Transforming content team structure: From channel-centric to centralized expertise
The content strategy team at Monterey Bay Aquarium was burned out. The team was organized by individual channel (web, email, social), with limited connection into each other’s work. Brand voice and tone were inconsistent. Users risked reaching dead ends within any given platform. And because staff members were stuck in channel-based roles, they had no real path for career advancement.
Liz knew something big needed to change. After talking with peers at other organizations, she worked closely with HR to rewrite everyone’s job description, leaving behind channel silos and focusing on skillsets and expertise. In this session, she’ll walk you through her process, the changes she made, and how things are going now.
You’ll learn:
- How to weigh the pros and cons of different ways to structure your team
- Practical approaches for breaking down silos and redistributing workloads
- Change management approaches for creating a team culture of shared responsibility, collaboration, and mentoring
More 2024 sessions
Transforming content team structure: From channel-centric to centralized expertise
The content strategy team at Monterey Bay Aquarium was burned out. The team was organized by individual channel (web, email, social), with limited connection into each other’s work. Brand voice and tone were inconsistent. Users risked reaching dead ends within any given platform. And because staff members were stuck in channel-based roles, they had no real path for career advancement.
Liz knew something big needed to change. After talking with peers at other organizations, she worked closely with HR to rewrite everyone’s job description, leaving behind channel silos and focusing on skillsets and expertise. In this session, she’ll walk you through her process, the changes she made, and how things are going now.
You’ll learn:
- How to weigh the pros and cons of different ways to structure your team
- Practical approaches for breaking down silos and redistributing workloads
- Change management approaches for creating a team culture of shared responsibility, collaboration, and mentoring
We can’t be everywhere: How to introduce AI to your content design workflow
As content designers, we spend so much time answering the same style guide questions or handling microcopy asks. All of this takes away from meaningful high-level strategy work. AI tools can help you become more systems-focused so you can reduce content inconsistencies and maintain a cohesive voice, allowing you and your team to work more effectively.
But … with all the hype surrounding AI writing tools right now, it can be hard to know how to get started using them for your work. By taking a few steps up front (before diving in to experimentation), you can ensure your time is well-spent and feel confident about your decisions.
In this session, you’ll learn:
- How to define content design use cases for AI
- How to train your AI writing tool
- Challenges to look out for
Evaluating AI: Choosing the best tools for your content team
We’ve all been told that generative AI tools have the potential to improve our content and enhance productivity. What now? How do we sort through the hype around dozens of tools and make smart choices about which ones are most helpful to our team?
Gavin will share his team’s method for tool evaluation, as well as ways in which to present findings to leadership and across diverse teams. You’ll walk away with practical templates for evaluating and selecting the right AI tools for your unique needs.
In this session, you’ll learn:
- How to build a list of which AI tools to evaluate
- How to communicate specific outcomes from evaluating several AI tools
- Communication strategies to align AI skeptics and believers
