Tamara Adlin uses the power of user personas to align teams and help them develop better products. Tamara literally co-wrote the first book on how to develop and use personas. She has subsequently developed several practices that help teams align executives and other stakeholders on how to build genuinely customer-focused products and services. Tamara and […]
Andy Welfle and Michael J. Metts: Writing Is Designing – Episode 58
Andy Welfle and Michael J. Metts are on a mission to empower word people. Specifically the people who craft words as part of product design teams. Their new book, Writing Is Designing: Words and the User Experience, shows UX content creators how to apply design principles to their writing craft. We talked about: their backgrounds […]
Brittney Urich: Connecting Content and Design – Episode 57
Brittney Urich has been connecting content strategy to UX design from the very start of her career. As a senior user experience designer at Ogilvy’s Denver office, Brittney educates both her clients and her colleagues about how content and design support each other. Brittney and I talked about: her background in professional writing, content strategy, […]
Kylie Hansen: Building a Content Design Team at Microsoft – Episode 56
Kylie Hansen is a tireless evangelist for the field of content design and for her team at Microsoft’s Cloud + AI Studios. She shows the managers she works with how content design can improve their products. By demonstrating the ROI of content design, she also earns the budget that lets her continue to build her […]
Ian Lurie: Technical SEO for Content Creators – Episode 55
Ian Lurie is a leading technical SEO expert. But he doesn’t recommend spending a lot of time on fancy optimization techniques. Instead, he urges content creators to focus on their users’ intent and on quality content. And then do just enough SEO make sure you aren’t hiding your content from Google. Put another way, “Don’t let […]
Eric Best: Scenario Thinking – Episode 54
Eric Best helps business leaders look into the future. As a scenario-thinking consultant, he helps you discover insights that let you formulate an actionable strategy in the face of uncertainty. Scenario thinking gives you tools to explore the differences between your currently planned future and the one that may actually unfold. Eric and I talked […]
Rob Mills: Content Operations – Episode 53
Rob Mills thinks a lot about content operations. As Head of Content at GatherContent, which provides a content operations platform, he both manages and writes about content ops. So, yes, this episode gets a little meta at times 🙂 Rob sees the growing multidisciplinary nature of content work as a “fun challenge.” He revels in […]
Emily Triplett Lentz: Inclusive Content – Episode 52
Emily Triplett Lentz is committed to making her content as welcoming as possible to everyone who encounters it. Her inclusive-content work not only ensures that traditionally excluded groups feel included. It also delivers stronger business results and promotes better writing. We talked about: her background as a writer and content strategist their focus at Help […]
Jonathon Colman: Content Champion – Episode 51
Jonathon Colman knows how to build content teams and integrate them into big digital programs. He deftly navigates the challenges that come with creating complex products in fast-growing organizations, always championing the best content practices. Jonathon’s career arc mirrors the growth of content strategy and content design. He started out as a technical writer and […]
The Evergrey: Conversational Journalism – Episode 50
Mónica Guzmán and Caitlin Moran are thoughtful practitioners of a new kind of reporting – conversational journalism. Their team at WhereBy.Us builds community in five U.S. cities with newsletters that engage their readers in ways that old media couldn’t. I invited Monica and Caitlin to the podcast because I was impressed with how they had […]
Tracy Playle: Content Strategy Workshops – Episode 49
Tracy Playle has a super-power: people skills that help her run effective content strategy workshops. Clarify your “why.” Get the right people together. Engage them in focused and creative activities. Great strategy is the result. Tracy and I talked about: her content strategy consulting work in the education sector ContentEd, the conference she organizes how […]
Phillip Hunter: Designing Digital Conversations – Episode 48
Phillip Hunter has been designing digital conversations for 20 years. He started with touch-tone phone applications. More recently, he has worked on Alexa and other voice-based technologies. Phillip and I talked about: how fun it is to “talk about talking” his current work at [24]7 his early work developing touch-tone applications back in the 90s […]
Colleen Jones: The Content Advantage – Episode 47
Colleen Jones is a Jedi Master of content effectiveness. She helps organizations plan, create, and improve operations that produce user-focused content. Colleen and I talked about: her return to consulting after 9 months leading the content team at Mailchimp content effectiveness – how it’s a needed new way of measuring content succcess that fits conceptually […]
Torrey Podmajersky: Strategic Writing for UX – Episode 46
Torrey Podmajersky is a true UX writing pioneer. As a “content developer” for Microsoft’s Xbox she cultivated the skills she now uses as a UX writer at Google. Her new book, “Strategic Writing for UX,” shares the insights she has gleaned over 10 years of UX writing practice. Torrey and I talked about: how her […]
Laura Robertson: In Search of a Content-First CMS – Episode 45
Do you love your CMS? Laura Robertson asked the audience at her Confab 2019 talk whether any of them loved their CMS. In a room of 750 people, only one hand went up. This sad state of affairs has prompted Laura to reflect deeply on content management systems. Laura and I talked about: her content […]
Mike Atherton: Designing Connected Content – Episode 44
Mike Atherton applies insights from information architecture to help content strategists develop domain models. These models help align content stakeholders and create a powerful way to organize, discover, and display content. Mike and I talked about: his discovery in the late 1990s of the field of information architecture (solving what was then known as “the […]
Flora Paul: Editorial Intelligence – Episode 43
Flora Paul developed an analytics practice she calls “editorial intelligence” during her time at BuzzFeed Brasil. She firmly believes that writers and content strategists “can be friends with numbers and data.” Flora and I talked about: UOL, the huge internet portal in Brazil, her current employer her prior work at BuzzFeed Brasil how she came […]
Rachel Van’t Land: Finding Your Brand Voice – Episode 42
Rachel Van’t Land helps businesses speak in a credible voice that aligns with their brand. She is a copywriter, brand strategist, and content strategist based in Seattle, WA. Rachel and I talked about: how she defines “voice” and how she helps her clients find theirs the importance of voice – it’s every bit as, if […]
Blaine Kyllo: The Power of Content Governance – Episode 41
Blaine Kyllo helps enterprises understand and optimize their content processes. A key part of his work is helping his clients develop governance models that keep content operations on track. Blaine and I talked about: his background in journalism and publishing how large enterprises tend to have the big, sticky problems that governance can solve how […]
Crystal Taggart: Using AI to Optimize SMB Digital Marketing – Episode 40
Crystal Taggart helps small- to medium-sized businesses improve their business results with artificial intelligence. AI is rapidly emerging as a viable technology that even small businesses can use to optimize their marketing efforts. Crystal and I talked about: her company, Atlas AI, and its mission to empower SMBs to use artificial intelligence to better promote […]