John Sechrest helps startups tell their stories. By managing the narrative around their startup idea, founders can improve their odds of raising money, attracting the right talent, and – most importantly – connecting with the right customers. https://ellessmedia.com/csi/john-sechrest/
Andrea Zoellner is passionate about making the web more accessible and usable. With clear UX copywriting and a single-minded focus on the user, she helps people succeed online.
When the field of SEO emerged in the late 1990s, Heather Lloyd-Martin was one of the first writers to focus on search engines. She’s still at it 20 years later – writing, coaching, training, and consulting on SEO copywriting.
Kate Saul & Andre Francisco work at 18F, an federal government agency that helps other agencies improve their digital services, including web content. Soon after the agency's founding they discovered that they would benefit from having a master reference guide - the 18F Content Guide - for both their organization and their clients. The 18F Content Guide helps federal government agencies keep their web content consistent and usable.
Shelley Keith is a digital strategist with Modern Tribe. Her pragmatic approach to content governance aligns stakeholders on the "why" behind content decisions and uses techniques like "guerrilla governance" to get the content outcomes that executives demand.
Simon Thompson runs an agency in Melbourne, Australia, that focuses on helping B2B businesses add podcasts to their content marketing mix.
Malaika Carpenter is a solo content strategist in Philadelphia. Working on her own with non-content-focused clients has sharpened her focus on having a clearly articulated, replicable content-strategy process.
Jamie Schmid is a content enthusiast. She has been building websites since the late 1990s. Over that time, she has honed processes that result in websites that give both internal and external users intuitive and robust content experiences.
David Dylan Thomas studies human behavior to develop better content strategies. Dave's cognitive-bias hacks help you tame counter-productive thought processes to create less biased content experiences.
Joe Welinske creates content strategies and other crafted communication as a UX practitioner, teacher, and event organizer. Joe is super-thoughtful about the role of content in helping people use technology. We had a great conversation about his journey from old-school technical communicator to leading-edge UX practitioner.
For nearly 40 years, Jared Spool has been helping publishers and software developers create better experiences for their users. Along the way, he has also helped companies apply UX design principles to the process of creating content for their customers. Jared is one of the best-known and most widely cited practitioners and educators in the UX field. We had a wide-ranging conversation on content strategy and how it manifests in user experience design.
Jason Preston & Steve Broback co-founded the Dent Conference, an annual gathering and a year-round community of innovators looking to make a dent in the universe. They quickly realized that the event was really the centerpiece of an ongoing, year-round community they had created.
Gerry McGovern helps customers complete their most important tasks when they arrive at a website. His proven process routinely results in the removal of as much as 90% of the content on a website. This requires content managers to shift their mindset from a simple production model to an ongoing customer-centric "eternal beta."
Sarah Richards created the field of content design as she revamped gov.uk's web presence. From a messy amalgam of hundreds of government websites, she created a user-focused "storefront" where UK citizens could get their most common questions answered.
Todd Bishop and his colleagues at GeekWire have strategically blended business journalism with leading-edge media business practices to create a regional tech publication with worldwide readership.
Laura Porto Stockwell has developed a strategy process that connects the dots between business goals, brand aspirations, market opportunities, and user needs. That she says, "Is where the magic happens." Laura applies her strategic approach to both top-level digital strategies and to content strategies for her clients as the CEO of Big Thinkers Society.
Anika Anand loves engaging with her readers, not just giving them "fly-by content." In her role as a startup founder, she always asks, "What do we want people to do with what we're making?" This approach gives Anika plenty of opportunities to engage in one of her favorite activities: nerding out about content strategy.
Andrew Himes was one of the world's first digital content strategists. Working at Microsoft in the early 1990s, he helped found the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) and helped build the first content management system, dynamically generating hypertext documents from a database.
David Fried integrates content strategy throughout his branding work at the digital agency EFM. Whether he's crafting a branding strategy from the ground up or executing a campaign for an existing brand, content is always a key element.
Russell Sparkman has been doing content marketing for almost 20 years. We talked about purpose-driven content marketing, how not to commit "random acts of content," and the neuroscience of storytelling.
Morten Rand-Hendriksen is a broadly accomplished web designer and educator. He is very active in the WordPress open-source project and is widely known there for his strong opinions on topics like the Gutenberg project.
Natasha Banta McDermott began her content-strategy career in 1997 at Clement Mok's Studio Archetype. Mok, who had been the creative director at Apple in the 1980s, put content right alongside design in their clients' web projects, creating some really cool opportunities for Natasha and her content team. Natasha and I talked about content strategy, creative collaboration, and team building in a visionary agency at the dawn of the dot-com era.
Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13. As I prepared for this 13th episode, one scheduled guest fell ill and my back-up guest's kid got sick just as we were about to start the interview. Rather than risk the health of another guest, I recorded this quick overview of the podcast to this point.
Melanie Seibert is senior content strategist on a UX team at WillowTree, a mobile-focused agency that creates apps chatbots, websites, and other digital products for some of the world’s best-known companies. She also teaches content-strategy courses both online and in real life. Melanie and I talked about both her work at WillowTree and her work as a content-strategy educator.
Warren Etheredge can help you find the stories you need to generate the content your customers crave. I talked with Warren about his Storyfinding method and about the art of conversation in general and interviewing in particular.
Journalism veteran Peter Herford talks about how little the management principles that underlie content strategy have changed since he began his career at CBS news in 1962.
Susan Walker uses a "30 Questions" method to test the accessibility and usability of the content they create at the Rutgers University Camden campus. Content Strategy Interviews are hosted by Larry Swanson of Elless Media.
Content research studies reveal which content performs best, garnering social-media shares and earning in-bound links. Few experts know as much about measuring the effectiveness of content as Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting . Eric and I talked about research that can inform your content strategy for SEO, content marketing, and social media.
Rand Fishkin talks about “the SEO as content strategist” and much more, including empathy and teamwork, “10X Content,” voice search, and his thoughts on this week’s FCC decision to roll back net neutrality. Rand goes by the ludicrous title, Wizard of Moz. He’s founder and former CEO of SEO software startup Moz , the host of Whiteboard Friday . Content Strategy Interviews are hosted by Larry Swanson of Elless Media....
Julie Copley is a Connections Strategist at Pop , a digital media agency in Seattle. We talked about how Pop is improving its clients' websites by being more attentive to inclusion. Julia is a content strategist and user experience designer with 10 years' experience in connecting customers and communities with product experiences they'll love. Her expertise includes assessing product-market fit, creating and executing market positioning strategies, and building collaborative relationships with b...
