Karen Cross is head of content design at Atlassian, an Australian-based company known for their suite of software development and collaboration tools like Trello and Jira. Karen’s work to build a centralized content design team at Atlassian has unified their various product teams and finally brought writers and designers working together. The ultimate goal? More efficiency and better experiences for their customers. In this episode, Karen describes some of the tactics she’s used to build this new team, and some of the challenges she’s overcome along the way.

This week, content strategy pioneer Rachel Lovinger covers a wide range of topics with Kristina, including her content modeling work at Publicis Sapient and the core challenges faced by today’s publishers. They also dive into the intersection between content design and systems design, as well as how the role of the content strategist has evolved over time.

This week’s guests are a dynamic trio of content strategists who recently concluded an extensive associations research project that resulted in their defining the 17 elements of content strategy and the three stages of content maturity. In this episode, they will also share ideas for identifying pain points, establishing governance policies, and getting buy-in from the top to help guide a content strategy project—tactics that can be applied to any organization, association or not.

Tracy Playle is well known in the content strategy industry for her expertise in content specific to the higher education community. In this episode, she and Kristina chat about both the challenges and positive trends Tracy is seeing in higher ed, and how she has been helping universities design user-first experiences by truly understanding their audiences—both students and stakeholders.

Angela Gorden, UX writer at Dropbox, shares how working with cross-disciplinary teams day-to-day makes for better writing and better overall experiences. She offers ideas on how to ensure writing is a part of any project right from the start, and how best to give and receive feedback.

Kristina welcomes Sarah DeAtley, a content and customer experience analytics expert who has worked with major corporations including Dell, Expedia, and most recently, Microsoft. Sarah shares what she’s seen from the trenches of content analytics, including how she determines what works and what doesn’t, and how she uses data to answer the age-old question: “How much content do we really need?”

Gene Shannon is a content strategy lead at Shopify. In this episode, he joins Kristina to talk about what content strategy and UX look like at a large organization like Shopify. He shares how his teams have been able to advocate for themselves and clarify their roles within the organization, all while establishing a culture that truly values content and UX.

Kristina welcomes Laura Trujillo and Ashlee Harris to talk about their work making the City of Austin's website content easier and more accessible for residents. They share their tried-and-true techniques for conducting user research, getting buy-in from stakeholders (hint: “funshops”), and creating empathy for their users.

In this episode, Kristina speaks with Lisa Maria Martin, an independent consultant in information architecture and content strategy, and the managing editor at A Book Apart. Lisa Maria shares her insights on how to work collaboratively in a content vacuum, and about imposing order on content chaos through structure and audits.

Abby Covert, a renowned information architect and author at Etsy, shares her journey from a Caribbean island to the world of digital design. She discusses the importance of community and mentorship in shaping a career in information architecture. The overlap between content strategy and IA is highlighted, showcasing its relevance in large organizations. Abby also reflects on her transition to Etsy, balancing work with personal life, and the challenges of managing career and family, all while hinting at future topics inspired by her book.