Being more attentive to inclusion is helping Julie Copley and her colleagues at Pop improve their clients' websites.

Julia Copley is a connections strategist at POP, a Seattle-based digital agency. She helps clients prepare for the future and incorporate emerging technology to their existing portfolios. Previous clients include Microsoft, Adobe, eBay, The Home Depot, and BMW's ReachNow.

Video

Here's the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/2HyvGH7IdnY

Transcript

This current version is not a word-for-word transcript, just my raw notes from my first listen-through of our conversation.

0:48 "connections strategist" - evolution to this title was natural growth over 18 months at Pop - began as content strategist working on a project for Adobe - started as straightforward content strategy - quickly clear that she brought a broader perspective

2:15 Adobe product line launch - agency "quick hit" success - competitive analysis of market - how to improve

3:15 context of project in bigger Adobe site - how new product diverged from existing Adobe content

4:20 UX background - and product designer - "connections" as defined at Pop is another layer on top of those - she's a liberal arts major and generalist - has always been a generalist

6:10 reference to Jared Spool's "unicorn" talk in Seattle several years ago - importance of being a generalist but also specializing in a content strategy/UX role

7:20 understanding in aggregate who your personas are - where to find them - where client's target audience fits in client's goals - way she works as connections strategist: do the research, build out a channel connections plan, put it in market, test it

9:00 inclusion in product design, how to improve inclusivity in persona development and product design: 0. have the mindset that you are not the baseline; your customer is 1. ongoing challenge of building more inclusive personas - industry as whole figuring it out - how to make life easier/products better - often building for C-suite/Director level folks - how to leverage that learning to reach more people - we're tech savvy early adopters, able to navigate better with this tech - Di Dang and she trying to raise idea that early adopters are just one part of the market [here's a slide [[[ demographics slide Julia Copley SIC ]]] from her SIC talk deck that shows some of this data]

Boomers, e.g., big market but can't reach them as you would early adopters

14:30 client work iterating on targeted demo - validate assumptions: are personas based on validated data? - e.g., recent project on luxury brand used Audience View tool [link - account required to use tool] to show to client new customer opportunities that they might want to go after - e.g. folks who not normally luxury targets but have one-time luxury event

17:45 building institutional capability of broadened awareness - "demographics are destiny" - indeed much of life set by your generation - Millennials - Gen Z - et al

19:45 demographic axes - awareness of different dimensions - slow change in racial diversity generationally - one or two percentage points per generation - but more of a mentality of expecting diversity in younger generations - social media influence on this dynamic - feels weird when you don't see diversity represented

22:50 personas in web product development - aim for fewer than 5 - can be aware of more but gotta prioritize - 3 is pretty standard in her experience - different message for each demo and in each channel - Facebook, etc.

24:20 tailoring messages for different media channel - and these messages as a content type - don't write too early - brand look, feel, and voice first and then write the tailored messages - ID who folks are, where they hang out,