Technical content strategy has evolved dramatically over the past 25 years, and Sarah O'Keefe has had a bird's-eye view of the whole process.  As the CEO of Scriptorium, a leading content-operations consultancy, Sarah has both witnessed and participated in the massive changes that have unfolded in the world of technical documentation. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/sarah-okeefe ..read more

The benefits of inclusive design practices are clear: better business results and more satisfied users of our digital products. Our task now is to sharpen our focus on inclusion in our content-design craft. We also need to get better at convincing leadership to support this work. Jonathan McFadden has been practicing inclusive design for years and gets better every year at persuading executives and managers to support this important work. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/jonathan-mcfadden ..read more

If you stop to really think about it - and Torrey Podmajersky has - everything is content.  We think of content as the words, pictures, and recordings that we view online and in apps and other digital products. But even when words and illustrations are removed, the graphical elements and technical experiences that surround still them convey meaning, which is the main job of content.  Therefore, everything is content.  https://ellessmedia.com/csi/torrey-2 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 manager ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more

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 ..read more