Episode 95 of The Informed Life podcast features a conversation with Natalie Marie Dunbar. Natalie is a senior manager of content design at Walmart and the author of From Solo to Scaled: Building a Sustainable Content Strategy Practice. We discussed content strategy, how it might differ from information architecture, and how to stand up a content strategy practice.
The latter is the subject of her book. But as I mentioned during the interview, the underlying principles apply to more than just content strategy: Natalie proposes using content strategy tools and practices to help individual contributors scale the practice — i.e., using design tools to design the thing that designs the thing:
even if you are not necessarily looking to build a full-on content strategy practice, maybe as you’re building your UX team, thinking, “what are some of the cross-functional disciplines that I need to build this team?” and you happen to find my book, you’ll find that there are steps there that are relatable across functions, I think.
Using the practice to scale the practice also helps practitioners engage with colleagues in the org:
if I use tools and terminology that my cross-functional teammates understand, that is a way that I’ve seen that you can bridge that gap of understanding where there may be some friction about bringing on a content strategist.
If your organization is looking to scale its UX practice, this conversation is especially worth your attention. And of course, check out Natalie’s book — even if your focus isn’t content strategy.
Disclosure: I was provided a copy of Natalie’s book for free as a previous Rosenfeld Media/Two Waves Author.
The Informed Life episode 95: Natalie Marie Dunbar on Scaling Content Strategy