Brand-driven Content Strategy: Developing a Message Architecture

August 31, 2015, 2:01 pm

≫ Next: Mapping Out the Future of Publishing

≪ Previous: Content Strategy for Slow Experiences at Web Design Day

Brand-driven content strategy complements user-centered design, and this workshop will help you get up to speed on the philosophy, questions, tools, and exercises to implement it. We’ll conduct a hands-on exercise to prioritize communication goals and develop a message architecture—ideal whether you maintain content for the Web, mobile apps, social media, or offline experiences. Eager for more efficient engagements? You’ll also discover how a brand-attributes card sort can help you identify potential pitfalls and points of disagreement while you improve organizational alignment. Then use this foundation to conduct a qualitative and quantitative content audit. We’ll discuss the content opportunities a gap analysis can reveal when we use the message architecture as a metric of quality. Trying to manage scope creep? What about seagulling stakeholders? And what content matters most, anyhow? These questions and other challenges drive content strategy, and the business issues beyond it. What if you need to empower a team, wrangle a client, and rally everyone around a common vocabulary for your primary navigation? No matter your title, it’s time to embrace content strategy, starting with the message architecture. Presented as a three-hour workshop at Confab Intensive, #ConfabINT, in Portland OR on August 31, 2015.

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Mapping Out the Future of Publishing

September 22, 2015, 9:16 am

≫ Next: Jumpstarting content strategy with a message architecture at Converge2015

≪ Previous: Brand-driven Content Strategy: Developing a Message Architecture

Content strategy both champions and makes possible the idea that "everyone is a publisher." New platforms and approaches to collaboration let us reframe the conversation beyond traditional book publishing. But with challenges to net neutrality and inconsistent network connectivity in the developing world, do we need to limit our definition of "everyone" to just the white and wealthy world and the more cutting-edge businesses it spawns? Maybe that’s the case today, but today is the mirror of realism. The future is the undefined outcome of optimism—and we have many reasons to be optimistic. Looking at emerging examples from modern business culture, Silicon Valley investment strategies, and communication trends beyond the United States, Margot Bloomstein will map out challenges and opportunities for publishing in the coming decades. The author of Content Strategy at Work: Real-World Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project, Bloomstein will explore how content strategy will work in the future to aid the changing face of publishing. Who will practice it? Will power align with technology, quality, perspective, or a combination of all three? And how will we define "publishing," anyhow? Presented at Content Strategy Summit, #CSSummit, online, on September 22, 2015

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Jumpstarting content strategy with a message architecture at Converge2015

October 22, 2015, 10:23 am

≫ Next: Establishing a Brand-driven Message Architecture WebVisions NYC

≪ Previous: Mapping Out the Future of Publishing

Trying to manage scope, stakeholders, and shifting priorities? Need to determine a consistent voice among multiple authors? Content strategy can help. Amid constrained resources, competing priorities, and a contributory culture, content strategy can help us focus and do less—but do what really matters. Margot will discuss how to empower communicators and rally everyone around a common vocabulary for use in print, traditional web communication, and social media. Presented at Converge 2015, #Converge2015, October 22, 2015 in New Orleans.

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Establishing a Brand-driven Message Architecture WebVisions NYC

April 7, 2016, 2:39 pm

≫ Next: Content Strategy for an Era of Self-Validating Facts at CSsummit

≪ Previous: Jumpstarting content strategy with a message architecture at Converge2015

Trying to manage scope creep? What about seagulling stakeholders? And what content matters most, anyhow? These questions and other challenges drive content strategy. If you’re a designer planning for content or a developer tailoring the CMS to specific content types, they’re your challenges, too. If you need to empower a team, wrangle a client, and rally everyone around a common vocabulary for your primary navigation, forget your title. It’s time to embrace content strategy, starting with the message architecture. Brand-driven content strategy complements user-centered design, and this workshop will help you get up to speed on the philosophy, questions, tools, and exercises to implement it. We’ll conduct a hands-on exercise to prioritize communication goals and develop a message architecture—ideal whether you design for the web, mobile apps, social media, or offline experiences. Then use this foundation to learn about a qualitative and quantitative content audit, content types, and editorial style guidelines. We’ll discuss the content opportunities a gap analysis reveals when we use the message architecture as a metric of quality. You’ll leave with the savvy and experience to bring brand-driven content strategy techniques and thinking into your own work. What you can expect: Learn how—and why—to establish a hierarchy of communication goals in a message architecture with a hands-on exercise Discuss the right questions to ask—and how to ask them—to minimize distracting, off-brand features, like the blog no one has time to update Use a content audit to evaluate content against the message architecture Gain additional tools to keep your projects on track, on time, and on budget Presented as a workshop at WebVisions NYC, April 7, 2016, at WebVisions in New York.

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Content Strategy for an Era of Self-Validating Facts at CSsummit

August 25, 2016, 8:12 am

≫ Next: Brand-driven Content Strategy: Developing a Message Architecture workshop at Confab Intensive 2016

≪ Previous: Establishing a Brand-driven Message Architecture WebVisions NYC

The 2016 US presidential election reveals a post-fact culture. Previously, catching someone in a lie could sully their name, derail a campaign, or decimate a brand--ask Gary Hart, Richard Nixon, and former governor and Appalachian Trail enthusiast Mark Sanford. Today, lies matter less. Not to brands, but to their audiences. Emotion replaces logic. So how do you choose content types to develop rapport when your audience tests proof points against their convictions? Can mass media validate fact if "truthiness" trumps truth? Can you harness opposing perspectives without ceding to false equivalency? Most importantly, we’ll discuss how to empower audiences to embrace the courage of their convictions on your behalf. Presented at the online Content Strategy Summit 2016, #CSsummit, August 25, 2016.

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Brand-driven Content Strategy: Developing a Message Architecture workshop at Confab Intensive 2016

September 22, 2016, 10:34 am

≫ Next: Behind Your Back: How Other Industries Talk About Higher Ed at ConfabEDU 2016

≪ Previous: Content Strategy for an Era of Self-Validating Facts at CSsummit

Brand-driven content strategy complements user-centered design, and this workshop will help you get up to speed on the philosophy, questions, tools, and exercises to implement it. We’ll conduct a hands-on exercise to prioritize communication goals and develop a message architecture—ideal whether you maintain content for the Web, mobile apps, social media, or offline experiences. Eager for more efficient engagements? You’ll also discover how a brand-attributes card sort can help you identify potential pitfalls and points of disagreement while you improve organizational alignment. Then use this foundation to conduct a qualitative and quantitative content audit. We’ll discuss the content opportunities a gap analysis can reveal when we use the message architecture as a metric of quality. Trying to manage scope creep? What about seagulling stakeholders? And what content matters most, anyhow? These questions and other challenges drive content strategy, and the business issues beyond it. What if you need to empower a team, wrangle a client, and rally everyone around a common vocabulary for your primary navigation? No matter your title, it’s time to embrace content strategy, starting with the message architecture. Join this workshop to build out your content strategy toolkit: Learn how—and why—to establish a hierarchy of communication goals in a message architecture with a hands-on exercise Discuss the right questions to ask—and how to ask them—to minimize distracting, off-brand features, like the blog no one has time to update Gain additional tools to keep your projects on track, on time, and on budget

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Behind Your Back: How Other Industries Talk About Higher Ed at ConfabEDU 2016

November 15, 2016, 8:44 am

≫ Next: Brand Driven Message Architecture Workshop UXLX

≪ Previous: Brand-driven Content Strategy: Developing a Message Architecture workshop at Confab Intensive 2016

Long before you target prospective students, they’re forming opinions, narrowing options, and determining costs… without talking to you. They’re hearing other voices—and what those voices say may surprise you. Today, organizations like Peterson’s, Sallie Mae, and College Confidential help students vet schools and determine budgets, conversations previous generations had with guidance counselors and college recruiters. Discover how publishers and financial institutions are earning trust through new choices in content types, calls to action, and partner investments. As higher education draws scrutiny for cost and relevance, it’s time to learn from adjacent industries and reframe the conversation from your own institution. Learn how students gain confidence in their choices as they navigate the application and aid processes. Discover what prospects look for when determining what resources deserve their time, attention, and trust. Uncover how partners can strengthen your brand in the topics students value—especially when they don’t want to hear about those topics from you. Presented at Confab Higher Ed 2016, #ConfabEDU, in Philadelphia November 15, 2016.

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Brand Driven Message Architecture Workshop UXLX

June 5, 2014, 5:10 am

≫ Next: Content Strategy for Slow Experiences at UXLX

≪ Previous: Behind Your Back: How Other Industries Talk About Higher Ed at ConfabEDU 2016

Facing feature creep or disagreements among stakeholders? Get a grip on content, the people who make it, and the brand they want to establish. Enter brand-driven content strategy: learn how to develop a message architecture, discover how a brand attributes cardsort can help, and improve organizational alignment around your content. Then we’ll conduct a quantitative and qualitative content audit to reveal new content types and see... is your content even any good? Delivered at User Experience Lisbon, #uxlx, June 5, 2014, in Lisbon Portugal.

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Content Strategy for Slow Experiences at UXLX

June 6, 2014, 3:52 am

≫ Next: Getting the content right: how we succeed together at Confab for Nonprofits

≪ Previous: Brand Driven Message Architecture Workshop UXLX

Driving from Lisbon to Golega, we’ll look at the opportunity to design slow experiences. Online experiences can be fast, efficient, easy, orderly—and sometimes, that’s all wrong! Users click confirm too soon, miss important details, or don’t find content that aids conversion. In short, efficient isn’t always effective. Not all experiences need to be fast to be functional. In fact, some of the most memorable and profitable web engagements employ “slow content strategy,” content speed bumps, and surprising content types that aid interaction. We’ll examine examples of content strategy in action that demonstrates how to identify and control the pace of user experience, adding value for both our users and the businesses that engage them. Presented at User Experience Lisbon, #uxlx, 6 June 2014.

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Getting the content right: how we succeed together at Confab for Nonprofits

June 16, 2014, 3:42 am

≫ Next: Content Strategy: Defining Our Profession, Defining Ourselves

≪ Previous: Content Strategy for Slow Experiences at UXLX

Ready to overhaul your website, CMS, everything—or just tear out your hair about how your organization appears online? Treasure Coast Hospice, one of the largest nonprofit hospice and palliative care providers in the country, needed their website to better communicate services, reach donors, and engage volunteers. But they first needed to ask: What do we really need to communicate? What content is working well, and why? Sit in on a conversation between Michael Hallinan, Treasure Coast Hospice’s web strategist, and Margot Bloomstein, their content strategy consultant, as they recount how they developed a message architecture of the organization’s communication goals, conducted an all-hands-on-deck content audit to understand the value of their existing content, and then collaborated with a development team to build a “content first” website—all on a timeline and budget that can scale to the needs of any nonprofit organization. Presented together at Confab for Nonprofits, #confabnp, in Chicago on June 16, 2014

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Content Strategy: Defining Our Profession, Defining Ourselves

August 19, 2014, 3:48 am

≫ Next: Content Strategy for Slow Experiences

≪ Previous: Getting the content right: how we succeed together at Confab for Nonprofits

What’s in a name—and does it constrain or empower us? As “content strategy” evolves as an industry, so too do the areas of expertise individual practitioners offer and our clients expect. Is that a problem, or an opportunity? Can we grapple with our terminology to broaden the profession without losing its relevance? And do we run the risk of diluting the meaning? We’ll discuss the responsibility and opportunity in how we define our industry and the areas of specialty it can comprise. Presented at Environments for Humans Content Strategy Summit, #CSSummit, August 19, 2014.

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Content Strategy for Slow Experiences

October 9, 2014, 6:58 am

≫ Next: Publishing and Expanding Our Expectations

≪ Previous: Content Strategy: Defining Our Profession, Defining Ourselves

Content strategy can help our users focus, act with conviction, and learn. For some brands, users, and contexts, slow content strategy is key. Presented at Level Up Conference in Saratoga, NY, #levelupcon on October 9, 2014.

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Publishing and Expanding Our Expectations

November 5, 2014, 7:01 am

≫ Next: Content strategy for deliberate discovery at CongresCM

≪ Previous: Content Strategy for Slow Experiences

Content strategy champions and makes possible the idea that “everyone is a publisher.” But with challenges to net neutrality and inconsistent network connectivity in the developing world, do we need to limit our definition of “everyone” to just the white and wealthy world and the more cutting edge businesses it spawns? Maybe that’s the case today, but today is the mirror of realism. The future is the undefined outcome of optimism—and we have many reasons to be optimistic. Looking at emerging examples from modern business culture, Silicon Valley investment strategies, and communication trends beyond the United States, Margot Bloomstein will map out challenges and opportunities for publishing in the coming decades. The author of Content Strategy at Work: Real-world Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project, Bloomstein will explore how content strategy will work in the future to aid the changing face of publishing. Who will practice it? Will power align with technology, quality, perspective, or a combination of all three? And how will we define “publishing,” anyhow? Presented November 5, 2014 as part of the UX Futures Summit.

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Content strategy for deliberate discovery at CongresCM

November 19, 2014, 10:31 pm

≫ Next: Base your content strategy on a message architecture CongresCM

≪ Previous: Publishing and Expanding Our Expectations

Online experiences can be fast, easy, and orderly—and sometimes, that’s all wrong for both users and brands. Not all websites need to be efficient to be effective. Some of the most memorable and profitable web experiences help users slow down, engage in discovery, and learn by doing. Brands like IKEA use “slow content strategy” to encourage discovery and create a new level of brand engagement. Other companies such as outdoor specialist Patagonia and investment bank Fidelity use content types and editorial styles to help customers focus. Content strategist and author Margot Bloomstein explains how such a slow content strategy can pack a target audience for the brand and thus propel customer engagement to new heights. Presented at Congres Content Marketing & Webredactie, #congresCM on November 20, 2014 in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

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Base your content strategy on a message architecture CongresCM

November 19, 2014, 10:38 pm

≫ Next: Knowing Your Brand Amid Constraints

≪ Previous: Content strategy for deliberate discovery at CongresCM

Before you can determine new content types, choose social media channels, and decide on an editorial style, take a step back. Marketers must first create a clear picture of what you need to communicate—and the hierarchy of those communication goals. We’ll look at how that works with a message architecture, looking at examples from a range of companies that all care about communicating consistently across channels and platforms. Presented at Congres Content Marketing & Webredactie, #congresCM on November 20, 2014 in Utrecht, the Netherlands

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Knowing Your Brand Amid Constraints

April 30, 2015, 6:14 am

≫ Next: Content Strategy for Slow Experiences

≪ Previous: Base your content strategy on a message architecture CongresCM

Arm yourself with personas, research, and KPIs. Look out at data you’re chasing. Then look in. What do you see? We spawn sites, create content, and chase new platforms without always knowing why. To keep up with competitors? To keep up with users? We know them better than we know ourselves, then burn resources racing toward questionable destinations and burn out in the process. That’s where content strategy can help. We’ll discuss forging a path from where you are and who you are. Learn how to allot constrained resources and engage your audience. Eager to reach them? To know them, first know yourself. Presented as keynote at Now What 2015, #NowWhat15, April 30, 2015, in Sioux Falls SD.

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Content Strategy for Slow Experiences

May 4, 2015, 8:17 am

≫ Next: Defining Our Profession, Defining Ourselves

≪ Previous: Knowing Your Brand Amid Constraints

Online experiences can be fast, efficient and easy—but sometimes, that’s all wrong! Users click Buy too soon, miss important details or don’t find content that aids conversion. Efficient isn’t always effective and fast isn’t always functional. In fact, some of the most memorable web engagements employ “slow content strategy” with design considerations and content types that aid stickiness and retention. Margot Bloomstein will lead you through examples from a range of industries to see how you can manage—and slow—the pace at which users move through your website designs to create experiences that aid learning, fuel anticipation and create memories.

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Defining Our Profession, Defining Ourselves

May 22, 2015, 9:32 am

≫ Next: Content Strategy for Slow Experiences at Web Design Day

≪ Previous: Content Strategy for Slow Experiences

What’s in a name—and does it constrain or empower us? As “content strategy” evolves as an industry, so too do the areas of expertise that we individually offer and that our clients expect. Is this a problem, or an opportunity? Do you really have to do it all? Can we grapple with our terminology to broaden the profession without losing its relevance? And do we run the risk of diluting the meaning? Looking at examples in a variety of industries, we’ll discuss the responsibility and opportunity in how we define our industry and the areas of specialty it can comprise. Delivered at Confab Central, #ConfabMN, May 22, 2015.

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Content Strategy for Slow Experiences at Web Design Day

June 12, 2015, 8:38 am

≫ Next: Brand-driven Content Strategy: Developing a Message Architecture

≪ Previous: Defining Our Profession, Defining Ourselves

Online experiences can be fast, efficient, easy, orderly—and sometimes, that’s a recipe for disaster. Users click confirm too soon, confuse important details, or miss a key feature in a product description. Efficient isn’t always effective. Not all experiences need to be fast to be functional. In fact, some of the most memorable and profitable engagements are slow and messy... and that’s just right. By designing for pace, we can intentionally help users focus on details and gain confidence in their choices. We can also encourage their sense of discovery and help them build stronger memories. Not all experiences need to be slower, but content strategy can help identify and support these outliers of user experience. We’ll look at REI, Target, Patagonia, Disney, and others for lessons you can apply to aid learning, retention, and user satisfaction. Help your audience soak up the journey or just engage with more certainty, all with more deliberate content strategy. Presented at Web Design Day in Pittsburgh, #WDD2015, June 12, 2015.

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