April 2, 2019
March 12, 2015
My son has taken the head off of every one of his LEGO minifigs. He has rearranged everyone’s hair, given them new pants, and tossed the weapons into a giant pile on his LEGO table. He has no regard for canon. In the story of Star Wars, it’s now Darth who shot first, doing so […]
November 20, 2014
I don’t know what to tell people when they ask me what I do. I tell them that I help plan websites, because using my actual professional titles – content strategist; information architect; user experience strategist – leads to more confusion. Confusion not about what the title means, but about whether or not I do the things necessary to claim those titles. Some thoughts on that, camp, kayaking, and a painting that turned out to be totally bogus.
November 12, 2014
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.
March 6, 2014
I’ve written a few things over the past few months since publishing that chapter in Smashing Magazine’s New Perspectives on Web Design, but none of them have managed to land here. So let’s fix that.
December 25, 2013
Society saves seven dollars for each dollar spent on early education, or so the United Way has told us for years. Stats like this are important. But they also bum me out. They focus on doing things becuase they are efficient, not because they are the right thing to do.
We’re at a point in our industry when some clients can’t be convinced, or require a level of convincing that goes beyond what the project requires. Some small businesses require an extra level of attention, but others are continually suspicious and are more work than they’re worth.
November 26, 2013
I’m excited to officially announce the my inclusion in The Smashing Book #4: New Perspectives on Web Design. SURPRISE – I wrote about content strategy. The chapter, which focuses on both sides of the content strategy landscape – both user needs and editor needs – serves as a capstone to all of this empathy stuff that’s I’ve been writing and talking about over the past year and a half. So go buy it.
May 30, 2013
We spend a lot of time worrying about where content will come from and what form it will take. Where we often stumble is aligning those decisions with our existing resources. Because while structured content and editorial calendars are fantastic, they take time – time a small business or non-profit may not have. So let’s talk a bit about how we can prioritize tasks and goals, all while taking our clients’ existing pool of time into consideration.
May 14, 2013
The fine people at Offscreen Magazine asked me to write about something – anything – and I landed on the weird junction of computer memory vs. human memory. It’s about photography. It’s about information architecture. It’s about my faulty memory. It’s about organization, its place in our life, and why it matters.
February 28, 2013
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.
January 31, 2013
The chasm of understanding between consultant and client – or between content person and marketing team, or whatever your situation might be – is a dangerous hurdle. Our job as content experts is to understand that, despite the promises and assurances we make in terms of a client’s content, our own explanations and processes are tangled, weirdly worded and sometimes impossible to decipher.
