Contents

 Latest News (Content Strategy,Tech Comm,XML Press)

Content Strategy Insights Podcast with Sarah Johnson

“If a digital experience is a conversation with a user, how can you have that conversation if you don’t know what the words are?” — Sarah Johnson

Larry Swanson, host of the podcast Content Strategy Insights, recently interviewed Sarah Johnson, author of Content-first Design, which is coming soon from XML Press.

In the podcast, Sarah talks about the book, her experience working with major corporations on projects that use content-first design, and her consultancy, contentfirstdesign.com, which offers custom solutions and hands-on workshops dedicated to a content-first approach to design.

You can find this podcast at Content Strategy Insights or on your favorite podcast app.

Content Strategy Insights has also interviewed XML Press authors Scott Abel, Rahel Anne Bailie, Paula Land, Alan J. Porter, Ann Rockley, and Noz Urbina, as well as nearly everyone of note in the content strategy community.

 Latest News (Content Strategy,Tech Comm)

Content-First Design: Moving Content Forward

Cover of Content-First Design

Coming Soon!!

How often have you seen a proposed web design that looks nice, but is filled with dummy Lorem Ipsum text? You know it looks nice, but even if you know the purpose of the site, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to see how the site will work for its intended users.

Too many projects are designed like this, and too many of them fail to serve their purpose. People don’t come to a web site to look at a pretty web design; they come to solve a problem, buy a product, or complete a transaction.

Content-first design is a process by which research, exploration, and evaluation of content requirements and user needs inform the structure, layout, flow, and visuals for a digital product. It centers design on what end users need and how the site can fulfill that need.

Content-First Design: Moving Content Forward, by Sarah Johnson, gives you a practical approach to building a customer experience that aligns with the needs of both customers and internal stakeholders. It shows you how to set realistic, yet ambitious, goals and how to plan, prototype, test, and iterate in a content-first way.

Whether you’re a solo content designer supporting multiple products, a product manager trying to embed content thinking into your process, or part of a mature content team looking to scale your impact, this book offers clear, actionable guidance that will get you there.

 Latest News (Tech Comm,Webinar)

Why “Good Enough” Content Is No Longer Good Enough

Val Swisher, author of Global Content Strategy: A Primer and The Personalization Paradox, is giving a free webinar on Thursday, December 12, 2024, at 8:00AM PST.

The quality of your content is the most important factor in how well your artificial intelligence (AI) system performs. The phrase “Garbage in, garbage out” has never been more relevant. Many organizations have years—even decades—of content that may be outdated, inconsistent, inaccurate, or just not suitable for AI.

Val will dive into why curating content thoughtfully is essential for training AI effectively, highlighting the power of selecting and refining information to improve outcomes. She will also provide practical tips for evaluating, cleaning, and organizing content, ensuring it’s accurate, relevant, and diverse enough to support AI applications.

For more information, go to BrightTALK sign up page.

 Latest News (Content Strategy,The Content Wrangler Content Strategy Book Series,Webinar)

Content Personalization: 2024 and Beyond

Kevin Nichols, author of Enterprise Content Strategy: A Project Guide is giving a free webinar on Tuesday, December 10, 2024, 10AM PST on the impact of current trends in personalization, including the impact that artificial intelligence and other technologies are having.

This webinar provides an overview of:

* The developments in personalization during 2024 and their impact
* Insights into personalization advances and what to expect in 2025
* Analyst predictions

For more information, go to BrightTALK sign up page.

 Latest News (XML Press)

XProc 3.0 Built-in Steps

Erik Siegel, the author of XProc 3.0 Programmer Reference, has created a website that provides an extensive description of the XProc 3.0 steps. The site provides detailed descriptions, examples, and error codes for the steps. It is a work in progress that now covers about half of the steps, and it is being updated and added to regularly. You can find the site at: XProcRef website.

 Latest News (Content Strategy,The Content Wrangler Content Strategy Book Series,Webinar)

Using Artificial Intelligence for Content Analysis

On Wednesday August 14, at 10:00PDT, 1:00EDT, Paula Land and Elliott Risch of Enterprise Knowledge will join Scott Abel in a Bright Talk webinar exploring the power of artificial intelligence as a content analysis tool.

Many content strategists are leveraging AI in content creation, yet its potential to revolutionize content audits remains largely untapped. Content […]

 Latest News (Events,XML Press)

LavaCon 2024

Banner for the LavaCon conference.

LavaCon 2024 will be held October 27-30 in Portland, Oregon. This year, LavaCon features presentations by XML Press authors Scott Abel, Rahel Bailie, Kit Brown-Hoekstra, Alan Porter, Val Swisher, and Noz Urbina, as well as many other top names in content strategy, technical communication, and management.

This year, the theme is Content as a Business […]

 Latest News (Content Strategy,The Content Wrangler Content Strategy Book Series)

The Language of Content Strategy Website

The website for the book The Language of Content Strategy is now back online at https://thelanguageofcontentstrategy.com.

You can view all of the terms in the book and the biographies of contributors at this site, plus there are links to purchase the print or ebook edition.

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 Latest News (Content Strategy,The Content Wrangler Content Strategy Book Series,XML Press)

Intelligent Content: A Primer featured in Books that ROC!! on January 18, 2024

The Society for Technical Communication (STC) Rochester chapter is featuring Intelligent Content: A Primer, by Ann Rockley, Charles Cooper, and Scott Abel, in the latest edition of its discussion series about technical communications books.

This virtual event is Thursday, January 18 2024 at 6pm EST.

You can sign up for a free ticket at […]

 Latest News (Education,XML Press)

The Language of Learning Website

The Language of Learning website is up and running as of today. Every week for the next year, we bring you a new term related to education and learning.

You can also get the full book right now at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.org. You can also buy the ebook bundle (ePub, Kindle, […]