Thoughts

Opinions, musings and provocations

Some things we think about the world of digital words and pictures. Always Contentious, occasionally contentious.

Content and pace layers

Different layers of an organisation move at different speeds, just as different parts of a society evolve slower or faster. Content is crucial at all of them.

How to be human

In an AI-infused world, organisations' content can feel more like a relentless stream than the basis for a mutually supportive relationship. There are many ways in which organisations can get off the automated content conveyor belt and become more human.

Content transformation, not digital transformation

Digital transformation has fundamentally changed many things. But content-led change could be the way to create more human, more effective purpose-driven organisations.

Taking a thematic approach

There are many ways to organise your bookshelves: alphabetical by author, by size, by the colour of the spine, by whether you want it to appear behind your head on a video call…

Longing for longer

The web is brimful of reports that nobody reads. With time and money, some of these could be turned into excellent long-form content that would reach and engage more people.

Create less crud

The flotsam and jetsam of abandoned microsites and neglected, out-of-date pages float in a flood of content that threatens users and organisations.

Advocates not parrots

When we facilitate intellectual and emotional engagement, we encourage action. Using content strategically moves us beyond clicktivism to something more substantial, and therefore more effective.

The depleted bookshop

A good bookshop is full of books that inform but also books that entertain, move, or frighten. They make you laugh, they make you cry, they make you see the world in a new light. This isn't the way most would describe the web.

The speeding up of slowing down

There's a whole world of content where efficient information transfer isn't the end goal. There's a world of content where understanding is important. Where contemplation and thoughtfulness are key.

Atomic content

Why content chunks are better than pages... Atomic design changed the way people thought about web design. Brad Frost and others made people see that designing smaller, reusable components made more sense than starting with whole-page layouts.