lucid plot

We want to use design, content, and technology to help our organisations create customer-centred and sustainable digital work: services as seamless as Zipcar, mobile apps as intuitive as Instagram, customer service as helpful as Zappos, and content as useful as GOV.UK. But our culture gets in the way. Our organisations operate like factories, determined to preserve hierarchy, divide responsibility into silos, and dehumanise work so it’s more “efficient”. We’ve got plenty of ideas, we work with skilled people, and our tools get better every day—but until we start changing our organisations’ culture, we won’t achieve our objectives.

Start Changing Your Organisation’s Culture Using Storytelling and Startup Techniques from Together London on Vimeo.

In this 8 minute video I explain why we need to start changing our organisations’ culture, how storytelling can help, and what we can learn from startups.

Participate in the workshop

I’m leading a full day workshop on this topic on 23 May 2013 in London. We’re offering a discounted “early bird” price until this Friday 10 May. See you there!

Most conference talks make the audience feel bad about themselves, because the presenter talks about their achievements instead of how the audience can become more awesome (or how they can “kick ass”, as Kathy Sierra puts it.) This isn’t deliberate, and it’s straightforward to change, as long as the presenter is willing to take a risk by making themselves vulnerable.

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As people who work in technology, content, and the web, we’re at the forefront of cultural change. And we need to take responsibility for the way we run our communities, both online and face-to-face. Let’s talk about some of our problems.

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For much of my career I told myself I was a firefighter, fixing problems that nobody else could. I would get contract gigs as a developer, and web agencies would hire me to fix a content management system or finish a messy project.

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Content strategy isn’t a technique or a process or a seven-stage program that will solve your organization’s content problems. If it was that easy, we’d all be relaxing on our yachts right now (WiFi enabled, of course) instead of tearing our hair out.

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After two years of sold-out shows in Minneapolis, Confab: the Content Strategy Conference is coming to London on 25-27 March 2013 at the Mermaid. And I’m excited to announce that my company Together London is producing Confab in collaboration with our friends at Brain Traffic. Make sure you save the date: this is the international content strategy event that you won’t want to miss.

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Although the principles of content strategy are simple, it’s complicated to implement in practice, because in order to be effective you need to change the way the organisation operates. Why’s that so difficult? Well, talking about new working practices goes against our organisations’ conservative cultures, and it’s also outside our comfort zones as practitioners. So if we’re going to be successful, we need to starting thinking of ourselves as change agents as much as content strategists.

I’m super-excited to announce a full-day workshop on this topic on 21 September 2012 in London, featuring Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Kate Kenyon, and me, called Advocate, Adapt, Align: Using Content Strategy to Change Your Organisation:

The web has shifted business forever, and organisations are struggling to keep up. From learning how to listen to customers to adapting for mobile to collaborating across departments on a coherent digital presence, we’re faced with all kinds of new challenges. You’re a web professional who gets this, but your organisation (or your client) is still stuck, wasting time on inter-departmental squabbling or convincing a management team who’s terrified of change. If that sounds familiar, this workshop is for you.

I was delighted to write the official Confab 2012 Field Report for Contents Magazine:

So the true purpose of Confab, I think, is to connect with, learn from, and share with people who are ready to be honest about how difficult this stuff really is, and to work together toward a solution.

As part of a series of interviews with presenters at the upcoming Together London Masterclasses, May 3-4 2012, I interviewed Lisa Welchman about implementing web governance, enabling collaboration and cross-functional working in organisations, and developing your career as a web manager. If you like this interview, don’t miss Lisa’s masterclass on 4 May in London–tickets are still available.

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As part of a series of interviews with presenters at the upcoming Together London Masterclasses, May 3-4 2012, I interviewed Randall Snare and Laurence Veale from iQ Content in Dublin about mobile strategy, responsive design, and adaptive content. If you like this interview, don’t miss Randall and Laurence’s masterclass on 4 May in London–tickets are still available.

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