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Content Strategy Insights from Larry Swanson

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Larry Swanson - Content Architect

Larry Swanson is a content architect and digital strategist. He hosts the Content Strategy Insights podcast and co-organizes the Knowledge Graph Conference and Decoupled Days. He has also helped organize community events like the Seattle Content Strategy meetup and World Information Architecture Day.

Ann Rockley: Wellness Strategies for Content Professionals – Episode 161

September 27, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Ann Rockley, the "Mother of Content Strategy" and now a health coach and career mentor

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 […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: Ann Rockley, career, health, wellness

Alli Mooney: Executive-level Content Design Leadership – Episode 160

September 21, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Alli Mooney, executive content design leader

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 […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: Alli Mooney, content design, leadership

Ginny Redish: Content, Usability, and UX Pioneer – Episode 159

September 13, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Ginny Redish, content, usability, and UX pioneer and author of Letting Go of the Words

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 […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: content strategy, Ginny Redish, pioneer, UX

Elizabeth McGuane: Design by Definition – Episode 158

September 6, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Elizabeth McGuane, author of Design by Definition

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 […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: content design, Elizabeth McGuane, language

Abby Covert: Democratizing Information Architecture – Episode 157

August 30, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Abby Covert, who focuses on democratizing information architecture practice

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 […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: Abby Covert, democratization, IA, information architecture

Stephanie Lucas: Content Design and Trust at LinkedIn – Episode 156

August 23, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Stephanie Lucas, trust and content design expert at LinkedIn

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 […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: content design, LinkedIn, Stephanie Lucas, trust

Selene De La Cruz: Building Trust with Content Design – Episode 155

August 8, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Selene De La Cruz, expert on trust-building with content design

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 […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: content design, Robinhood, Selene De La Cruz, trust

Donna Lichaw: The Leader’s Journey – Episode 154

August 2, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Donna Lichaw, author of The Leader's Journey

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 […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: Donna Lichaw, leadership

Hinrich von Haaren: Content Transformation at Content Design London – Episode 153

July 26, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Hinrich von Haaren, author of Content Transformation

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 […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: content strategy, content transformation, Hinrich von Haaren

Adam Lawrence: Facilitation Skills for Content Designers and Strategists – Episode 152

July 19, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Adam Lawrence, expert on facilitation skills

As strategists and designers, we often facilitate gatherings of stakeholders with a variety of priorities and approaches. There can be a temptation in such groups to leap into action and start building solutions and creating content right away. A good facilitator like Adam Lawrence can redirect this natural human enthusiasm to bring focus to our […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: Adam Lawrence, facilitation, workshops

Karen McGrane: Pioneering Content Strategy and UX – Episode 151

July 11, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Karen McGrane, pioneering content strategy and UX practitioner

The web has changed a lot over the past 25 years. Or maybe it hasn’t. Enterprise content architectures are maturing and finally beginning to separate content from its presentation. But old-fashioned artifacts like PDF files still abound, and authors still expect WYSIWYG editing experiences. And when Karen McGrane reflects on her work at Razorfish 25 […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: content strategy, Karen McGrane, UX

Keri Maijala: Leading Content Design with Joy – Episode 150

July 5, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Keri Maijala, content designer leader at LinkedIn and in the content community

As the field of content design has matured, leaders have emerged to guide their teams as well as the profession as a whole. Both at LinkedIn, where she leads the content design team, and through her avid participation in the content community, Keri Maijala has helped shape the craft of content-design leadership. We talked about: […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: content design, Keri Maijala, leadership

Margo Stern: Getting a Job in Content Design and Hiring Content Designers – Episode 149

June 27, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Margo Stern, expert at both finding good content jobs and staffing content-design teams

Margo Stern has landed desirable jobs at several prominent companies – places like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Peleton. She has also built multiple content design teams in those same organizations. Now she’s writing a book to share both her job-hunting expertise and her extensive content hiring experience. We talked about: her work as a the […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: content hiring, job hunting, Margo Stern

Vidhika Bansal: Applying Behavioral Science to Content Design – Episode 148

June 19, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Vidhika Bansal, applying behavioral science to content design

Humans are notoriously fickle creatures, hard-wired to behave in unpredictable ways. This makes experience design work challenging for both managers and practitioners. Vidhika Bansal has led both UX research and content design teams. Her background in both the behavioral sciences and UX design gives her a unique toolkit for bridging the gaps between unpredictable human […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: behavioral science, content design, human behavior, UX research, Vidhika Bansal

Michael Andrews: Managing Content in Design Systems – Episode 147

June 6, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Michael Andrews, expert on content management for design systems

The emergence of design systems has created new content strategy and content management needs and opportunities, especially with the advent of headless CMSs. As a long-time UX practitioner, content strategy evangelist, and content systems expert, Michael Andrews is uniquely qualified to talk about how to manage content in these new systems. So far, the most […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: decoupled content, design systems, headless CMS, Michael Andrews

Paula Land: Content Audits and Inventories, Second Edition – Episode 146

May 29, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Paula Land, author of "Content Audits and Inventories: A Handbook for Content Analysis"

Paula Land wrote the definitive guide to content audits and inventories almost ten years ago. A lot has changed since then. The new edition of “Content Audits and Inventories: A Handbook for Content Analysis” has been extensively updated to account for the evolution of auditing practice, including 100 pages of new content and a new […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: content audit, content inventory, Paula Land

Eileen Webb: Cultivating Authentic Human Relationships at Work – Episode 145

May 23, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Eileen Webb, expert on human relationships at work

When your organization talks about “bringing your whole self to work,” they’re likely picturing an idealized version of you, not the complex human that you actually are. Eileen Webb helps people and teams build better relationships at work by connecting them with their actual authentic selves. Her approach isn’t touchy-feely, summer-camp trust-fall theater. It’s pragmatic […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: authenticity, Eileen Webb, relationships, trust

Preston So: Immersive Content and Usability – Episode 144

May 15, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Preston So, author of Immersive Content and Usability

Designing content for immersive experiences has been around longer than you might think. Many people jump straight to modern VR headsets when they think about immersive digital experiences, but the craft of immersive content design also shows up in applications like location-aware text alerts and games like Pokemon Go. Preston So has just written the […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: 3D content design, immersive content design, Preston So

Kaysie Garza: Research-Backed Content Design at Hotjar – Episode 143

May 9, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover image for interview with Kaysie Garza, content design lead at Hotjar

Building a content design team is typically a long process. At Hotjar, Kaysie Garza has had the chance to build a new content-design practice with two colleagues at her side from the very beginning. Hotjar offers a variety of research products, so Kaysie and her team have also been able to inform their work with […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: content design, leadership, UX research

Rebekah Wolf: Including Content Design in Design Systems – Episode 142

May 1, 2023 by Larry Leave a Comment

podcast cover art for interview with Rebekah Wolf, expert on including content design in design systems

Content has always been a key element of any design system, but content designers have only recently become part of these system teams. It’s still early days, but the role of content in design systems is evolving rapidly. Rebekah Wolf has been part of that evolution through her work as a content designer on Microsoft’s […]

Filed Under: Content Strategy Insights Tagged With: content design, design systems, Rebekah Wolf

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2023 conferences and workshops

  • Utterly Content (moderating AI panel), February 27-March 2
  • This is Service Design Doing Executive School (attending), March 6-10
  • The European Chatbot & Conversational AI Summit (attending), March 14-16
  • Confab (attending), May 2-3
  • The Knowledge Graph Conference (co-chairing content track), May 8-12
  • Decoupled Days (co-organizing), August 16-17
  • Semantics (attending), September 20-21
  • EuroIA (attending), September 22-23

About Elless Media

Elless Media is the home of Larry Swanson’s content strategy, content modeling, and information architecture consultancy and the Content Strategy Insights podcast.

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