate who they are, not a simple narrative

Hinrich von Haaren Content work is never done. Among the most common, and challenging, types of content work are big transformation projects that consolidate, reorganize, and re-conceptualize big web properties. Hinrich von Haaren has worked on many content transformation projects, including the famous GOV.UK website makeover in the early 2010s. His new book, Content Transformation, is a manual for managing these big, complicated projects. We talked about: his work as a content strategist at Content Design London his work on content transformation projects and how it led to his book on the subject unique stakeholder management challenges that arise in big government projects and how to manage them the preference in his projects for workshops over meetings how he and his team set intentions around, and prepare for, workshops how they measure customer satisfaction and progress toward business goals the way content strategy emerges from his content transformation work how content transformat