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Writing

Fresh ideas about craft, clarity, creativity, and personal growth, as well as updates on my projects, media recommendations, and links to all the weird and delightful things I find on the internet.

Writing for Designers in Tokyo

I had the great pleasure of visiting Tokyo recently, to speak at the long-running, COVID-interrupted UX Days event. From my perspective it was over 3 years in the making, from the initial invitation to actually being able to attend. Wild. The trip was a lot of firsts for me; my first time in Japan, my first … continue

What the heck is content ecosystem mapping?

Good question. To fully answer it, we have to explore a few related, but distinct, terms: Content ecosystem mapping is a sensemaking activity for digital strategy. Digital strategy projects could include: and so on. In a design and strategy context, sensemaking is something we do in order to better understand an environment, problem, or situation. … continue

I still care about content.

A few years back, a local reporter and columnist attended a content strategy conference at which I was a presenter. I had the impression he got sent there for his own professional development reasons. But he might have attended out of genuine curiosity, or for the purposes of the write-up he eventually published in a … continue

Do you need a portfolio to apply for UX content roles?

Transcript

Do I need a portfolio to apply for UX content roles?

Yes, but possibly also no.

I recommend to my coaching clients to create a portfolio if you can. And I think that most people can, because portfolios don’t have to be these super glossy case studies of high fidelity prototypes.

The portfolio is showing how you think and how you work. So if you have some stories about your work, and you can come up with visuals to accompany them screenshots, sure, but also diagrams, photos, you can put a little work story together, put a few work stories back to back, package them up in a presentation format — that’s also my recommendation. And now you have a portfolio.

So you could be applying to an enterprise content role where a portfolio is not required, you could be applying for a product marketing or marketing role, where your portfolio is not required. But if you have one that’s going to help set you above other candidates, it’s going to give you something to talk about with a hiring manager, especially if the organization is new to UX content. They might not even know what questions to ask, they might not know what the work could look like. So it’s an opportunity to lead.

So yeah, there’s plenty of jobs out there. If there’s a match where you don’t have a portfolio yet and they’re not asking for one? Great! Go ahead and apply. But I would encourage you to take the time to start building one regardless.

In the pit

Editor’s note: I wrote this in either March or April of 2019, I reckon, and recently found it languishing in my drafts. Still liked it, so here you go. Jon and I did a new open mic on Friday. On the one hand, it was the most people we’ve ever played in front of. On … continue

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