Everybody is in the content game, whether they know it or not, and it’s a tough game to play.

Between the initial creative brief or editorial strategy, to the production processes, to approving, publishing and maintaining it, content takes a lot of time, care, and energy. Done well, content will help you close sales, build brand loyalty, and make your customers happy. Done poorly, all three of those goals will suffer.

I get alignment on the right path to making content that’s desirable, findable, and useful by answering key questions:

• Do you prioritize user needs, brand needs, or business objectives? Do those things align? Should they? (They should!)

• What teams should get involved at what point in the process?

• How do you structure content for findability? For usabiliy? For ease of authoring?

• Do you have the right tools, processes, and governance in place to publish quality content regularly?

I help organizations discover their content goals, pull actionable insights out of user research and analytics, and streamline publishing processes so their content teams do their best work. I’ve worked with companies as diverse as MillerKnoll, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Mayo Clinic, Qualcomm, Clover, and Ally.

I won’t say that I can make content easy, but I can make it less hard.

A Bit About Me

My career has been winding, like many strategists.

After graduating with an English and Philosophy degree, I began working in entertainment and business journalism. I wrote and edited articles on topics as diverse as the hottest restaurant opening in West Michigan, how an unseasonably warm January decimated Michigan fruit crops, or what the latest furniture innovations were.

First Agency

I worked as a copywriter in a small agency in St. Joseph, Michigan. My role there also was very “soup-to-nuts” and included writing and editing promotional brochures, social posts, and sales training materials for KitchenAid and JennAir. As more and more digital project came in to our mostly print-focused agency, I took on the role of a self-taught UX designer and information architect, roughing out wireframes for programs and designing database structures.

Herman Miller and MillerKnoll

I went as a writer to Herman Miller, where I concepted and wrote eCommerce campaigns for the online store, led copy for product launches, and collaborated with other writers on brand standards and work reviews.

At the same time, I saw a strategy gap in the creative and digital teams. We were making a lot of content, and had some measurement in place, but what was this content supposed to do, and how could we organize it better.

With help from colleagues, I established a Content Strategy practice in the Digital Design team, and had a hand leading every digital product and major redesign during my tenure in that role. I worked to create easy to understand standards for different screen types, establish content and taxonomy governance frameworks, advocate for data- and user-led information architecture decisions, and democratized much of the work throughout the company. I started this work first when it was just me, and then partnered with other strategists and people in the organization as our team grew and we merged with Knoll to become MillerKnoll.

YML, Code and Theory, and Beyond…

After my time with MillerKnoll, I left to explore many of the same challenges, but working for an agency. I went first to Y Media Labs, or YML, and worked with their teams of strategists, product managers, designers, writers, and developers to deliver value for clients like Mayo Clinic, Amway, Okendo, and Ally. After YML merged with Code and Theory, I continued the same work, focused especially on user-backed information architecture and taxonomy creation, for clients like Qualcomm, JBL, Gartner, and Expedia.

I’m now working independently, using every trick and tool I’ve learned to help organizations bridge their strategy gaps and make sure their people, process, and content work in harmony to achieve business goals and meet user needs.