Content Strategy Insights

A crucial skill for any content practitioner is the ability to sort out complex work environments and thrive within them. David Connis shows how a systems thinking mindset can help you cope with the upheaval of AI, the messy realities of content work, and other complex design challenges. He teaches a course on systems thinking for content designers but shows how any content or design practitioner can benefit from a systematic approach to their work. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/david-connis/

When the concept of "content" comes up it can be hard to get everyone aligned on exactly what you're talking about. At IKEA, Timi Stoop-Alcala focuses on the "what" of content via the practice of knowledge domain modeling both to deal with the complexity of content and to highlight its importance. Her knowledge-focused, human-centered approach has also elevated the role of content in the organization so that content is now recognized as a core competency. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/timi-stoop-alcala/

Organizations of all types and sizes struggle with presenting their content so that it both makes sense to readers and aligns with the organization's intentions. Hilary Marsh introduced the concept of the "digital council" to address this issue. Councils can take many forms, depending on the nature of the organization, but the intent always is to glue back together content that has been disconnected by organizational silos. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/hilary-marsh/

Cruce Saunders, Principal and founder of Simple A, advocates for treating content as a valuable enterprise asset rather than a mere expense. He discusses the evolution of content from disposable to essential business knowledge and the importance of recognizing it on balance sheets. Cruce outlines methods for measuring content value and ROI, emphasizing the need for better accounting standards to include business content. He also addresses the competitive advantage of data and advocates for a collaborative approach to elevate content's status in organizations.

Michael Priestley, creator of the DITA structured-content standard, discusses the origin story of DITA at IBM, highlighting the shift from printed textbooks to digital formats. He explores the importance of structured content, user needs, and challenges in adopting structured content practices across different organizations.

As the founder of the long-standing LavaCon conference and the principal at a technical content staffing agency, Jack Molisani gets a deeply informed view of the world of technical communication. While he sees the opportunities that generative AI presents, he raises several concerns for technical content strategy practitioners, among them the inaccuracy of generative AI content and the inability of AI tools to comprehend subtle human communication clues. https://contentandai.com/jack-molisani/

Serving personalized content about thousands of products to millions of people requires a sophisticated content operation. At Albert Heijn, the big grocery store chain in the Netherlands, Rafaëla Ellensburg established a content engineering practice that lets the company deliver personalize-able omnichannel content at scale. In the process, she also created a content engineering practice guild, positioned content within the company as an important enterprise asset, and began developing the semantic practices that will take their content operations into the future. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/rafaela-ellensburg/

Pavel Samsonov is a UX designer with a deep appreciation of content. His content-first approach to design is driven by his observation that navigating digital experiences is about accessing content, not clicking buttons. Pavel has also cultivated a deep awareness of the semantic environments that he and his colleagues navigate and he uses that awareness to align and motivate stakeholders. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/pavel-samsonov/

Scalable content personalization systems create huge value for businesses. Like most valuable endeavors, they're really hard to do well. Jeffrey MacIntyre orchestrates the activities - terminology and taxonomy work, metadata strategy, information architecture, and more - that help businesses build content operations that deliver the customer-focused experiences that consumers expect. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/jeffrey-macintyre/

Content design jobs have become scarcer as the digital world adjusts to the post-pandemic tech economy. Shannon Leahy does her best to make sure that her content colleagues discover the jobs that are available, scouring the internet for job listings and sharing them in her social media feeds. But that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to her contributions to the field. She's also a long-time meetup organizer and an avid and generous participant in the content design community. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/shannon-leahy/