Natalie Dunbar can help you build your content strategy practice, whether you’re running a one-person content show, building a content department, or incorporating a content team into a design operation. Drawing on experiences from her long and eclectic content strategy career and adding the insights of several other industry veterans, Natalie’s new book is a […]
Kate Thomas: Structured-Content Adventures at PayPal – Episode 117
Kate Thomas is leading the transformation of marketing content at PayPal from hand-crafted web pages to structured content stored in a headless CMS. Like many organizational-transformation projects, this one has highlighted both the benefits of structuring content and the challenges of getting content authors to work in new ways. We talked about: the migration of […]
Seth Earley: Ontologies for the AI-Powered Enterprise – Episode 116
Seth Earley helps enterprises use ontologies to power the intelligent content experiences that create personalized content interactions and that run chatbots, voice assistants, and other new technologies. An ontology is a business practice that helps you understand the knowledge in your business and connect and share it in new and powerful ways. We talked about: […]
Katrin Suetterlin: Content Design for Neurodiversity – Episode 115
Katrin Suetterlin is a content architect, a content designer, and an expert on designing for neurodivergent populations. You hear jokes about ADHD, dyslexia, and similar neurological conditions all the time, but as designers we need to take neurodivergence seriously. Research shows that at least 20% of the population exhibits one or more types of neurodiversity. […]
Dan Brown: Information Architecture Lenses – Episode 114
Dan Brown has focused his design work on information architecture for the past 25 years. Along the way, he has written three books, designed a design game, and created one of the the most-used tools in the profession, the Information Architecture Lenses card deck. Dan is very thoughtful about the practice of IA and has […]
Nicole Michaelis: Creating and Managing Design-System Content – Episode 113
Design systems are quickly being adopted across companies of all sizes and types, from big enterprises to burgeoning startups. As in all digital practices, content is a crucial element in these systems. Nicole Michaelis has worked with content in design systems for many years and has learned a lot about how to create and manage […]
Donna Spencer: Information Architecture Educator and Author – Episode 112
Donna Spencer has practiced information architecture at the highest levels for more than two decades. She has taught innumerable workshops and courses, and she wrote an entire book on the subject. Still, to this day, when she teaches IA, she feels inadequate. This speaks in no way to her professional knowledge or her skills as […]
Deane Barker: Content Management and Modeling – Episode 111
Content programs need to be guided by a sound model and built on a strong foundation. They need to put people first but to also account for the technical systems that handle the details of turning abstract concepts into tangible and useful content artifacts. Deane Barker has been modeling and building content management systems for […]
Chris Strahl: Content in Design Systems – Episode 110
In just a few short years, design systems have been adopted by most digital organizations. These systems free designers from many mundane design-production details, letting them focus on the creative aspects of their work. To this point, content has been an afterthought in many of these systems. Chris Strahl sees that changing in the next […]
Rachel Lovinger: Content Modeling Innovator – Episode 109
Many content professionals were first introduced to the practice of content modeling by Rachel Lovinger’s 2012 A List Apart article on the subject. Content modeling gives teams of authors, managers, designers, and programmers a shared understanding of a content ecosystem. Before they write a single sentence or line of code, teams align on a common […]
Are Halland: The Core Model – Episode 108
Are Halland’s “Core Model” has guided the work of content strategists, information architects, web marketers, and other digital professionals for more than 15 years. The model grew out of the need to align stakeholders around a practice that could balance user needs, business concerns, and content creation for websites. It has evolved into a versatile […]
Jack Molisani: Content Strategy Career Management and Job Hunting – Episode 107
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 […]
John Collins: Content Engineering – Episode 106
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 […]
Preston So: Omnichannel Strategy and Voice Usability – Episode 105
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 […]
Aaron Bradley: Knowledge Graph Strategy for Content – Episode 104
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 […]
Margot Bloomstein: Trustworthy – Episode 103
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 […]
Lisa Welchman: Digital Governance – Episode 102
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 […]
Kristina Halvorson: Content Strategy Community Leadership – Episode 101
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 […]
Jeff Eaton: Content Modeling – Episode 100
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 […]
Beth Dunn: Cultivating Content Design – Episode 99
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 […]