Content thinkers assemble!
Anyone who spends more than five minutes with me knows that I’m a great lover of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. At the heart of the first twenty-three films (referred to by geeks like me as the Infinity Saga) is the tension between Tony Stark’s Iron Man and Steve Rogers’ Captain America.
Stark begins the franchise selfish and arrogant (“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist”) and eventually learns to be self-sacrificing. Rogers, on the other hand, is always fighting for what’s right, putting the needs of others first (“I'm sorry, Tony. If I see a situation pointed south, I can't ignore it. Sometimes I wish I could.”). In the end, he learns that the world is not so black and white and that to be successful, he needs to put his view of what’s right into a broader context and also maybe care for himself.
As the saga evolves toward the final, record-breaking, awe-inspiring conclusion, every theme of the franchise—power, responsibility, morality, identity, and more—is framed against this tension. Ultimately, the Avengers’ success against Thanos hinges on the growth and synchronicity of these two very different heroes (“Do you trust me?” “I do.”)
As I think and write about content, I find myself in the midst of a very similar tension. I started my career in publishing, where content was literally the product. But when I entered the tech space, I came in through the marketing world, a world often blamed for being too brand-centric, loose with the truth, self-aggrandizing, and so on. So I immediately gravitated to content marketing, leaning on visionaries like Joe Pulizzi, Ann Handley, Jay Baer, and Jay Acunzo.
I loved the audience-centricity of the content marketing world, the way it took traditional marketing and turned it on its head. In many ways, it seemed the perfect answer to the customer experience revolution that was picking up speed.
But as my career evolved, I grew frustrated that content marketing was becoming more about creating content for content’s sake. Obviously, there are great examples of content marketing out there (and some great content), but increasingly, the conversations I follow are about trying to artificially create value for customers by making content nobody asked for instead of using content to communicate the value of the brand in the most effective way.
Around this time, I started working heavily on Adobe.com and was exposed heavily to the discipline of user experience design (UX). It excited me and I started learning about it in earnest. This led me to the product design world and then to UX content strategy and content design. I started immersing myself in the works of Sarah Richards, Kristina Halvorson, Rachel McConnell, Jared Spool, and others.
Here were people dedicated to the experience. With testing and ruthless discipline, they created content that helped users, that gave them what they wanted. They let people discover the value of their product through elegant interactions. But as much as I love this approach and am actively developing it on my team, I often find the UX and content design view of the world to be frustratingly rigid and narrow.
Traditional products and services are no longer the only means through which customers find value. Nor are they only sources to which customers look. A customer’s experience—which more and more is the true product of today’s brand—starts at the first exposure and grows with every interaction, whether it’s a marketing touch, a customer service call, or a product feature.
One of the things that makes the storytelling in the Marvel Cinematic Universe so effective is the crossover. Iron Man has his story. Captain America has his. But what makes them special is the tension, excitement, and work that’s done when they come together. Neither character would so strongly inhabit our cultural zeitgeist had they not reacted to and learned from each other. They question each other, challenge each other, fight together, and as a result, they create an unparalleled movie-going experience.
As I read, listen, and watch about content, whether in marketing or design, I am struck by two things.
Content marketing and content design are more similar than they are different. We all face ultimately the same challenges, often find the same solutions, and benefit from the same learnings.
Content creators in marketing are by and large ignorant of content designers and vice versa. And when they are aware, they more often than not dismiss the other discipline with a “oh that’s totally different.” It is not (see point 1).
We have to stop defining ourselves by the department we work in. We are all content creators, content strategists, content advocates, content thinkers. (We need a more unifying term, a unifying discipline separate from marketing and design. “Contenter” doesn’t seem to work. I spend probably way too much time considering alternatives.) And it goes way beyond marketing and design. Every department needs content. Every department needs content thinkers. (I could probably map every kind of content creator to a different Avenger, but I will refrain.)
I love Rachel McConnell’s Why You Need a Content Team and How to Build One. She paints a beautiful picture of what content maturity looks like, but she’d be the first to admit that very few companies have achieved it. That maturity has to start with us.
It doesn’t matter where we sit. We need to see ourselves as one content team. We need to gather in our companies, at events, online—all of us—and challenge each other, learn from each other, and fight together (metaphorically, of course).
The importance of this cannot be overstated. It is an urgency I feel every day. It is widely acknowledged that customer experience is the future of success, and content is the one thing that unites every element of that experience. Article upon article has been written about the challenges of customer experience, about the design-led movement, about digital transformation. But the real key to customer experience is content. And we can only win together, united.
So consider this a call to action. I don’t presume to be Captain America (I’m really more of a Hulk), but it needs to be said:
Content thinkers, assemble!