Jack Molisani

Jack Molisani knows how to put on an engaging and edifying professional conference.

He founded and organizes the LavaCon technical content strategy conference, which draws hundreds of content professionals to cities like New Orleans and Portland each year.

Jack has experimented over the years with virtualizing parts of his conferences, and he shares in this episode his discoveries about how to run online events.

Jack and I talked about:

the origins of the LavaCon conference

his conscious choice to host LavaCon in smaller cities like New Orleans and Portland

how he puts together the slate of speakers for LavaCon each year

trends in content strategy - chatbots last year, structured content this year

the history of content strategy and technical communication conferences

his definition of content strategy

the need for a content champion above the content silos, a UN of content, headed by a Chief Content Officer

the challenges facing the conference industry

how to virtualize conferences

supporting small businesses during the current COVID-19 pandemic

DITA and other good skills - like public speaking and improv - to study during the current downtime

his generous offer to review resumes for job seekers (details below)

Jacks' Bio

Jack Molisani is the president of ProSpring Technical Staffing, an employment agency specializing in content professionals:

He's the author of Be The Captain of Your Career: A New Approach to Career Planning and Advancement, which hit #5 on Amazon's Career and Resume Best Seller list.

Jack also produces the LavaCon Conference on Content Strategy and Technical Communication Management, to be held in New Orleans 25-28 October 2020.

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/V9NUL7VQNoU

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Karen McGrane: Content In the Zombie Apocalypse

Minimum Viable Infrastructure for Enterprise Content, by Sarah O'Keefe

The LavaCon YouTube channel with free content:

The LavaCon Conference on Content Strategy

LinkedIn Content Strategy Group

Free resume reviews or if your company needs staffing help: [email protected]

Podcast Intro Transcript

When you attend a professional conference, you may not think about the details that happen behind the scenes. Jack Molisani definitely thinks about them. As the organizer of the LavaCon content strategy conference, he seeks out interesting locations, scours the profession for the best speakers, and follows industry trends, aiming to create gatherings that are both enjoyable and enlightening. Jack has been virtualizing parts of his events for years, so he also has some great thoughts on the current shift to online events.

Interview Transcript

Larry:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 66 of The Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Jack Molisani. He runs a staffing agency for content professionals and other technical professionals. He's written a book about how to manage a technical career. But I think he's probably best known as the founder and the organizer of the LavaCon conference. Let me welcome you to the show Jack and please tell the folks a little bit more about yourself and how LavaCon came to be in particular. That's what I'm interested in anyway.

Jack:

Sure. This is a fun story. Harken back to 1998, the Society for Technical Communications annual leadership summit. Someone had observed that at the time, none of the chapters in the Pacific Rim countries ever got to go to their own regional conferences because they were always held mainland US.