As I type these words tonight, I’m sitting in front of the TV watching the State of the Union address. That’s one way of essentially saying I’m a bit distracted. So tonight, I’ll just tell you a brief story.
Back in 2002, after my disastrous first attempt at managing a team, I was looking for a new role. Coincidentally, a family friend had decided to run for office. Since I had just spent more than six years producing stories for a state-wide news agency (some of them award winning!), it was a good time to try out the other end of the press release tango. So, I volunteered to do some earned media work for the campaign during the primary. This mainly meant that I was in charge of returning the calls that the Communications Director didn’t want to return.
Slowly, but surely, though, I saw needs which were going unmet. Need a database of news radio station contacts? I can put one together. Need to create a template for recurring press events? I can put one together. Need to collect all of our standard answers to recurring policy questions? I can put one together. I didn’t know it then, but I was already learning how to be a content strategist.
As the days’ work melded into nights, I realized I was working more than I was sleeping. And I loved it. There’s something about the belief in a candidate that allows you to power past any idea of an eight-hour day. For a long time, I was pretty sure that was what was motivating me the entire time. But now, as I’ve gotten farther in what I can now call a career, I get to look back at the jobs I’ve held and the ones I’ve loved to see how and why they are different. And with more than two decades of perspective, I think the theme running through the ones I loved is what we’re now calling content strategy.
Finding the right thing to say, to the right people and at the right time, has been the only common thread in each of the jobs that I look back on fondly. And, even at Twitter, where during my initial interview I was asked to define content strategy for the hiring manager, being able to explain when, why, and how to inform people has always been a part of what I love about this work. I’ll tell you the same thing I told him:
“Content strategy is, essentially, big-picture thinking about every little detail.”
Overfloater
07 February 2023
Truth telling.
As I type these words tonight, I’m sitting in front of the TV watching the State of the Union address. That’s one way of essentially saying I’m a bit distracted. So tonight, I’ll just tell you a brief story.
Back in 2002, after my disastrous first attempt at managing a team, I was looking for a new role. Coincidentally, a family friend had decided to run for office. Since I had just spent more than six years producing stories for a state-wide news agency (some of them award winning!), it was a good time to try out the other end of the press release tango. So, I volunteered to do some earned media work for the campaign during the primary. This mainly meant that I was in charge of returning the calls that the Communications Director didn’t want to return.
Slowly, but surely, though, I saw needs which were going unmet. Need a database of news radio station contacts? I can put one together. Need to create a template for recurring press events? I can put one together. Need to collect all of our standard answers to recurring policy questions? I can put one together. I didn’t know it then, but I was already learning how to be a content strategist.
As the days’ work melded into nights, I realized I was working more than I was sleeping. And I loved it. There’s something about the belief in a candidate that allows you to power past any idea of an eight-hour day. For a long time, I was pretty sure that was what was motivating me the entire time. But now, as I’ve gotten farther in what I can now call a career, I get to look back at the jobs I’ve held and the ones I’ve loved to see how and why they are different. And with more than two decades of perspective, I think the theme running through the ones I loved is what we’re now calling content strategy.
Finding the right thing to say, to the right people and at the right time, has been the only common thread in each of the jobs that I look back on fondly. And, even at Twitter, where during my initial interview I was asked to define content strategy for the hiring manager, being able to explain when, why, and how to inform people has always been a part of what I love about this work. I’ll tell you the same thing I told him:
“Content strategy is, essentially, big-picture thinking about every little detail.”
And I can’t wait to do it all over again.
See you tomorrow?