At the Detroit Content Strategy Meet-up, I joined the awesome Michele Linn (VP of Content at Content Marketing Institute) and equally awesome Ashok Sharma (VP Associate Director, Content Strategy at MRM//McCann) to discuss trends and challenges in content strategy for 2016. The panel was moderated by Meet-up founder and Associate Director, Customer Experience Strategy, MRM//McCANN, Chris Moritz. Fun … Read more Content Strategy Trends
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what content strategy is – to me, to clients and employers, and in the larger XD ecosystem. We all know the Halverson-approved definition: “Content strategy is the practice of planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content.” The definition is both excellent and not that … Read more Content Strategy: What Are You Being Hired to Do?
In August A Book Apart released On Web Typography by Jason Santa Maria. This is an excellent introduction to typography and well-timed, since most of the predictions for hot design trends in 2014 include something about fonts. Forbes: large fonts. The Next Web: Non-boring typography. Moveable Online: More experimental type. Web Marketing Today: custom fonts. But … Read more Fun with Type (But Keep It Functional)
Recently I’ve been working with clients that want to encourage some kind of political or social action from their users. Nonprofit organizations, in particular, often want to encourage some type of action from users: write you congressman, sign a petition, donate to end poverty. I’ve been a little horrified at the poor approach many of … Read more Designing for Empathy–and Action
I got a chance to play with Google Glass recently. I was not one of the many people instantly attracted to it when I first heard about it, so I was amazed to discover that I really liked it! The display is not distracting (or not as distracting as I feared) and it is … Read more Google Glass: Unexpectedly Fun
When’s the last time you ventured out without your phone? (I mean, on purpose. I occasionally get down the block without mine, and worry that this will be the one time I really, really need to make a call.) If you are like most other Americans, the answer is “not often.” According to Pew Internet … Read more Do You Sleep with Your Phone?
I just returned from Confab 2013 in beautiful (rainy) Minneapolis. Confab: The Content Strategy Conference brings together a lot of really smart people to talk about the critical intersection of content, usability, UI, and marketing on the Web. (“On the Web” is meant broadly — encompassing virtually everything.) I’ll be unearthing brilliant takeaways for months, … Read more Confab 2013: Zombies, Underpants Gnomes, and Cake
In this TEDx talk by Simon Rogers of the Guardian, one of the real exemplars in data journalism (see their Datablog, including their nice approach to Dr. Who villains and many weightier subjects), Rogers compares the ease of data journalism to punk: anyone can do it. The ease of new tools, such as Many Eyes, … Read more Democratization of Journalism
I’ve been in publishing a long time, and I’ve generally been a fan of copyright restrictions. Those encyclopedia or history books? A lot of hard work goes into making those facts accurate, accessible and compelling. But a couple of recent(ish) happenings are giving me cause to rethink how we are applying copyright laws. “Ambulance chasing” … Read more What is Copyright Protecting?
Your favorite author’s new masterpiece in beta? Hiptype provides some really interesting analytics on e-books (sorry, not print). What chapters do users read? Where do you lose them? How many buy the book after reading the sample? Collecting both demographic info and reading habits in a small app, Hiptype supports “data-driven publishing.” Aside from the … Read more Moby Dick in Beta?
