Content Strategy Insights

Erica Jorgensen has just written the first UX book that focuses on content research.  Strategic Content Design: Tools and Research Techniques for Better UX gives content designers a comprehensive guide to content-specific UX research techniques.  Erica is on a mission to bring more respect to content to content practice. This book gives you the tools you need to show to your design, product, and engineering colleagues the usability and effectiveness of your content work. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/erica-jorgensen/

Nearly every episode of this podcast has included the observation that content strategy is fundamentally a people practice. We talk a lot about practices, procedures, tools, techniques, and technology. But they are always implemented in service to our customers and users and in collaboration with our colleagues and stakeholders. Scott Peltin is the co-founder and Chief Catalyst at TIGNUM, a company that helps executives and their teams optimize their performance at work. He typically works in the C-suite, so it was a real treat to chat in his office about how his insights might benefit managers and practitioners in the content world. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/scott-peltin/

About a dozen years ago, as designers grappled with the need to serve similar experiences to both desktop and mobile computer users, Ethan Marcotte developed the practice of responsive web design. I think we're at an analogous juncture now in content design. The need to serve similar content experiences across a variety of channels, devices, and touchpoints - and in a variety of contexts, like personalization - reveals the need for more flexible and adaptive content-design practices and systems.  Responsive web design was adopted almost immediately and remains relevant and important today. "Responsive content design" is just my way of describing a strategic practice that many others (hello, Rahel, Noz, Val, Cruce, Ann, Scott, et al.) have already articulated and developed in different ways.  It was fun and instructive to noodle on this topic with Ethan. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/ethan-marcotte/

Hanson Hosein was my first guest on this podcast, and now he's also guest 131. Hanson is a natural leader with a fascinating background that includes frontline wartime reporting, innovative multimedia storytelling, and executive leadership in academia.  His current work articulates his leadership approach in a declaration entitled "A Wind Rose Can Make Sense of Forces Beyond Our Control: Sixteen Tenets and 10,000 Words for Real-Time Leadership." https://ellessmedia.com/csi/hanson-hosein-2/

UX writers and other design professionals are famously, and correctly, user-centered.  Yael Ben-David thinks that UX writers can sometimes benefit from slight course corrections to better account for the business side of our work. Her new book, "The Business of UX Writing," makes the argument for this kind of approach, and shows you how to craft more business-aware UX writing programs.  https://ellessmedia.com/csi/yael-ben-david/

As the field of content strategy matures and advances, one thing remains the same: the ubiquity and importance of building websites. Few practitioners are more versed in this craft than Corey Vilhauer and Deane Barker.  Then they worked together at Blend Interactive, Corey and Deane wrote The Web Project Guide, a comprehensive book that can help anyone manage the process of creating and building a new or updated website. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/corey-deane/

Like many content designers, Aladrian Goods discovered the field of UX design after working in writing, communications, and other roles. Aladrian found content design a few years ago and quickly rose into a leadership role at Intuit.  In this conversation, we talk about the story of her ascent into leadership, the design practice at Intuit, and how her focus on values, culture, and communication benefits both her and her colleagues. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/aladrian-goods/

Jess Sand organizes the Content + UX Slack, a vibrant community of 15,000 content professionals.  While it may be best known for the salary-transparency requirement in its very active jobs channel, members of the community also appreciate the wide-ranging conversations there and the support of their fellow content practitioners.  https://ellessmedia.com/csi/jess-sand/

Meghan Casey literally wrote the book on content strategy practice. Her book, "The Content Strategy Toolkit: Methods, Guidelines, and Templates for Getting Content Right," has helped innumerable content strategists do better content work. Meghan is updating the book now to bring it into line with modern practices and to account for the many changes in the field since the book was first published. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/meghan-casey/

Greg Dunlap is on a mission to help people create better content for the web. As Director of Strategy for Lullabot - a well-known consultancy that is best known for its work with the Drupal content management system - Greg helps clients develop good websites. As the author of a forthcoming book on web content authoring, Greg is taking his next step toward helping people create better content for the modern web. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/greg-dunlap/