Mike Atherton

Mike Atherton applies insights from information architecture to help content strategists develop domain models. These models help align content stakeholders and create a powerful way to organize, discover, and display content.

Mike and I talked about:

his discovery in the late 1990s of the field of information architecture (solving what was then known as "the pain with no name"), via Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld's book, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web

how his work on the media archives at the BBC led to the development of the practice of domain modeling

the origins of his domain model in Eric Evans' book Domain-Driven Design book

how domain modeling is essentially a research project, a way to pick the brains of stakeholders and help them (subject matter experts, designer, engineers, et al.) come to agreement

how a domain model gives you a place for any/all content you have in that domain

how domain modeling can work as a forcing function to figure out which content belongs in a digital product

his definition of content marketing: "You're not making content about your product. You're making content about the things that matter to the people who buy your product."

how the ability to target users and customers is more advanced than the personalization and other techniques attempting to address it (here's the DrupalCon talk on personalization he mentions)

how well Dyson executes its content marketing program, mapping out a complete 1,200-day customer journey

the need for a grammar for new practices like personalization

the use of interactive narrative as an intermediate practice on the way to full-on personalization

the difference in perception, definition, and application of "content strategy" between product content strategists, tech comms strategists, etc. - and how they can still be tied together

how he and his co-author Carrie Hane strove in their development of Designing Connected Content to empower non-technical people to apply technical concepts in their content strategy work

how interface design decisions should be informed by the stucture of content relationships, as described in a domain model

how domain modeling permits more organic cross-linking and other navigation opportunities

his thoughts on content marketing, for example, on poorly executed programs: "Doing a thing badly doesn't make that thing bad."

how content marketers would benefit from shifting from a campaign mindset to "thinking about what's useful for the long term" and how this can help "brands can become that ambassador for their subject domain"

Mike's Bio

For over 20 years, Mike Atherton has been connecting people to content. A specialist in structuring information, he has chunked, pushed, presented and linked compelling content for the BBC, Huddle, and, in a different age, Playboy TV. Now a content strategist for Facebook in London, he collaborates with product specialists to build experiences from the terminology up. He recently co-authored the book Designing Connected Content.

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/djwfsLmB3Do

Thank You, Moz

We recorded this episode in a conference room in the Moz offices, a few blocks from Mike's hotel. Thanks, Ashlie, Ida, and team!

Transcript

Larry:

Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 44 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Mike Atherton. Mike is best known - the reason I asked him on the show is because of his book, Designing Connected Content. I'll tell you a little bit. Mike has- like a lot of us old timers in the field, he has a broad background. I'll let him articulate his current role,