

Content Strategy Insights
Larry Swanson
Conversations with content strategists from all crafts (strategy, design, engineering, operations, etc.) and backgrounds (enterprise, agencies, UX, content design, technical communication, marketing, SEO, publishing, journalism, etc.).
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 13, 2021 • 37min
Preston So
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 are consuming our content. Preston weaves together elements of omnichannel strategy, voice usability, and other modern digital practices into an "immersive content strategy" that can help you craft content programs that address these new challenges. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/preston-so/

Aug 30, 2021 • 39min
Aaron Bradley
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. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/aaron-bradley/

Aug 11, 2021 • 30min
Margot Bloomstein
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 work of content strategists has to evolve to account for these new dynamics. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/margot-bloomstein/

Jul 28, 2021 • 32min
Lisa Welchman
Lisa Welchman recognized early in her career that companies would need help managing the business challenges that come with new technologies. In the ensuing 20 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 them collaborate effectively and operate responsibly. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/lisa-welchman/

Jul 9, 2021 • 34min
Kristina Halvorson
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 content strategy conference, and founded in 2020 the Button conference, which focuses on digital product content. She hosts the Content Strategy podcast. And she leads Brain Traffic, a top content strategy consultancy. She is working now on her second book, about content leadership in organizations that excel at customer experience. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/kristina-halvorson/

Jun 25, 2021 • 29min
Jeff Eaton
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 across your organization have of your content. Jeff calls this more sophisticated approach "The Content Model." https://ellessmedia.com/csi/jeff-eaton/

Jun 11, 2021 • 30min
Beth Dunn
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 where they co-discover content concerns and figure out together how to address them. The key to Beth's success is her pragmatic approach. She always focuses on the issue at hand and always works with what she finds, not with "best practices" or other off-the-shelf solutions. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/beth-dunn/

May 26, 2021 • 33min
Patrick Bosek
Patrick Bosek helps businesses author and manage content that is structured so that it can be used for many purposes, not just one-off publications. Structuring documentation this way creates intelligent content that both addresses current customer needs and anticipates future demands. The DITA standard underlies this approach to creating and managing the smart, adaptable content that modern businesses need to complete their digital transformation. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/patrick-bosek/

May 12, 2021 • 40min
Patricia Gomez and Mario Ferrer
Patricia Gomez and Mario Ferrer lead the content design team at King Games, the makers of Candy Crush and other popular mobile games. They operate at a scale that might intimidate some people, designing experiences for nearly a quarter of a billion users. Serving that many customers forces them to be thoughtful about the tools they use and about how they work with their colleagues. They and their team have become the "glue" that connects designers, developers, product managers, support staff, and other teams at King, always keeping their motto in mind: "make friends, break silos, build bridges." https://ellessmedia.com/csi/king-games/

Apr 28, 2021 • 31min
Cheryl Platz
Modern digital experiences meet humans where they are. Talking to a voice assistant. Typing on a keyboard. Reacting to a vibration delivered by your smart watch. Controlling a VR game character with a gesture controller. Wherever you want to be, there is now a device and an interaction modality to take you there. Cheryl Platz is the expert guide who can help you navigate the practice of multimodal design, the new UX approach that connects these many interactions to create one coherent human-centered digital experience. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/cheryl-platz/