Ilarna Nche is an award-winning expert on the technical aspects of building voice applications for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Samsung Bixby. She designs and develops voice apps for clients who want to capitalize on the branding power that voice products bring to the digital content mix. Ilarna and I talked about: her path into […]
Rebecca Evanhoe and Diana Deibel: Voice Conversation Design – Episode 71
Designing voice conversations requires new skills and new ways of thinking about how people interact with your digital product. Rebecca Evanhoe and Diana Deibel are experts in this new approach to interaction design. Like many content strategists, they are learning on the fly. And they are constantly studying the steady stream of research in their […]
Hannah Kirk: Connecting Technical Writing and Content Strategy – Episode 70
Hannah Kirk has great ideas about how technical writing and content strategy can support each other. She’s not a typical tech writer. She loves and appreciates technical documentation and enjoys practicing it. But she has always been more interested in strategy. And she has always spent a lot of time thinking about how content is […]
Carrie Hane: Content Strategy as a System – Episode 69
Carrie Hane sees content strategy as a complex information ecosystem, not a simple stream of publications. Looking at content strategy as a system helps her give her clients a more complete picture of how content works. Carrie and I talked about: her recent decision to describe herself professionally by the activities she does instead of […]
Nam-ho Park: People-First Digital Experience Design – Episode 68
Nam-ho Park is a digital strategist who always puts people first and technology last. Nam-ho first designed experiences for people as an architecture student at Columbia University. The appreciation he developed then for the importance of genuinely human-centered design practice serves him well today. In fact, he hopes that we’ll someday drop the word “digital” […]
Andy Fitzgerald: Information Architecture for Digital Content – Episode 67
Andy Fitzgerald is an information architect who focuses on content for digital experiences. He helps organizations bridge the gaps between their users’ human needs and the constraints and requirements of their digital systems. A website or other digital product will always have an information architecture. Being purposeful and intentional about its design yields better digital […]
Jack Molisani: Content Strategy Events – Episode 66
Jack Molisani knows how to put on an engaging and edifying professional conference. He founded and organizes the LavaCon technical content strategy conference, which draws hundreds of content professionals to cities like New Orleans and Portland each year. Jack has experimented over the years with virtualizing parts of his conferences, and he shares in this […]
ConveyUX Strategy Panel: Balancing Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives – Episode 65
Back in early March, when it was still safe to gather in person, we convened a panel of UX strategy experts at the ConveyUX conference in Seattle. Cora Cowles is Associate Experience Director at Huge Detroit Laura Joss is Global Director of the Design Research team at Motorola Brent Summers is Director of Marketing at […]
Elly Searle: Fierce UX-Writing Advocacy – Episode 64
Elly Searle is a fierce advocate for UX writing. Like any UX professional, her advocacy starts with the end users of the products she works on. But Elly is probably best known for her work advocating for pay equity for her content teams. Thanks to her efforts, Elly’s writers are treated the same as their […]
Andrea Ames: Content Strategy Leadership – Episode 63
Andrea Ames has been a content leader for more than 35 years. From her early work as a technical writer, she has gone on to guide huge content teams and to become an advisor to other content leaders. Some folks might get jaded after three and a half decades in huge enterprises. Not Andrea. Her […]
Yuval Keshtcher: UX Writing Community Builder – Episode 62
Yuval Keshtcher is building a community around the new field of UX writing. He first discovered the need for UX writing as a product designer. Since then, Yuval has convened product writers in discussion forums and classes. He studies the field constantly and hosts a podcast on Writers in Tech. This fall, he’ll host a UX […]
Forest Gibson: The Power of Purpose – Episode 61
Forest Gibson and his colleagues at Pluto VR have an ambitious purpose: “to help humanity transcend physical location.” Even before they formed their company, Forest and his fellow founders did deep work to align on their purpose. That clarity helps them evaluate their ideas and make better decisions faster. Their work aims to transform how […]
Amy Balliett: Visual Content Strategy – Episode 60
Amy Balliett grounds the power of images in strong narratives. Her visual stories deliver the kind of content that humans are hard-wired to crave. Amy and her team pair word people with picture people. In her office, content strategists work side-by-side with visual-communication experts. This tandem creates strategically driven visual content that addresses the visceral […]
Tamara Adlin: The Power of Personas – Episode 59
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 […]