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Laura Porto Stockwell Laura Porto Stockwell has developed a strategy process that connects the dots between business goals, brand aspirations, market opportunities, and user needs. The intersection of those elements, she says, "Is where the magic happens." Laura applies her strategic approach to both top-level digital strategies and to content strategies for her clients as the CEO of Big Thinkers Society. We talked about: her transition from community journalism to digital agency work her pioneering content strategy work at early digital agencies like Ikonic, marchFIRST, and Razorfish her content-strategy process the relationship between content strategy and digital publishing the ongoing challenges of prying content out of clients the relationship between digital, branding, and content strategies her definitions of strategy and content strategy her interest in media ecology and digital literacy Laura's Bio Laura Porto Stockwell is the CEO and Founder of Big Thinkers Society, an agency that helps organizations embrace digital to connect with the world in new ways and helps professionals level up their strategic skills through flexible, online classes. Over the past 25 years, Laura has brought innovation and inspiration to clients including Ford, Microsoft, Nike, T-Mobile, Toyota, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And as an executive leader at agencies across the U.S. and Italy, she’s helped bring a culture of strategy to creative environments. Laura is a regular speaker at industry events as well as a frequent guest lecturer at the University of Washington. She holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an M.A. in Media Studies from The New School in New York City. Video Here's the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/jd0qj2Qf4kQ Show Notes/"Transcript" [Not an actual transcript - just my quick notes on first listen-through] 0:00 - my intro - journalism > digital strategy > content strategy 1:00 - Laura intro - content strategy near and dear to her heart - journalism degree - off to Prague - newspaper community reporting, translated nicely to digital, since there's so much community - first digital job report at Seattle Times - put whole newspaper online on bulletin board every day - next 10 years at agencies - Razorfish, marchFirst, etc. in LA, San Francisco, Milan, New York, and Seattle - started 4 years ago. 3:10 - content strategy in late 1990s 3:35 - story of marchFIRST - Ikonic proposal writing working with CD-ROM content strategy group - "fearless leader" there was Eric Johnson, a total content-strategy visionary - great group of folks - USWeb bought them, and then merged with CKS agency, then purchased/merged and became marchFIRST (still gets emails from colleagues there every March 1) - became a prominent global agency - she moved to LA and ran content strategy for southwest - 2000 or so web bust sank the company - 2004 Razorfish with Karen McGrane some of the pieces picked up there - 6:15 - what was content strategy then? 6:25 - when at Seattle Times, she founded ST WebWorks, launched web dev team to build sites for local advertisers - team was developer & designer, assumption was that client would provide content - OK for 1, 2, 3- page website, but realized need to understand content better - she can't find content-strategy explainer video: fake client at desk, cartoon-ey, put cocktail napkin notes online, culminates with UX, designer, and content person skipping through a park together - still an obstacle today, content never ready - had to figure out a strategy - developed a documented process (that she still has) for strategy (market and user needs), moving into structure (taxonomy, metadata, SEO, etc) > creation > maintenance - 2004 at Razorfish, as content strategist for a Fortune 10 company, did a content audit - found dated content, e.g. - so need processes in place to maintain content - that ...