Content Strategy Insights

Generative AI tools and LLMs bring the need for a new kind of content awareness in organizations of all sizes.

While some have focused on content creation, Jeff Coyle has grown and accelerated his content-marketing capabilities by leveraging the content discovery and operations improvements that AI can deliver.

https://contentandai.com/jeff-coyle/

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.

https://ellessmedia.com/csi/vinish-garg/

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.

https://ellessmedia.com/csi/preston-so-3/

Like most designers who work in technology, Cennydd Bowles has reflected at times on the impact of his work and its ethical implications.

After a couple of decades of information architecture and interaction design practice, Cennydd stepped back from his design work to explore philosophy and ethics in depth.

His explorations have led him to extensive academic study as well as speaking gigs and writing on the subject, including a book, Future Ethics.

https://contentandai.com/cennydd-bowles/

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.

https://ellessmedia.com/csi/david-connis/

One of the most engaging aspects of generative AI products is their conversational interfaces. This has led many content designers working on AI products to develop skills in conversation design.

Sharon Ni works on both conversational AI products and script-driven chatbots in her content design role at Cisco. She has developed her conversational design and technical AI skills by attending conferences, hackathons, and other events, by networking extensively, and by experimenting constantly with AI and conversational tech.

https://contentandai.com/sharon-ni/

When the concept of "content" comes up it can be hard to get everyone aligned on exactly what you're talking about.

At IKEA, Timi Stoop-Alcala focuses on the "what" of content via the practice of knowledge domain modeling both to deal with the complexity of content and to highlight its importance.

Her knowledge-focused, human-centered approach has also elevated the role of content in the organization so that content is now recognized as a core competency.

https://ellessmedia.com/csi/timi-stoop-alcala/

Like many content designers in the fall of 2022, Andrew Stein was concerned about the possible negative impact of generative AI on content and design practice. And his concern was heightened by the large number of content designers on his team.

Since then, Andrew has discovered many ways to apply AI in his content design work, both in conventional digital-product design and in content work on AI products.

He has also discovered a happy additional benefit of taking the lead on AI. His expertise has led to exciting new collaborations and leadership opportunities.

https://contentandai.com/andrew-stein/

Generative AI creates new opportunities to create and manage content at scale. And scale is definitely required when crafting content experiences for one of the world's largest ecommerce companies.

Anna Potapova is incorporating gen-AI across the span of her work at AliExpress: content creation and management, localization, personalization, and other areas where her strategic-content mind guides her.

https://contentandai.com/anna-potapova/

Organizations of all types and sizes struggle with presenting their content so that it both makes sense to readers and aligns with the organization's intentions.

Hilary Marsh introduced the concept of the "digital council" to address this issue. Councils can take many forms, depending on the nature of the organization, but the intent always is to glue back together content that has been disconnected by organizational silos.

https://ellessmedia.com/csi/hilary-marsh/