All Things Content with Kevin Nichols

It cannot be understated that the world is experiencing rapid change. Finding genuine fulfillment while navigating an environment full of technological advancements and volatile economic fluctuations is a daunting task. How can content professionals maintain career success while still finding purpose through their work?

In this episode of "All Things Content," host Kevin P. Nichols interviews Michael Lawrence Restiano, a seasoned content designer with a rich background in content strategy. They discuss the importance of balancing passion and lifestyle, emphasizing that merely following one's passion may not lead to fulfillment. Restiano shares insights on resilience and determination in a rapidly changing world, particularly in the evolving tech landscape and the rise of generative AI. He highlights the necessity for human intervention in content creation despite advancements in AI technology. The conversation also touches on diverse leadership styles and the often invisible strategic work that content designers perform. Restiano encourages professionals to embrace their creativity and take small, impactful steps in their roles, ultimately fostering growth and authority within their teams. The episode concludes with a reminder of the potential for positive outcomes amidst challenges.

Michael Restiano is a seasoned UX Writing / Content Strategy / Content Design (really whatever those in the field call themselves these days) vet with 10+ years of experience on various product teams. Michael is currently based in New York City, where he is a Staff Content Designer at Webflow. He has previously worked at Instacart, Uber Eats, Facebook, and SapientNitro. In addition to his content expertise, Michael is a yoga instructor and has recently started as a life and executive coach.

Michael's Info:

Michael's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/michaelrestiano

Michael's Website: michaellawrencerestiano.com 

Michael's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikeyrest/?hl=en

Michael's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.restiano 

Kevin's Info: 

Kevin's Website and Blog: https://bit.ly/3in284l 

Kevin's Twitter: https://bit.ly/3jhscNG 

Kevin's LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3xn9SHG 

AvenueCX Website: https://bit.ly/3lsSFdR

Since the early days of the internet, search engine optimization (SEO) has been a significant point of interest for web developers and marketers. A website’s ranking in a search query can make or break a business, so there has always been close attention paid to the tips and tricks needed to be ranked higher. However, these rules are constantly changing according to the current business environment. How have things changed over time, and what are the current rules? What market conditions shape search engine rankings, and how can one navigate them to succeed?

Frank Watson, SEO expert and the CEO of Kangamurra Media, joins host Kevin Nichols to answer these questions. They delve into the evolution of SEO strategies over the years, emphasizing the importance of quality content, readability, and user engagement. Frank shares insights on optimizing web content for search engines, the significance of meta elements like titles and descriptions, and the impact of user behavior on search rankings. The conversation highlights the need for authenticity and relevance in online content to enhance user experience and improve search engine visibility. Some key takeaways from the discussion include the importance of SEO readiness in content strategies, optimizing digital properties for organic and paid search, the significance of internal and external linking, the value of quality and rich content, the impact of usability and accessibility on website ranking, and the use of AI tools like Gemini and ChatGBT for SEO insights.

As the CEO of Kangamurra Media, Frank Watson hails with more than 30+ years of experience in digital marketing. Frank thrives at helping his clients achieve their business objectives online through content strategies specifically formulated for SEO readiness and by assisting them in optimizing their digital properties for organic and paid search. Frank’s expertise in SEO reigns supreme, and he has years of experience and client success to prove it. He has worked with various industries, from adult and gaming to finance and automotive, and has delivered results in SEO, SEM, web analytics, and social media. Frank has spoken at numerous SES conferences, is a forum editor at Search Engine Watch, and is a host of SEO Rockstars at WebmasterRadio.FM. 

Frank’s Info:

Frank’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/aussiewebmaster 

Frank’s Website: kangamurramedia.com 

Frank’s Email: frank@kangamurramedia.com

Frank’s X Account: https://x.com/AussieWebmaster

Frank’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092411289609

Kevin’s Info: 

Kevin’s Website and Blog: https://bit.ly/3in284l 

Kevin’s Twitter: https://bit.ly/3jhscNG 

Kevin’s LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3xn9SHG  

AvenueCX Website: https://bit.ly/3lsSFdR

Personalization has become so ubiquitous that nearly every content-related service has incorporated it, from social media algorithms to email lists to training blogs. Personalization allows content to cater to an individual’s unique needs and interests, improving stakeholder engagement and comprehension. But how does one maintain these benefits while attempting to personalize content at scale?

The podcast episode features a discussion on how standardization equals personalization for content. Kevin P. Nichols is joined by Christine Ceuller of Scriptorium, a company specializing in structured content solutions and enterprise content strategy. They talk about the importance of content strategy in organizing and streamlining content creation, management, and distribution. They also highlight the role of standardization in setting up effective personalization for organizations. The conversation touches on the benefits of structured authoring, the reuse of content components, and the connection between creativity and limitations. Overall, the episode provides valuable insights into the relationship between standardization and personalization in content strategy.

Christine is an experienced marketing strategist and content marketer passionate about connecting people. As the Marketing Coordinator for Scriptorium, she excels in identifying target audiences, creating seamless connection pathways, and showcasing the company’s talent. Known for optimizing processes, Christine has developed project management systems that enhance efficiency and reduce friction. Starting as a copywriter, she advanced to content marketing management and strategy, making her a perfect fit for Scriptorium. Outside work, she enjoys coffee, kayaking, hiking, stand-up comedy, and movies, and she holds black belts in karate and kickboxing. Christine graduated with a BA in finance and a minor in banking from New Mexico State University and has GDPR and CPPA certifications. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

Resources Mentioned:

Standardization = Personalization Article: https://www.scriptorium.com/2024/02/training-content-paradox-standardization-personalization/

CaaS and Componentization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdytjtH8jeU

Personalized Content: Steps to Success White Paper: https://www.scriptorium.com/2022/01/personalized-content-steps-to-success/

Dr. Carlos Evia’s book, Content Operations from Start to Scale: https://publishing.vt.edu/site/books/e/10.21061/content_operations_evia/

LearningDITA: https://learningdita.com

LavaCon 2024: https://lavacon.org

Christine’s Info:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-cuellar/

Articles: https://www.scriptorium.com/author/christine/  

Media: https://www.scriptorium.com/media/  

Bio: https://www.scriptorium.com/about/christine-cuellar/

Kevin’s Info: 

Kevin’s Website and Blog: https://bit.ly/3in284l

Kevin’s Twitter: https://bit.ly/3jhscNG 

Kevin’s LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3xn9SHG  

AvenueCX Website: https://bit.ly/3lsSFdR

AI is a groundbreaking technology disrupting nearly every industry, especially the content field. Services like ChatGPT are making writing many forms of content exponentially faster than traditional methods, and similar tools are being integrated into products like Dropbox and social media platforms to improve their usefulness and efficiency. Because of the explosion of interest and implementation into AI, terms like generative AI, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and machine learning are assumed to be referring to the same concept. What are the differences between these terms? And how can a content specialist without a background in computer science start to learn how to utilize this revolutionary new tech?

Kevin called on his friends from Reltio, Megan Gihooly and Rob Sylvester, to help answer these questions. They explore AI's definitions and use cases, particularly in content development. Megan and Rob expound on the importance of machine learning in AI and how it can solve customer problems. They emphasize the need for clear and structured content to train AI models effectively, as these models are only as valuable as the information fed into them. Lastly, the episode concludes with a reminder to approach AI tools cautiously and focus on solving specific problems rather than relying on plug-and-play solutions.

As a Sr. Director of Self-Help and Content Strategy at Reltio, Megan Gihooly, leads innovative initiatives that help customers unify their data autonomously using the Reltio platform. With over 20 years of experience in technical and marketing content, change management, e-learning, and process development, she is passionate about creating engaging and effective content experiences that drive business outcomes and customer satisfaction. She has successfully launched an award-nominated documentation portal, adopted a new content tech stack that supports publishing in minutes, and secured executive support for a generative AI assistant inside the doc portal and the product. Megan also has a strong background in customer experience, having worked at Zoomin, a SaaS content delivery platform, where she delivered customer insights, collaborated with cross-functional teams, and impacted revenue and growth.

Rob Sylvester, a Senior Staff Machine Learning Engineer at Reltio based in San Francisco, was born and raised in Alaska. He's pretty good with computers but much better at working with people, and he enjoys it a lot more. His background is in full-stack web development and linguistics, but nowadays, his professional interest is centered almost entirely on NLP and deep learning. He has a degree in Italian and is an avid fan of Italian cinema.

Megan's Info:

Megan's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/megangilhooly 

Rob Info:

Rob Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/robmsylvester 

Kevin's Info:  

Kevin's Website and Blog: https://bit.ly/3in284l 

Kevin's Twitter: https://bit.ly/3jhscNG 

Kevin's LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3xn9SHG  

AvenueCX Website: https://bit.ly/3lsSFdR

Given that the modern consumer ecosystem is so complex, finding ways to organize and optimize the customer experience can be difficult. There are countless ways customers can interact with a brand, whether that be through email, mobile apps, SMS messages, in-person experiences, and many more. The amount of options for consumers to utilize and for companies to track can be overwhelming. Due to how complicated customer experiences are today, diligent use and maintenance of customer journey maps are a necessity. 

To help outline best practices for customer journey mapping, Kevin Nichols is joined by his good friend, Steven Keith of CX Pilots. Steven and Kevin share their experiences of clients ignoring journey maps and the benefits when those maps are given proper attention. They also go over the process of creating a customer journey map, its components, and how to get all the relevant and necessary corporate teams involved. Steven and Kevin provide an updated view on how customer journey mapping is important in 2024 and how AI is evolving traditional processes. 

Steven Keith is an internationally recognized expert and keynote speaker for customer experience in professional services firms. Steven works with companies in the Fortune 10 as well as the Fortune 10,000 by helping them transform their strategies and operations to become more systematically empathetic to their internal and external customers.  

Steven’s Info:

Steven’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stevenkeith

Steven’s Company Website: https://www.cxpilots.com

Steven’s Blog: https://www.cxpilots.com/epiphanies

Kevin's Info:  

Kevin's Website and Blog: https://bit.ly/3in284l 

Kevin's Twitter: https://bit.ly/3jhscNG 

Kevin's LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3xn9SHG  

AvenueCX Website: https://bit.ly/3lsSFdR

The AvenueCX team has been doing a bit of traveling! We recently attended LavaCon 2023 this year in sunny San Diego and had a wonderful time. It was a great opportunity to reconnect in person with many friends we haven’t been able to see for the past few years. One of those friends is the incredibly talented Paula Land. Kevin sat down with her to catch up, talk about her current projects, and learn about content audits and how to properly execute them within a diverse organization.

Because of the competitive nature of the corporate world, it is incredibly easy to become cynical and jaded. This is especially true for those who work in marketing, as the entire practice is about getting the attention of potential customers before a rival grabs it up first. As a result, a mindset of “by any means necessary” becomes the norm. Manipulation and partial truths are often preferred over sincerity and honesty. This makes Marketing a field of study and practice many consider simply as a means to provide income and nothing to be passionate about.

On this episode of “All Things Content”, we’re trying something a little different. Instead of Kevin acting as the host and interviewer of the show, he is the guest! Join him and Mark Yirrell, Marketing and Sales Manager at AvenueCX as well as this week’s interviewer, as they discuss Kevin’s predictions for the content industry. They discuss everything from Web 3, the end of the third-party cookie, market adaptation to permacrisis, and more.

Did you know that more people would rather clean a toilet than call customer support? Due to this, combined with the fact that employing a customer support team during a recession is an expensive luxury, many companies are opting to close down their support teams. Instead, they’re shifting their focus to developing knowledge-center content, where customers can find their own answers to their questions. However, does this turn meet all customer needs? How can you make the best knowledge center possible? Are there benefits in maintaining customer support teams?

Join Kevin as he interviews his longtime friend and content industry veteran Scott Abel. They discuss different forms of content that can be housed in knowledge centers, the different purposes that content can be used for, and the changes to knowledge-center content caused by the recent pandemic. They also discuss how personalization can be utilized for that content and how the knowledge centers fit within the entirety of the customer experience. 

Known as "The Content Wrangler," Scott Abel is a content strategist who helps companies improve how they author, maintain and deliver information to those needing it. He's co-authored "Intelligent Content: A Primer" and "The Language of Content Strategy" and creator of the Content Strategy Series of books from XML Press. In addition, Scott hosts the most popular content-focused webinar show on BrightTALK, attracting tens of thousands of viewers annually. Scott co-produces several events including the annual Information Development World, Technical Documentation RoundUp, and Content Intelligence conferences, and is a presenter at content industry conferences including Intelligent Content Conference (an event he co-founded and later sold to Content Marketing Institute), Content Marketing World, Localization World (North America, Europe, Asia), Content Strategy Applied, and Society for Technical Communication Summit. His blog, TheContentWrangler.com, is a popular destination for communication pros seeking information about content management strategy and related topics.

Scott’s Info: 

Scott’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottabel/

Scott’s Twitter: twitter.com/scottabel 

Scott’s Blog: thecontentwrangler.com

Kevin's Info: 

Kevin's Website and Blog: https://bit.ly/3in284l

Kevin's Twitter: https://bit.ly/3jhscNG

Kevin's Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3xn9SHG 

AvenueCX Website: https://bit.ly/3lsSFdR

In the current digital space, the field of content design remains a topic of fascination. What exactly is content design, and what is it not? As explained by content strategist and this episode’s guest Sarah Johnson, it can be described as “designing with words”. She talks with Kevin about how she discovered her calling in content design after a career as a novelist and a computer programmer. Later, she explains the difference between content design and content strategy, as well as between content first design and content design. Sarah then speaks about the process and framework she leverages for effective content design. Sarah and Kevin also discuss the importance of communication skills in the field, the role of empathy and conversation mapping, and the intersection of content design, user experience, and customer experience.   

Sarah is an Associate Senior Manager of Content Strategy at CVS. She also teaches content strategy at Bentley University’s User Experience Center in Waltham, Massachusetts. She has twenty-five years of experience with companies such as CVS, TIAA, Fidelity Investments, and Bank of America. Sarah works with content teams to help them grow leadership and user experience skills, running content strategy summits within her UX teams. She also spearheaded a workshop entitled “The Art of the Difficult Conversation”, which she developed in conjunction with Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. The workshop went on to be offered corporate-wide at TIAA. Sarah is a graduate of the InnerMBA offered by SoundsTrue, LinkedIn, and NYU.   

Sarah's Info:  

Sarah's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sajwriter/

Kevin's Info:  

Kevin's Website and Blog: https://bit.ly/3in284l

Kevin's Twitter: https://bit.ly/3jhscNG

Kevin's Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3xn9SHG  

AvenueCX Website: https://bit.ly/3lsSFdR