Content Strategy Lightning Talks

On Tuesday May 29 our popular lightning talks event returns, where each speaker gets 5 minutes and 20 slides (15 seconds per slide) to share their unique perspectives on content strategy in a blur of energy, passion and intensity. The buzz is incredible—don’t miss it!

Meet the Speakers

Check out our 10 amazing lightning talk presenters.

Gabriella Alexander (http://twitter.com/BagRiella): Will our grand-children think for themselves?

The web is:

a shared brain, clever as the cleverest and getting cleverer by the hour; a shared heart carrying the worst and best and beating louder by the minute; and the web gives us what we want before we want it, no need to wait a second. Gabriella will explore the opportunities of the semantic web, the pros and cons of increased social networking, and the effects of increasingly sophisticated algorithms and filters.

Mike Atherton (http://twitter.com/mikeatherton): Domain and Content Modelling at the BBC

Mike will explain how the BBC uses domain-driven design to create richly-linked content-centric products. Focusing on the Wildlife Finder (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildlife) product, Mike’s approach blends information architecture and content strategy without being too scary. It’s a whirlwind ride, with useful lessons to take away and lots of opportunity for further reading.

Liu Batchelor (http://twitter.com/liubatchelor): Using Stop-Motion Animation

How can we engage our customers with digital content for longer than the average 6 seconds they spend deciding whether to stay? How can we communicate everything we do and think without lengthy text—especially if what we provide is untangible? Stop Motion Animation is a great way to inspire customers quickly and easily, and it’s less expensive than you might think.

Charles Bodsworth (http://twitter.com/charliebods): From PR to Publishing

Organisations have understood the value of Public Relations (PR) for a while, but unfortunately their instinct now is to translate PR to the web—which doesn’t make for good content strategy. Instead organisations need to unlearn PR and learn publishing. Charles will illustrate using a real life example: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Charlie Errington (http://twitter.com/gotellcontent): Tuning into analogue thinking

With the power of all things digital, we’re repressing analogue thinking. The richly chaotic is losing out to the meanly precise. But our bodies are a messy mass of chemicals: we don’t think in numbers, we feel-think—we analogue think.

Kate Kenyon (http://twitter.com/kate_kenyon): Escape the Content Bubble—Get Your Content Strategy Adopted by Learning from Other Disciplines

As content strategy people, we need to learn about sales, metrics, figures, change management, PR, and marketing, if we’re going to get our content strategy adopted by our companies and our clients. Which means stepping out of our comfort zones, and having the courage to learn about other disciplines. Kate will show us how, by sharing her recent experiences doing exactly that.

Jo Kerr (http://twitter.com/gambollingsylph): Content Strategy for Charities

How does content strategy work in charities? What might work differently to corporate projects, and which principles stay the same? Jo will explore five key points through the practical case study of Action on Hearing Loss’s Loud Music campaign (http://www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/loud-music.aspx).

Jon Marks (http://twitter.com/McBoof): Using Native Apps, HTML5 and Structured Content for Love and Money

Native apps create a unique experience that users love, engage with, and part with their hard earned cash to buy. HTML5 is a technology that allows your structured content to sing. Mix the two together and make magic (and money).

Sarah Richards (http://twitter.com/escmum): How to Convince People that Content Strategy is Worth the Effort

We’re delighted to welcome back Sarah (Content Designer at gov.uk (https://www.gov.uk/)) after her fantastic featured talk at our last meetup (http://www.meetup.com/content-strategy-london/events/55336962/). Tonight she’ll share her four-step plan to success:

Pre-one: find their pain points.

Sales—to a degree. Education—if they will learn. KPIs. Find a senior champion. Patience: if you keep going and they don’t listen to you after a year—they don’t deserve you.

Hanna Sanford (http://twitter.com/bananasanford): Selling to Win

Hanna will discuss how to gain internal and external credibility, and explain why it’s important not to doubt yourself when others challenge your initiative. She’ll illustrate with a story about a woman who worked hard to win over a large corporate prospect, but failed to stick up for the initiative when challenged by her CEO internally. By sharing this case study, Hanna hopes to inspire others not to not give in when people have doubts about content strategy—or anything else of similar importance—but to have faith, keep going, and reassure your colleagues, whether they’re internal or external, with the facts and figures that explain why it will work.

Our venue: The Book Club

We’re delighted to be back at The Book Club (http://www.wearetbc.com/) in Shoreditch, which manages to be beautiful, hip, intimate, and friendly, all at the same time.

Schedule

6pm: Arrive, grab yourself a drink. 6:30pm: Lighting talks start (first half). 7:10pm: Break (grab another drink.) 7:30pm: Lightning talks start (second half.) 8:20pm: Lightning talks end. 8:30pm - 10pm: Drinks and informal networking. Stick around to meet the speakers and chat to your fellow content strategy advocates.