Category: Smart People Saying Smart Things

The Web Project Guide Podcast: Episode 11: Model Your Content (w/ Jeff Eaton)

It’s The Web Project Guide Podcast, and we made you a new episode. The web is as complicated as we make it. This is because we can make it really really complicated, because we can dream anything. We can imagine the ease of solving edge cases by automagically shoving different aggregations into simple content blocks. […]

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Barker on Hyperlinks and Emphasis

Deane Barker at Gadgetopia puts together an interesting post about what we imply when we link something. More than just the words themselves, we are subtly drawing attention to certain emphasis, even if unintended.

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Conference Speaking and Defining Success

A lot of praise for Karen McGrane’s recent column, a little notice about a post I wrote about speaking, and a whole bunch of excitement for our gradual shift toward audience-centered talks.

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CS Forum 2012 Recap

I was fortunate enough to travel to Cape Town, South Africa, this past week. In addition to beautiful weather and brandy distillery tours, I watched a bunch of great speakers and friends talk at length about a little bit of everything – from driving change to HTML5; from the challenges of owning – and changing – a business to the functional possibilities of structured content. It was inspiring and comfortable – a little bit like Content Strategy Camp – and the attendees and speakers alike were all wonderful.

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The Last Two Months in Content Strategy Articles

Smart stuff from Margot Bloomstein on connecting with fellow content strategists, from Sara Wachter-Boettcher on empowerment, from Melissa Rach on organizational change, and from Deane Barker about the needs of the indoctrinated audience.

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Book Review: Design is a Job

There are thousands of books about what it takes to learn the skills needed for our careers – the art and craft and promotion – but precious few about what it takes to understand the job that lies beneath. We know what to do, and why to do it, but we don’t learn how to push forward on a practical level. Mike Montiero’s Design is a Job is one of those precious few.

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My Thoughts on IA Summit 2012: “Why Is the Sky Blue?”

The theme of this year’s IA Summit – Cross-Channel Experiences – was well represented, and regardless of which wall of the user experience room you tend to lean against, it’s clear we’re all moving forward toward this universal promise of “future-friendly” web properties, where our content moves from one format to another through the magic […]

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Contents Magazine

You’ll have to forgive me for a moment. I’m about to get mushy. Because, over in a more enlightened part of the internet, something beautiful just launched. Contents Magazine is a little project from the team of Krista Stevens, Erin Kissane, Erik Westra and Ethan Marcotte. A little project, I say. HA! More like a […]

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Barker on “The Emperor Has No News”

The company website news feed. What gives, AMIRITE? Jewelry stores and celebrities and banks and pretty much everyone has a news feed and no one really stops and asks, “why do we have a news feed at all?” Or, more importantly, is having a news feed even something worth pursuing? An Onion article to this […]

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Wachter-Boettcher on “Industry vs. Organizational Knowledge”

Sara Wachter-Boettcher took my domain knowledge post one step further, diving into what we need to know about a company’s organizational structure. From her post, “Master of which domain? Industry vs. organizational knowledge:” Agencies have historically acted like suitors whenever a new client comes around. It’s all fluffy clouds and sparkles and sweet nothings in […]

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