Alan J. Porter Storytelling is the oldest content practice. Alan Porter helps enterprises and content practitioners improve their story craft. Alan shows how better stories both convey the unique benefits of a business to their customers and improve cross-functional communication within organizations. We talked about: Content Pool, the enterprise content services organization he runs and its recent focus on storytelling the shift he's seeing in his clients' needs from formal to more informal communications the importance he sees in delivering consistent and aligned stories and content experiences irrespective of delivery channel the crucial role of memorable storytelling for brands his immersion in storytelling outside of his content work, writing fiction, for example the importance of changing your storytelling mindset from inside-out to outside-in his inclusion in his workshops of content practitioners from functional groups across organizations his belief that there's no B2C or B2B or B2B2C, just people communicating with each other the four C's of storytelling that he learned from an editor at Marvel comics - character, conflict, choice, and consequences - and how he applies them in business storytelling how he uses customer journey mapping in his storytelling work how storytelling techniques apply in internal stakeholder interactions predictable storytelling patterns used in Hollywood and how he applies them in his workshops how he engages and connects content people across organizational functions like tech comm, marketing, customer support, UX design, and even cyber security Alan's bio Alan J. Porter is first and foremost a storyteller, with close to 40 fiction and non-fiction book publishing credits. He is the Founder and Chief Content Officer of The Content Pool, that provides storytelling-driven content services to enable brands to deliver exceptional engaging customer experiences. He has held senior leadership roles in Content Operations, Product Marketing, and Customer Experience. Named one of the Top 25 Content Strategy Influencers and a Digital Strategy thought leader. Connect with Alan online The Content Pool website The Content Pool newsletter email: ajp at 4jsgroup dot com Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/GhVD3XR8NG8 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 206. The craft of storytelling is the original content practice. From that famous cave painting 44,000 years ago, to countless campfire conversations over the centuries, to modern content strategy, content design, and marketing practices, humans have always been driven to share stories that inspire, inform, and educate. Alan Porter helps story crafters in modern enterprises communicate more effectively, both with their customers and with each other. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 206 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome to the show, Alan Porter. Alan is a longtime storyteller in the content community and does a number of other things and has done a number of things in the content world. He's currently the Founder and the Chief Content Officer at the Content Pool, his company. So, welcome, Alan. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Alan: Hey, well first off, thanks Larry. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, the Content Pool is an enterprise content services organization, but actually, really interesting around the subject we're going to talk about, storytelling. Probably over the last nine months, my clients have pretty much told me that the thing they're really interested in is how to apply storytelling to their businesses. So I've been doing more and more of that, more consulting around that, running workshops for clients around actually bringing storytelling into their corpora...

Joe Gollner As recently as 40 years ago, we didn't have much need for the word "content." But as soon as we started delivering the same information via multiple channels, we needed a way to identify the essential elements of content assemblies and to work with them independent of their various manifestations in information products. So the concept of "content" was born. Joe Gollner has worked with content from its earliest days and has crafted a multi-layered definition to account for is many aspects. We talked about: his work at Gnostyx Research and the research he's doing for his PhD program at Lancaster University the origins of the "birth of content," made necessary with the arrival of the ability to deliver the same information across a number of channels how to keep authors and audiences connected in decoupled content systems an animated dinner conversation he had many years ago with a developer around the intent of markup languages his distinction of the differences between content and information his seven-layered definition of content: terminological - content as that which is contained conceptual - content as potential information process - accounting for the variety of content roles in the creation of information experiences physical - content as a complex, composite artifact structural - content described at a simple, common base level, separate from the semantics about it organizational - content as an expression of organizational intent business/financial - content as an enterprise asset his desire that the content community convene a "meaningful, grounded, academically robust and business-meaningful" conversation around content so that we can bring more to our cross-disciplinary enterprise relationships Joe's bio Joe is the Managing Director of Gnostyx Research Inc. where he specializes in providing objective and research-based guidance on the development, management, and strategic use of content technologies. In this field, he is a veteran implementer with over 30 years of experience, and he is well-known for mixing leading-edge ideas (and all too frequently concocting them) with highly pragmatic implementation tactics. He has Masters degrees from both the University of Oxford (Literature) and McGill University (Management), blogs about Content and Management, is working on a book about “Engineering Content”, and is pursuing doctoral research into the role of AI-enabled text analytics in the management of organizations. Connect with Joe online LinkedIn Gnostyx Research Inc. Content and Management blog Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/W8qVCIkrciM Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 205. Forty years ago, we had little need for the word "content." Books were books. Manuals were manuals. Life was simpler. But as soon as we started putting the same information between the covers of a book, on a CD-ROM disc, and then on the web, we had to sort out the content from its delivery channel. Joe Gollner has worked with content from its earliest days and has crafted a detailed, seven-layer definition of this foundational content-strategy concept. Interview transcript Larry: Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 205 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I am really happy today to welcome to the show, Joe Gollner. Joe has been around the content world for a long time and is very experienced. He's currently the managing director at Gnostyx Research. We could literally talk for hours about content stuff, but today I really want to focus in on what are we even talking about when we talk about content. So welcome Joe. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Joe: Hi Larry. I'm really happy to be here. It's a great way to kick off a day from British Columbia. I guess, in addition to my,

Stephanie Pereira Localizing digital product content is challenging on its own. When you add the need to communicate about sensitive financial topics to very specific audiences, the complexity of the work quickly grows. Stephanie Pereira is a content design manager working on the Google Payments product. She deftly balances a range of internal compliance and design concerns with the very specific hyper-localization needs of her audience. (We had an internet connection issue around 28:00 - apologies for the break in continuity.) We talked about: her hyper-localization work as a content design manager at Google Payments how localization work can highlight product features that may need to be contextualized differently or otherwise changed how she balances global brand policies and very specific local design and language considerations how even presentation-level information architecture decisions can vary by locale how variety in voice and tone and language can vary even in the context of one interaction environment how dealing with that dynamic variation in content shows up elsewhere in her work how the Google design system supports her work the different levels at which you can hyper-localize a product the variety of privacy issues that arise in her hyper-localization work how her multi-lingual family history influences her work how even the smallest local touches can improve a customer's experience of a product Stephanie's bio Stephanie Pereira currently leads content design for Google Payments in APAC, supporting hyperlocalized experiences in markets like India and Japan. After deciding that law was just not her thing, Stephanie spent the decade pre-Google leading regional content and business operations teams at local startups like Groupon APAC, Fave Asia, and honestbee. In her day to day work, Stephanie enjoys figuring out how to write with empathy for different cultures and being best friends with all her legal counsels. Connect with Stephanie online LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/SA8X22N6sOs Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 204. The internet has made the world a lot smaller, and some aspects of communicating online lend themselves to one-size-fits-all, globalized content. But product and content designers still need to serve the needs of local populations, and sometimes these groups can have very specific needs. At Google, Stephanie Pereira works on hyper-localized content, balancing a mix of challenging internal product demands with a rich variety of external cultural concerns. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 204 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome to the show Stephanie Pereira. Stephanie is a content design manager at Google Pay. She's based in Singapore. And welcome to the show, Stephanie. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Stephanie: Thank you for having me. So, I work on payments. I'm based in Singapore, as you just mentioned. A lot of the work I do is hyper-localized in the sense that we work on very specific markets. And that's sort of given me the opportunity to think about how we write for different people, what their mental model is in a lot of these different places. Because I work in payments, especially how their relationship with money, how that translates to language as well. So yeah, it's been a very fun journey. Larry: Yeah. Well, language ... I've had a few people from the financial industry world, and money stuff is notoriously fraught. So, that kind of adds a whole accountability level to your job, I'm imagining, and the important- Stephanie: Yeah. Larry: But it's also like for the individual end user, it's really important to understand specifically what's going on and how to complete that trans...

Chris Bach Over the past ten years, Chris Bach has been at the forefront of the transformation of web development. Chris coined the term "Jamstack," which refers to one of the first conceptions of a composable web architecture (the acronym JAM accounts for the JavaScript, APIs, and markdown that make up a simple decoupled web system). He also founded Netlify, a company that supports these new architectures and which now serves tens of millions of customers. We talked about: his role as the co-founder of Netlify the origin story of Netlify and decoupled web architectures how the JAMstack movement arose in the tech ecosystem of ten years ago how phone app stores set the stage for decoupling apps from data the technical developments that permitted the development of this new ecosystem: cloud computing, APIs, Git, static site generators, more capable browsers, etc. their development of the open-source developer community that supports the JAMstack ecosystem the emergence of headless CMSs alongside the JAMstack ecosystem how his 14-year experience in digital agency work informed his work at Netlify how issues like performance, security, and scalability show up in the JAMstack world the benefits of decoupling back-end services and front-end web presentation the advantages that composable architectures offer: simpler migrations, quicker time to market, reduced operational costs, etc. the evolution of his conversations with enterprise clients over the past 10 years how composable architectures permit better decision making and quicker action around adopting new technologies like generative AI how generative AI is changing content marketing and his thought that less content of higher quality will be crucial going forward Chris's bio Chris Bach. Serial entrepreneur, unicorn founder (Netlify), co-creator of the "Jamstack" terminology, featured as a "2024 top 60 angel investors that back B2B startups" by Business Insider, and outside of 50+ angel investments he sits on 15 advisory and executive boards. He also an advisor for TUM (Technical University of Munich), Copenhagen University, and the Danish Innovation Center. Danish but lives in Silicon Valley. Connect with Chris online LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/88Cr6nh6xjc Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 203. Ten years ago, web development was in a very different place. New technologies like cloud computing, APIs, Git repos, static site generators, and headless CMSs were emerging, but how they might all work together wasn't yet clear. Into this primordial version of the modern web stepped Chris Bach. Chris co-founded Netlify, an innovative development platform which has been instrumental in creating the web's new decoupled and composable architectures. Interview transcript Larry: Okay, here we go. Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 203 of the Content Strategy Insights Podcast. I am really excited today to welcome to the show Chris Bach. Chris is the co-founder at Netlify, a web services company, a development platform where probably most of the stuff you look at on the web is happening over there. He's also an advisor to a lot of other companies, an investor. He sits as an executive on a number of boards. So welcome, Chris. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Chris: Thanks for having me. Yes, I am the co-founder of Netlify, as you said, a developer platform. We run a lot of site stores, applications, and so on. For the last three and a half years, I've been CSO there, so a little less operational. And then I actually just stepped out of my full-time role there. So now I still sit on the board. I continue my work as an advisor, as an investor, and as a board member. Also looking at a little bit of climate tech, which is a little outside the scope of today's conversat...

Fran Alexander There is always more taxonomy work to be done than there are practitioners to do it. Fran Alexander's solution to this imbalance is to democratize taxonomy practice. Fran's work actually spans the full range of semantic practices, from simple term lists to taxonomies, thesauruses, and ontologies and knowledge graphs. Wherever she's working in this span of activities, she's always happy to bring other practitioners along with her. We talked about: the transition in the taxonomy world from building taxonomies to help machines understand humans to building taxonomies to help humans understand machines he the rise of AI and LLMs has highlighted the importance of well-structured knowledge and good semantic layers the hierarchical progression of knowledge organization from simple lists to full-blown ontologies how her efforts to democratize taxonomy and semantic practice are jump-started by humans' innate organizing schemes how the fact that there is always more semantic work to be done than there are taxonomists drives the need to democratize the craft how to evaluate the effectiveness of a taxonomy fascinating taxonomic edge cases like boundary objects that highlight the artistic aspects of taxonomy science how an ontology "is a map of important ideas" two main types of taxonomies - descriptive taxonomies and operational taxonomies how to assess whether a taxonomy is doing the work you need it to typical uses cases for a taxonomy: tagging, indexing, discovery, retrieval, recommendation systems, personalization, etc. some advanced taxonomy practices that enterprises could benefit from the connections between taxonomies, ontologies, and knowledge graphs the Taxonomy Bootcamp London Bite-sized Taxonomy Boot Camp series Fran's bio Fran started her career as a writer and editor of dictionaries and thesauruses in the UK, and, as technology evolved, she specialised in information architecture, search systems, and digital archives, and more recently, the use of semantics in knowledge graphs and LLM applications. Having worked on reference publications including the Collins English Dictionary, and as Taxonomy Manager for the BBC Archive, she now lives in Montreal, Canada, and is the Senior Taxonomist for Expedia Group. She was Taxonomy Bootcamp London's Taxonomy Practitioner of the Year 2023. Connect with Fran online LinkedIn Resource mentioned in this interview Bite-sized Taxonomy Boot Camp Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/SoxApp_myeg Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 202. As we write our shopping lists and organize our thoughts, we all practice taxonomy and think semantically every day. Some of us get to do these practices professionally. Fran Alexander is a taxonomist based in Montreal. She's also the reigning Taxonomy Bootcamp Practitioner of the Year. As she's realized that there will always be more semantic work to be done than there are trained practitioners, she added "democratizing taxonomy" to her to-do list. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 202 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome to the show Fran Alexander. Fran is a taxonomist based in Montreal, in Canada. She's also the reigning Taxonomy Boot Camp Practitioner of the Year, so she's a rock star in the taxonomy world. Welcome, Fran. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Fran: Well, thanks, Larry. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to talk to you about taxonomies and democratizing taxonomies. One thing that's top of mind for me, and it gives a bit of context, I think to the work that I've done and the changes that I've seen over, well, the last couple of decades really, is that we used to build taxonomies to help machines understand humans.

Mike Gifford Where web accessibility, digital sustainability, content management, open-source software, and web standards intersect, you'll find Mike Gifford. Mike is the open standards and practices lead at Civic Actions, a company that helps governments deliver better digital services. Through his practice, Mike ensures that the content systems they deliver are built as sustainably as possible, deliver accessible experiences to citizens, and work well for authors and others who use the system. We talked about: his role as open standards and practices lead at Civic Actions his professional practices in accessibility, sustainability, and content management the similarites and differences between accessibility and sustainability work his work in a W3C community group working on sustainability guidelines his passion about the impact of his work on humanity and the planet one of the key connections between sustainable and accessible efforts: people's lack of interest in potentially distressing topics ATAG 2.0 authoring tool accessibility guidelines and how content management systems can better serve authors how to improve the working relationship between content authors and content systemts engineers use cases and examples of benefits of sustainable and accessible practices ways that content authors can get involved in CMS and other content-management conversations how "hard" practices like finance and IT tend to get more clout in organizational decision making the inability of automated accessibility testing tools to fully assess the usability of experiences the persistent ongoing need for both accessibility and sustainability work Mike's bio Mike Gifford is CivicActions’ Open Standards & Practices Lead and a thought leader on open government, as well as digital accessibility and sustainability. He has worked with governments in North America and Europe, and spoken internationally. He is also a W3C Invited Expert and recognized authoring tool accessibility expert. Mike has served for two years on the board of the Digital Services Coalition. In his last year he served as president of the board where he helped better define what it was to be a digital agency. In this role, he met with leaders in government and the private sector who are working for modern digital government. Previously, he was the Founder and President of OpenConcept Consulting Inc., a web development agency specializing in building open source solutions for the open web. OpenConcept was an impact driven company and Certified B Corporation. Like CivicActions, OpenConcept worked extensively with the Drupal Content Management System . Mike has spearheaded accessibility improvements in Drupal since 2008, and has served as a Drupal Core Accessibility Maintainer in 2012. As a long-term environmentalist, Mike has found ways to integrate his passions for the web and the planet. He is an active participant in both the W3C’s Web Sustainability Community Group and in the ACT-IAC Climate Change Community of Interest. Connect with Mike online LinkedIn Drupal GitHub Resources mentioned in this episode Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG) Sustainable Web Design Website Carbon Calculator Ecograder Accessibility Insights Web Almanac: Accessibility Web Almanac: Sustainability WAVE Browser Extensions Axe Google Lighthouse Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/V1Jpo16JNuE Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 201. The content we publish on the web needs to be accessible to anyone and everyone who might need it. It's also becoming clear that we could be doing more to mitigate the environmental impact of our online products. Mike Gifford works at the intersection of web accessibility, digital sustainability, and content management.

Michele Ann Jenkins Through her taxonomy and other information architecture work, Michele Ann Jenkins helps people across the organizations she works with align their mental models and terminology usage. This alignment of concerns and language forms the foundation of the semantic architecture that is so crucial to modern content systems. We talked about: her work as a consultant focusing on taxonomy but also working on information architecture, search, digital asset management, ontologies, knowledge graphs, and AI the focus at her consultancy on technology-agnostic frameworks and best practices, including governance the threshold at which to move from a CMS's built-in taxonomy tools to a dedicated taxonomy management tool her description of the semantic layer and how it can help span organizational silos the benefits of a technology-agnostic enterprise content model and how far most organizations are from having one how the practice of taxonomy can help stakeholders understand each others' mental models and terminology how the well-established idea of "concept-based indexing" can help bring semantic clarity to terminology work and take projects from taxonomy to ontology the baby steps an organization can take into ontology and an example of how an ontological representation of enterprise knowledge can help auto-tag content coming from different sources and infer levels of trust some interesting examples of rule-based classificiations going haywire her exposure to working with a "content graph" with a complex globally distributed product how to find the "creative edge" where the capabilities of computers end and only human judgement is necessary the enduring importance of governance, people, processes, consensus building, and using open standards that permit interoperability Michele's bio Michele And Jenkins, MLIS, is an information management consultant specializing in taxonomy-driven content strategy. She has more than 20 years’ experience working with organizations across various industries, including Harvard Business Publishing, EA Games, and the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR). Michele takes a holistic approach to information and content management, drawing from a multidisciplinary background in programming, IA/UX design, information science, and publishing. She is skilled at guiding clients through the entire content management process: from creating high-level strategic roadmaps through development, implementation, and migration to ongoing support and training. Prior to joining Dovecot Studio in 2012, Michele was an independent consultant focusing on web development projects including large scale migrations, platform integrations, and implementing taxonomy-driven IA designs. Michele has over 15 years of experience customizing, coding, and developing IA for Drupal CMS. Michele has contributed a chapter to “Taxonomies: Practical approaches to developing and managing vocabularies for digital information” (Facet Publishing, 2022). She is also a regular guest lecturer and occasional course instructor at McGill University, where she earned a Master’s in Library and Information Studies with a specialization in knowledge management. She frequently presents at conferences including DrupalCon and Taxonomy Bootcamp (part of KMWorld). Connect with Michele online Dovecot Studio maj at dovecotstudio dot com Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/LTfQrfOiIkk Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 200. The practice of taxonomy plays a crucial role in tying together the worlds of content management and semantic practice. Michele Ann Jenkins is an information management consultant who specializes in taxonomy. Her work helps stakeholders understand each others' mental models and terminology and ensconce them in technical content systems.

Ilse Jonker and Joyce van Aalten Modern content projects get the best results when content strategy and conceptual meaning are considered together, and the results can really shine when long-time collaborators do the work. Ilse Jonker and Joyce van Aalten are independent consultants who have teamed up on many content projects over the past dozen years. Ilse focuses on content strategy and structure, and Joyce focuses on taxonomy and semantics. Together they build the scaffolding the supports their clients' content operations. We talked about: Joyce's freelance taxonomy work and Ilse's freelance content strategist, and their common interest in content structure and semantics the importance of organizations being ready for change and willing to start small when they engage a consulting team for a complex change project the baffling tolerance that organizations have for redundancy in their content landscape their approach to dealing with organizational silos Joyce's content-first approach to her taxonomy work Ilse's emphasis on the importance of understanding organizational culture before beginning a project their view of the concept of a "semantic layer" how they empower their clients to evangelize their work to other stakeholders how they collaborate around the structure and the semantics of the content projects they work on how Ilse's structured-content work goes hand in hand with Joyce's metadata work how taxonomies and ontologies can make tacit organizational knowledge explicit as structural artifacts the importance of connecting with other people Team bio Joyce and Ilse are experienced consultants that have been working together on a regular basis since 2012. They are both solopreneurs, and do projects of their own but also a lot of assignments together. They describe their combination as yin and yang: put them together and you’ll get a holistic, semantic view on your content and information landscape. Sometimes they bring in an additional data scientist to work with them, too. Ilse's bio Ilse fell in love with the web in 1996. After graduating in Liberal Arts, specializing in New Media as it was called then, she worked several years as online project manager and pivoted slowly to strategy. Since 2006 she works as an independent content strategist and consultant. She has 25+ years of experience in helping profit, semi-public and non-profit organizations navigating digital change (website renewals, content migrations, redesigns, omnichannel programmes). She loves to coach younger content strategists, so, happy to connect on LinkedIn! Connect with Ilse online LinkedIn Joyce's bio Joyce van Aalten has been working on taxonomies since 2000, after she graduated in Library and Information Science. Currently she is an independent taxonomy consultant and trainer with experience in more than 50 taxonomy, thesaurus, ontologies and knowledge graphs projects. Joyce is specialized in taxonomy management tools and the possibilities of metadata/taxonomy within information management systems. She frequently shares her knowledge via workshops, articles and talks at conferences, like the Taxonomy Boot Camps. She is also co-author on Taxonomies: Practical Approaches to Developing and Managing Vocabularies for Digital Information. Connect with Joyce online LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/o61K3hlMhK4 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 199. Content practice and semantic practice often go hand in hand. In their long-time consulting partnership, Ilse Jonger and Joyce van Aalten have taken collaboration around content structure and semantic meaning to new heights. Whether they're spanning organizational silos, coaching clients on how to evangelize their work to other stakeholders, or implementing a change-management strategy,

Vinish Garg Vinish Garg takes a holistic and pragmatic view of the role of content and other crafts in digital product design, using an approach he calls "product sense." Content strategy and design are just two of many practices that contribute to the success of any digital product. All digital practitioners justifiably take pride in their individual crafts, but Vinish encourages content, design, and other practitioners to favor product utility over their individual crafts. We talked about: his current work as a content and design strategist the content and design conference he organizes in Chandigarh, India, and the product thinking he brings to it his take on the concept of "product thinking" in the context of content work how he collaborates with design and product partners the reverse engineering approach he takes to facilitating cross-functional collaboration the concept of "product sense" that he has developed, a neutral, non-practice-specific approach to digital product design how craft and practice managers can create incentives to support cross-disciplinary collaboration the crucial role in his work of promoting and facilitating conversations how focusing on high-level organizational and product goals the role of systems thinking in "product sense" thinking the importance of continuously learning and evolving your professional thinking the role of foundational skills like information architecture in content, design, and product work Vinish's bio Vinish Garg is an independent products consultant who works with product teams on the intersection of UX and design leadership, content design and content strategy leadership, and sometimes product leadership and marketing roles. Vinish works with teams to establish the standards and foundational principles of how we work, and how our standards translate into customer onboarding design, the growth levers, the retention loops, and how our collective intelligence builds sustainable systems. Regardless of the role, Vinish often uses content and design as the foundation of their work. Vinish owns an international conference in Chandigarh, since 2018 — Outcome Conference. They teach content design (with shades of content strategy, and UX and design practices) as part of the masters program in content strategy, in Graz University, Austria. Vinish has been active on Product Hunt since its early days (January 2014), and has spoken to hundreds of founders worldwide on product and design strategy, onboarding, marketing, and growth. Vinish loves civic design and civic tech, and loves to explore how our navigation and information findability patterns in the physical world have parallels in how we design digital experiences. Connect with Vinish online LinkedIn VinishGarg.com (personal website) vhite (consultancy) Twitter Mastadon Medium Outcome Conference Resources and references Product Sense—and the role of content and design Modern design and content systems are flawed Learning Organizations—System Thinking How content design and content strategy can support system thinking (and the other way around) The intersections in our work Peter Senge's talk on system thinking in Aalto University The Fifth Discipline Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/z1VI0J_guB8 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 198. A number of crafts have to come together to create any digital product. The need in this process to collaborate across functions is well known, as is the importance of being user- and customer-focused. But exactly how you manage the work is unique to every product practice. Vinish Garg brings a fresh approach to his work. His "product sense" method encourages content, design, and product practitioners to favor product utility over their individual crafts. Interview transcript Larry: Hi,

Preston So The CMS landscape has evolved a lot over the past couple of decades. Recently, headless CMSs and decoupled content architectures have appeared to address the need for omnichannel content experiences. While their separation of the management of content from its presentation offers many benefits, these systems have left many users dissatisfied and disillusioned. Preston So argues that the solution to this situation is universal CMS. We talked about: the unique place in the software world that CMSs occupy how the need for cross-functional collaboration in a CMS drives the need for something like a universal CMS how the focus of headless CMSs on the developer experience has affected the end-to-end experience in content architectures his thoughts on the need for "a single UI to rule them all" the trends that have driven the move to decoupled architectures and headless CMSs the disconnect he sees between the need to address omnichannel content delivery and the expectations of content authors and editors the need in decoupled architectures for some level of "recoupling" of functionality so that "people understand what they're doing" the challenges of managing content for omnichannel delivery the need to orchestrate content activities across functional teams the resistance in the market to complex architectures that require a variety of solutions the importance of constraining the number of mental models that people using CMSs have to hold in their heads the Universal CMS Summit that his company is hosting August 5 in Montreal Preston's bio Preston So (he/they) is a product executive with over 25 years in software, 17 years in content technologies, and 9 years leading product, design, engineering, and developer relations functions at organizations such as Oracle, Acquia, dotCMS, Time Inc., and Gatsby. He is Vice President, Product at dotCMS and the author of Immersive Content and Usability (A Book Apart, 2023), Gatsby: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly, 2021), Voice Content and Usability (A Book Apart, 2021), and Decoupled Drupal in Practice (Apress, 2018). Named “the smartest guy in the field” by Content Strategy for Mobile author Karen McGrane in 2024 and “probably the smartest person working in this industry right now” by Web Content Management author Deane Barker in 2020, Preston is a globally recognized authority on the intersections of content, design, and code. He is an editor at A List Apart and former top-read columnist at CMSWire. Preston is a frequent presenter with 17 years of speaking engagements spanning over 50 conferences, including SXSW Interactive (2017, 2017 encore, 2018) and An Event Apart (2020–22) and keynotes in three languages. He is based in New York City, where he can often be found immersing himself in languages that are endangered or underserved. Connect with Preston online Preston.So LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/XZXBBrWtFFg Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 197. The tech world is in constant flux. And content management technology is no exception. Over the past decade or so, we've seen the arrival of headless CMSs and the introduction of decoupled content architectures. While that decoupling appeals to developers and offers new content-delivery opportunities, its abstractness and complexity have left many CMS users disillusioned and disoriented. Preston So argues that the solution to this situation is a universal CMS. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 197 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome back to the show Preston So. Preston's my first three-time guest. And pro-tip for anybody trying to do that, just write a bunch of books and do interesting things and you also can be on three times. Preston is currently the VP of Product at dotCMS,

David Connis 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. We talked about: his role as as a lead content designer on the design systems team at OutSystems how he discovered his innate focus on systems thinking in a Netflix documentary about chefs how a brief stint as a UX developer and his holistic approach to design work revealed the benefits of systems thinking the role of systems thinking in his growth and development as a content leader his observation that "work is weird" his approach to remote working and management the crucial role of facilitation in remote work how his personal growth and professional growth intersect the importance of being intentional in your approach to work and leadership his observation that "everything you do influences everything you do" how he links words and concepts and objects in his work and how they help digital products tell their story to the user his advice to systems thinking course at the UX Content Collective Dave's bio During a brief stint as a junior UX developer, Dave found that he loved the UX part more than the development part, so he took a job as a technical writer. From there, he discovered content design. Now, he’s a Lead Content Designer at OutSystems. Connect with Dave online LinkedIn Instagram Systems thinking resources Systems Thinking for UX Content workshop at UX Content Collective Thinking in Systems, Donella Meadows Closing the Loop: Systems Thinking for Designers, Sheryl Cababa (interview) Systems Thinking for a Better World, Peter Senge Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/XAgcKmOOZ3I Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 196. As everyone tries to cope with onslaught of AI and as content practitioners try to develop the right combination of strategy, design, and people skills, Dave Connis says we can all benefit from a systems thinking mindset. Whether you're connecting the words and concepts and objects in digital products or connecting the people who are building the product experience, a holistic view of your work can help everyone involved understand the ecosystem you share. Interview transcript Larry: Yeah. Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 196 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really delighted today to welcome to the show, Dave Connis. Dave is lead content designer at OutSystems. I believe you're based in Portugal, but you're in the US, right, Dave? Dave: Yes, that is accurate. Yep. Larry: Tell folks a little bit more about... Dave: There is an office in Boston, so it's kind of US-ey, but it's mainly Portugal. Larry: Nice. And as a lead content designer there, you do... Well, tell me a little bit about your role there, what kind of stuff you're working on and... Dave: Yeah, so I am on the design system team. So we're working on all sorts of patterns and lots of systems thinking, lots of components, design tokens. We're in the middle of redoing design tokens right now. I'm doing a lot of content pattern things, lots of content strategy, working with a bunch of cross-functional teams to get stuff done that is reusable and scalable and all the nice other cool, buzzy words that we like to talk about all the time. So it's always something different, always something new, and it's always a big challenge, so it's good time. Larry: Well, that's interesting. So I'm really curious now because I've worked on a few design systems and talked to a lot of peop...