No. 49 | Seven games I play in my head
Most of the time? I’m playing silly games in my head.
I have blogged intermittently since the mid 90s. Thankfully, much of the early teenage angst is lost to time. This collects my writings from this site, an earlier personal website, and some newsletter projects over the years, in mostly chronological order. I also publish new writing here. I publish somewhat more formal writing about content strategy and design careers at Content Career Accelerator.
No. 48 | Seven accessories for surviving a zombie apocalypse
Only the mall ninja will survive.
Thinking with paper
When I’m trying to figure out what I think, to unravel something new, I use paper. Email makes you think like email. Pick some people and tell them something. But maybe I don’t need to tell anyone anything. Maybe I need to make a to-do list, or write up a list of questions and add … continue
Assessing Your User-Centered Content Strategy
Three important questions to ask yourself when moving toward a more user-centered content strategy.
No. 47 | Seven genetically modified food ideas
If we’re going to engineer our fruit and vegetable crops let’s have some fun with it, is all I’m saying.
Put the Work Before the Words
Don’t let vocabulary or office politics get you down. Your content strategy work is relevant, no matter what words are tied to it.
stopit, Golden Principles, and the Golden Bridge
One my favorite talks I give is about making Dale Carnegie’s 9 Golden Principles for Being a Friendlier Person an accessible idea for UX designers. The first principle is often one of the hardest to adhere to, both IRL and on the web: Never criticize, condemn, or complain. When a user does something we perceive … continue
How I put together my latest workshop
I did a completely new workshop (and related talk) at Confab this year. By completely new, I mean: Not upcycled from a talk I’ve already given Not an evolution on a previous talk or workshop Not based on a blog post or other writing So new, new, new. It was a lot of work. Confab … continue
Conference diary: Confab 2018
Holy shit. So was that a conference or was that a conference? I’m still reeling from the end of Confab 2018, a (the) content strategy conference held annually here in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My employer, Brain Traffic, produces the event. My primary contribution leading up to Confab is to interject unasked-for advice into conversations I overhear … continue
Sketching a blog post
Used a couple of Sharpie twin tips and my Baron Fig Mastermind pad to prototype my latest post for the Brain Traffic blog. Normally when I use pen and paper in my writing workflow it’s very messy and haphazard — notes jotted in random places, maybe a partial mind map, maybe a bullet point of … continue