Emily Triplett Lentz

Emily Triplett Lentz is committed to making her content as welcoming as possible to everyone who encounters it.

Her inclusive-content work not only ensures that traditionally excluded groups feel included. It also delivers stronger business results and promotes better writing.

We talked about:

her background as a writer and content strategist

their focus at Help Scout on the customer experience, including their attention to inclusive content

how easy it is to carelessly use non-inclusive language

how Help Scout audited their content for commonly used phrases that could be replaced with more inclusive words and phrases

how replacing non-inclusive language can improve your writing

how phrases like "open the kimono" might seem fine in some contexts but offensive in others

the importance of recognizing that "we're all works in progress" - that we're all at different points in our journey

how privileged people - whether it's racial, economic, class, gender, or other types of privilege - can benefit from recognizing that folks without those privileges "have a harder go of it" and that "the work of inclusivity rests with people who have more privilege"

the business case for inclusivity: "it's just not good business to alienate anybody"

"how frequently and reflexively we use the discourse of disability to signify that which is undesirable"

how they codified the findings of their inclusivity audit in Help Scout's style guide, including guidelines on seeking out diverse subject matter experts

how listening to their customers led to accessibility efforts like captioning all of their video content

how she loves it "when people respectfully call me out and help me continue to learn"

the importance of acknowledging the difference between "content your company is publishing on its website and casual chit chat you're having with some friends"

the difficulty of changing deep-rooted, long-established language habits - for example, using "guys" to refer to mixed groups, or "Dear sirs" as a correspondence salutation

how using inclusive language internally can help with recruiting and retaining diverse employees - for example, not referring to a sales team that includes women as "the sales guys"

the importance of being mindful of the context in cross-cultural and similar conversations

her top take-homes on inclusive content:

"just listen to people"

"there are almost always neutral synonyms that generally strengthen our communication, make our writing better"

"it's not that hard, so why not default to neutral language and better writing and clearer communication, why not just make that simple choice and make our content as welcoming as possible to everybody who encounters it"

Emily's Bio

Emily Triplett Lentz is the Content Strategy Lead at Help Scout, the customer messaging platform and certified B Corporation. She's passionate about the intersection of marketing and social issues, and advocates for approaching content through an inclusive lens.

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/xGbrwzW34GM

Podcast Intro Transcript

When you create content for websites and other digital products, it can be tempting to just default to the same language that you use every day. Unfortunately, our habitual word choices can sometimes make folks who are different from us feel excluded. Emily Triplett Lentz has some great ideas about how to make more mindful language choices so that your content is as welcoming as possible to everyone who encounters it. I really enjoyed our conversation about inclusive content and I hope you do, too.

Interview Transcript

Larry: