Speakers

Rahel Anne Bailie

Rahel Anne Bailie, founder of Vancouver, BC-based Intentional Design Inc., is a content strategist who brings to her work a diverse skill set that spans the fields of content development, content management, and user experience, to help organisations articulate their strategic content needs. Rahel understands the complexities of content structure and flow throughout its lifecycle, and between the various content types, and uses that to match business requirements to user need. She embraces technologies that serve to improve the performance of communication products and the processes to create and maintain them. She is a Fellow of the Society of Technical Communication, and holds memberships in related professional associations, such as Content Management Professionals, Usability Professionals' Association, and the Information Architecture Institutue to keep current in pertinent practice areas.

On the web: @rahelab (Twitter)

Deborah Bosley

As Principal in The Plain Language Group and professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Deborah S. Bosley, Ph.D, believes that good writing is good business and good citizenship. For twenty years, she has helped corporations, government agencies, and non-profits create documents that are easy to read and understand. She creates plain language documents, converts existing materials into plain language, and trains employees to write more effectively. Dr. Bosley has worked with Fortune 100/500 companies primarily in the financial and health sectors.

She has given hundreds of presentations in the U.S., Mexico, England, Spain, Ireland, Germany, and France and is the author of three books and two dozen articles on clear communication. Dr. Bosley has won four national awards for her articles, teaching, and plain language work for TIAA-CREF. She also was a panelist on Get Noticed: Writing Effective Financial Privacy Notices sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission. She serves on the boards of the Center for Plain Language in Washington, D.C., the Shareholder’s Communications’ Forum, and The Association for Professional Communications Consultants.

In 2009, she was interviewed for the U.S. media: Wall Street Journal This Weekend radio broadcast, Transaction World, Investment News, the Omaha Herald, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and the New Jersey Star Ledge to discuss plain language in business including the requirement for plain language in many financial disclosures (e.g., the new credit card bill).

On the web: @deborahbosley (Twitter)

Sarah Cancilla

Sarah Cancilla has spent the past decade developing communication frameworks for some of the most popular destinations on the Web. As Facebook Content Strategist, Sarah is dedicated to ensuring that the thousands of content pieces generated by the company enhance the billions of content pieces generated by users. She is also plotting ways to scale content development to keep pace with the evolving needs of 350 million active users. Before joining Facebook, Sarah was a Lead Content Strategist at eBay, where she designed content solutions for a variety of products and spearheaded the integration of customer support content into the product life cycle. Previously, Sarah was a Senior Editor at Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com). Sarah is a longtime resident of the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Haverford College.

On the web: @smarxcan (Twitter)

Sylvie Daumal

Sylvie Daumal is an Information Architect. She has been working at Duke Razorfish, in Paris, for the last two years. She is involved in European-scaled digital projects, taking care of the overall user experience according to a holistic approach and dealing with content strategy, user’s journeys, interaction as well as business issues, for clients like Levi’s, IOC, Nike or Sanofi-aventis.

Sylvie is helping to advance the UCD movement in France; she is part of the EuroIA Summit committee, and gives courses at Sorbonne (Celsa) and Sciences Po Paris. She is also a member of the Interaction Design Associations's Paris group, and an organiser of the UX Paris gatherings.

On the web: @lyoko4tw (Twitter)

Kristina Halvorson

Kristina Halvorson is the founder and president of Brain Traffic, a nationally-renowned agency specialising in content strategy and writing for websites. Widely recognised as one of America's leading content strategists, Kristina speaks regularly to audiences around the world about how to deliver useful, usable content online, where and when your customers need it most.

Kristina is the author of Content Strategy for the Web. The book helps to define the discipline and business value of content strategy, offering simple steps for introducing the discipline into the web project process. It also gives practical advice on staffing and resource allocation for web editorial roles and responsibilities.

When she’s not traveling the world making the case for better web content, Kristina can be found hanging out at the Brain Traffic offices in Minneapolis, or chasing after her two kids in St. Paul, Minnesota.

On the web: @halvorson (Twitter)

Joyce Hostyn

Joyce Hostyn is Director Customer Experience at Open Text, the largest independent provider of Enterprise Contentment Management software and solutions. Joyce holds a Master's in Communications and Cultural Studies and 20 years experience in the fields of design, communications, and content development.

Her current focus is on defining what it means to deliver a holistic, intelligent customer experience throughout the customer lifecycle.

She's an avid gardener and the bane of her neighbor whose mental model of yards centers on grass.

On the web: joycehostyn.com and @joyce_hostyn (Twitter)

Colleen Jones

Colleen Jones is the founder and principal of Content Science, a results-driven content strategy consultancy. She is a pioneer in the fields of content strategy and user experience, having guided strategic initiatives for large global brands such as The Home Depot, Phillips, and InterContinental Hotels Group.

Colleen has a wealth of experience. She holds past leadership positions at threebrick (which she co-founded, Spunlogic (now Engauge Digital), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Cingular Wireless (now AT&T).

Colleen holds a B.A. in English and technical writing and an M.A. in technical communication from James Madison University. She is currently Chair of CHI*Atlanta and a notable author on content strategy and user experience.

On the web: leenjones.com and @leenjones (Twitter)

Jonathan Kahn

Jonathan Kahn is a web developer, user experience designer, and strategist. His first professional web gig was in the bad old days of 1998, but since then he's become an advocate of web standards, user-centred design, and content strategy. He founded Together London, a collaborative, user-centred web design agency, in 2008.

Jonathan read Government and Economics at the London School of Economics, which he insists was an ideal grounding for a career in web design. He specialises in explaining the complex topics of code, standards, servers, and web browsers in non-technical language, enabling team members to make informed decisions without having to decipher the jargon.

Jonathan has built standards-based websites and content management systems for clients including Grosvenor, Royal Bank of Scotland, PwC, the UK Department for International Development, the Man Booker Prize, and Bold & Noble.

Jonathan writes about the business of making websites at his personal site, lucid plot. He has also written for the illustrious A List Apart magazine.

On the web: lucid plot and @lucidplot (Twitter)

Rachel Lovinger

As a Content Strategy Lead at Razorfish, Rachel is interested in connecting users with the quality content they want and need. She develops processes, best practices and innovative ideas for Fortune 500 companies looking to use digital content in more meaningful ways. She also started Razorfish’s Semantic Web Affinity Group.

Before Razorfish, Rachel worked in online publishing and web development at Time Inc. She defined and designed content categorization strategies and tools which are currently in use on sites such as EW.com and People.

Rachel wrote the foundational article Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data, and she has spoken on the topics of Metadata, Semantic Technology and Content Strategy at conferences in the US and Europe. Rachel is interested in relevance, findability, signification, and inherently funny words, and, like most Content Strategists, she was doing content strategy long before she realized it was an actual field.

On the web: rachellovinger.com and @rlovinger (Twitter)

Jeff MacIntyre

Jeffrey MacIntyre (@jeffmacintyre) is the principal of Predicate, a New York-based content and editorial strategy consultancy for digital publishers.

He is an expert in the intersection of content publishing, programming and product strategy online. A widely noted content strategist with 10 years' experience in both professional services and digital, print and broadcast media, Jeff has worked with premier media properties (at Conde Nast, Yahoo!, A&E, Reuters, and the Washington Post Company), design agencies (at Schematic, Razorfish, HUGE, and Blast Radius) and leading authorities in user experience design to create effective content strategies.

Jeff is a prolific speaker and commentator on content strategy through his linkblog (@PredicateLLC), the community knol and conferences internationally. He also writes on online content and technology for publications including the New York Times, Wired and Slate.

He lives with his wife, cat and a self-replenishing case of wine in Brooklyn.

On the web: @jeffmacintyre (Twitter)

Karen McGrane

Karen has been making the internet a better place since 1995. As a Senior Partner at Bond Art + Science, she provides user experience design, information architecture, and content strategy services to clients like Fast Company, The Atlantic, and Fiduciary Trust.

Prior to joining Bond, Karen went from being the first information architect hired at Razorfish to being the VP and National Lead for User Experience. Over the 10 years she spent there, she led projects for dozens of clients, including The New York Times, Condé Nast, Disney, and Citibank.

Karen is on the faculty of the new MFA in Interaction Design programme at SVA in New York, where she teaches Interaction Design History, focusing on the key movements and trends that have shaped the field.

She is also an active participant in the User Experience community and a frequent speaker at conferences, including SIGCHI, the ASIST Information Architecture Summit, and From Business to Buttons. She has also contributed to several Forrester reports on developing personas, and is a former editor of the AIGA publication Gain, focused on the intersection of design and business.

Karen received an M.S. in Technical Communication from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, focusing her research and studies on interface design and usability.

On the web: karenmcgrane.com and @karenmcgrane (Twitter)

Elizabeth McGuane

Elizabeth McGuane is a Senior Content Analyst at iQ Content. Elizabeth has been managing content development projects at iQ Content since 2007, working with clients like Hibernian Aviva, Vodafone, The Road Safety Authority and ESB (Electricity Supply Board). She has been instrumental in changing the way content projects are run at iQ Content, campaigning to make it an integrated part of the entire project phase and make the design process more content-informed.

She has led public and private training courses in writing for the web and writing to sell. Last year she co-created a new course with Randall Snare called ‘Usable Language’ that looks at the role of writing and content in all aspects of the design process. She co-manages our internal publications department, covering the blog, features and industry reports. She began her career in journalism, as an arts and business contributor for the Sunday Business Post, and freelancer for other national newspapers.

Outside the office, she is helping to organise the first Refresh Dublin event, an effort to promote integration across web design and interactive media industries. Born in Ireland and raised in Nova Scotia, Canada, Elizabeth studied English at University College Dublin and the University of Toronto. She also holds a Diploma in Journalism from the UK Press Association.

On the web: Mapped. and @emcguane (Twitter)

Clare O'Brien

Clare O’Brien, managing director of CDA (Content Delivery & Analysis), is a marketing and communications specialist who with her co-founder, Anne Caborn, has been developing the practice of digital communications and content strategy in the UK since 2004. CDA consults on a wide range of content strategy areas such as planning, editorial strategy, findability, resource, language, measurement and modeling, also providing workshop-centered training and skills development for internal teams and board-level briefing and steering sessions. CDA’s clients include: RBS, BP, P&G, CBI, Terrapinn, smartFOCUS, Goldshield, The BBC and CIPD.

Before establishing CDA, Clare was a leading PR practitioner, serving the print and publishing sectors before branching into the IT and eventually internet sectors. Former clients such as Linotype, DuPont and Adobe sustained her interest in technology and eventually led to handling the PR for the launch of AOL in the UK when there were less than 200K home modems installed. She then went on to head the European marketing operation for the BSA, the anti-piracy association of the global software industry. As a marketing and communications consultant, Clare worked for companies such as Macromedia, Mongrel Channels, Associated Newspapers and educational publisher, Nelson Thornes.

Clare’s principle aim is to ensure that content strategy is developed as a robust and defensible business discipline with independent budget responsibility and ultimately a seat on the board.

On the web: @clareob (Twitter)

Erin Scime

Erin Scime is a Brooklyn-based Senior Content Strategist currently working at HUGE. She arrived to the discipline through studies and work in curatorial studies and information science. She has created unique content business solutions for clients such as Ford Motor Company, NBC-iVillage, History.com, NutriSystem and Houselogic.com (National Association of Realtors).

Her approach to Content Strategy is founded on principles of good curatorship; with an end goal of creating smarter content experiences that have longevity and practical use. This process includes: thoughtful examination of current holdings, organization, effective messaging and structure to make content work long after its initial launch. Her writing can be found at http://www.dopeData.com.

On the web: dopeData and @erinscime (Twitter)

Randall Snare

Randall Snare is a Content Analyst at iQ Content. Randall joined iQ in 2008, coming from New York, where she worked for Condé Nast Online. She was the web producer for online versions of their magazines, including Glamour, Gourmet and Self. She also worked for the online version of the food magazine Every Day with Rachel Ray, and was a freelance food writer for The Onion. Her background spans beyond web and writing, to science. Her undergraduate biology collaborative thesis in neurological endocrinology was published in the journal of Behavioral Neuroscience in 2008.

At iQ, Randall runs content development projects for clients including NUI Galway, Engineers Ireland, and permanent tsb, which includes creating information architecture, writing and editing content and training clients in best practice web writing skills and web governance. She also co-manages our publications department, is the editor of the iQ blog, and is part of the team that is developing the new iqcontent.com.

She is originally from New Orleans, and loves traveling—a recent favourite was to Sri Lanka—and writing. She continues to freelance for Irish publications including The Dubliner, and also writes fiction--for which she has won several awards--and reads at literary and cultural events around Dublin.

On the web: Mapped. and @Randallsnare (Twitter)

Muriel Vandermeulen

Muriel Vandermeulen is owner of--and senior consultant and trainer at We Are the Words (WAW), a Brussels based agency specializing in digital content usability and editorial strategy. WAW has been developing the practice of digital information and communication in Belgium and France since 2002, with 3 main fields of action: information architecture, user experience and editorial strategy. Muriel consults on a wide range of editorial and content strategy issues, such as planning and optimizing content lifecycles; developing and customizing editorial tools; optimizing authoring and editing flows; performing editorial and usability benchmarks; and providing multilingual content, and editorial and usability charts.

Muriel has provided training, workshops, and presentations for major national and international institutions, ministries, charities, companies and non-profit organizations. WAW's clients include: Cefic, European Parliament, Eurocontrol, French Ministry of Education, Belgian Ministries of Justice/of Employment/of Interior, Belgian Privacy Commission, Groupe Le Monde, as well as for multinationals such as Meda-Pharma, Unilever, SCA Packaging, Dexia, Groupe Suez, and major training centers such as European institutions, Kluwer Belgium, IHECS (Brussels) and CFPJ (Paris).

Before concentrating on digital information, Muriel had been leading a copywriting and translation agency for nearly 10 years. Her clients were: Arthur D. Little International, Atlas Copco, AXA, Belgacom, Dexia, European Commission, European Training Foundation, ING, Pfizer, Unicef, ...

On the web: Ecrire pour le web and @wearethewords (Twitter)

Kenneth Yau

Kenneth Yau is a Content Strategist, providing content strategy and content management services through his own company, Baddit Ltd.

From 2007 to 2009, Kenneth led the content team at eBay UK. While in this role, he led the development and implementation of the eBay UK tone of voice guidelines, which were adopted across the EU. He also successfully extended the content team’s remit and influence so that it was consulted from design to delivery of site changes, as well as being consulted by marketing on customer communications.

Kenneth’s last role at eBay was as a senior member of the EU content team responsible for originating English source content suitable for translation for the eBay EU markets.

Kenneth’s career path has taken him from management consultancy, programme office management, project and programme management, knowledge base coordination, training management and delivery, photography, freelance writing, and finally to content. He has worked for companies including Price Waterhouse, Ernst & Young, and Nestlé, serving clients as varied as national government departments and factory floor managers. He is also a qualified management accountant (CIMA).

Kenneth’s greatest achievement is, and always will be, his daughter Amélie.

On the web: logorrhoea.net and @logorrhoea (Twitter)