Making website content easier for your library patrons to access

[00:01:11] Adam Kurzawa:

Sure. I’m glad to be on. I’m happy you asked me to be a part of this show. I think you’re doing great work on the podcast and with your company as well. I’ve been with ExpandTheRoom for the last nine years. Great digital creative shop here in New York, and have seen all types of clients with very interesting design challenges and problems, and really get a kick out of coming in, and learning about new businesses, and helping them improve their digital products.

[00:01:44] Adam Kurzawa:

I worked for the better part of a decade in music. I was with a brand marketing and music company called Giant Step, here in New York, that’s going into their 29th year, actually. That company focused on events, marketing, management. We also did a lot of marketing for major label and small artists, and then got into eventually doing brand activation with Levi’s, and Steve Madden, and a bunch of other large brands. I was really leading marketing on the music side of the house, which was great, because I’m a massive music fan, and I got to really work directly with one of my passions, and learn about extending my skills at communicating with people, which has served me well in a business development capacity in the digital world.

[00:02:49] Adam Kurzawa:

I think that’s accurate. The bigger piece of that as well is that, music had a lot to gain or lose because of that rapid change. Whereas, the changes in digital are ever present and always happening, but they’re happening sometimes on a scale where it’s not necessarily disrupting businesses, or at least it wasn’t before. Now, you’ve got The Ubers of the world changing transportation, and all of that, but with music, there was a definite land-sea change, where people went from physically going to a store and buying a product to then pivoting over and just streaming everything, or thinking they were getting everything for free illegally off the Internet. A massive change in consumer behavior, and not something I think the music industry fully recovered from, but they’ve certainly changed to adapt to.

[00:03:55] Adam Kurzawa:

It’s funny. I think you and I were talking about this once before. I was at a creative week event, and Nick Law, who’s at RGA, which is a massive, massive company in our space, was giving a talk. He was talking about how those changes happened, and people missed the plot a little bit about why the change happened. He used two examples that I think are really, really poignant. One was Apple. You had people that, for decades of their life, bought cassettes, vinyl, CDs. It was even, I guess Napster was the big change, where it started to become free. What Apple realized with the iPod, and with streaming and downloading MP3 files was that, they weren’t in the business of selling an artifact, like the record and the packaging, all that. They were selling a great experience of listening to music. Amazon is probably the other one that’s just a massive example that he mentioned. You had, we can remember all those stores that used to be on every corner. You had a Borders, or you had a Barnes and Noble, and they were selling physical books, but Amazon was thinking about selling the experience of reading. If I want you to be able to read something conveniently, why not have a Kindle? You can get the book, and by the way, I can get it to you overnight, and you don’t have to come back to the store because it’s out of stock. Those things are, to some of your listeners here that are in the library space, I would challenge them to think about looking at not being in the business of renting books, but building up that experience of learning, and doing it in a community setting, because I think that still has a lot of value, and to me has always been a really powerful thing about the library space that needs to be carried on for future generations. If they can capture that digitally, then great.

[00:07:05] Adam Kurzawa:

Yeah, sure. Thank you. That period of time, where we were working with, no pun intended, Time, was a lot of fun. We wound up leveraging that first project, with Travel+Leisure, and building out a more robust design system that could be used across multiple publications, that it included Food & Wine, and Cooking Light Light, and Essence, and several others. They’ve since, obviously, been purchased by Meredith, so where that work lives in the digital ecosystem is anyone’s guess. What we really like to do, and this isn’t just a publishing related thing, it’s really any client we have that has content. Whether it’s a sexy publication like a Food & Wine or a business that’s dealing with home healthcare, like Visit Nurse Service of New York. Two opposite sides of the spectrum. Those principles of content strategy are identical. We come in during our discovery periods with clients, which is really our first touch point, and one of the things we do is a really deep dive into their content. We do a content inventory. This is things like taking a look, both through their CMS and the front end of their website, where they’re actually publishing the content, and users can see that content. Scraping analytics, and looking at, we’ll sometimes have a client say, “This type of content is what everyone comes to our site for, and the data will tell us a completely different story. That’s a really interesting trust point with the client, because we can have two conversations about that. They’re either completely right, and that content is actually really valuable, and they’re just burying it in a place that’s not correct on their website, or they’re not tagging it currently from a technology perspective, to come up in search and be surfaced. Or, they might actually be wrong from an editorial standpoint, and that’s what some of these exercises really help us to contextualize, that problem, for them. What we’re doing there is, we’re looking at how much content is there, the format of it. Where does it live? Who’s responsible for creating it and the upkeep of it? How does it get published? What does that governance and workflow process like? To really help them see what we’re seeing, we’ll do a competitive analysis, and look at not just their direct competitors, but others that are disruptors in their space, that are doing a sliver of what they do, but really excelling at it, or using technology in an interesting way. The content audit that we do, we’ve got some very strict guidelines when we’re looking at, does a piece of content meet a user need? Does it meet a business need? Is the tone and voice of this content even on brand for your brand identity, or is it in this otherworldly voice that makes no sense and is out of context. Is it current and accurate information, that’s informative and engaging? From there, we’re then looking at a gap analysis, where we’re also looking at taking that competitive analysis. Are there things that they’re missing out on? Really, just missed opportunities, and really what this sums up is a four-piece look at content. One is, what do you have that we think, as an organization, you should really keep and elevate? What are the pieces that you should maybe rewrite and keep? What are those pieces that you should really just scrap, because they’re not right from a brand standpoint, from a tone, from a content standpoint? They’re not driving any traffic, those three. Then, the last one is the gap. What are your competitors writing about that you’re not looking at? Is there an opportunity that no one else in your field has yet tackled appropriately in the context of what you do, and how can you own that, and really drive that? We’ve talked before. The challenge we’re having, and our team as early or as recently as yesterday was talking about this, is the clients that really go for this rigorous process with us, they leave with a lot of great information and tools to then revitalize and rejigger their content, to be more positive to what they need the results to be. Anyone that’s either on a workout regimen or going to a personal trainer, if you don’t have that coach around to help you implement, sometimes we see that part, that handoff die off, so we’re now looking at, what does that next phase of the engagement look like? You certainly don’t want us writing your content for you. We could certainly do that, get a copywriter, that kind of thing, but you know your business best. How do we keep you on task and accountable to those principles that we laid out, and then re-evaluate and look at the analytics to see that you’re doing that job? When you get people to realize how important content strategy is to the success of their site, no one’s coming to your website, because it looks sexy, or it’s got some hot new feature. They’re coming to engage and learn, and get something useful out of it, and then if you can hook them with that content, they’ll continue to come back. That’s where the value is, and that’s all content.

[00:12:14] Adam Kurzawa:

Absolutely.

[00:14:23] Adam Kurzawa:

We’re highly collaborative, and whether we’re on a Zoom video conference, or we’re sitting there with a client in person, we like to pride ourselves on having really difficult discussions on projects as early as possible. Not in a confrontational way, but in a way that we want to make your business, or your website, or your content, whatever your objectives are, we want to make that better, and add value. We’re just really upfront about it. Our team, we’ve got a couple people on our experience team that really take the reins on the content strategy side of the engagement. We’re able to display things, in not just a keynote or PowerPoint deck, where we’re walking through what the objectives are, but having supporting documentation that we provide in larger spreadsheets that breaks out all of your historical content, and almost like a rating system for how we would judge the validity of whether this is important content or something we need to address in a different way. We’ll just break that out in chunks. We’ll have a meeting, like, “This is table stakes. This is all good stuff. We’re going to do more of this, this top tier one content.” Then, we’ll look at tier two, and the things we think maybe should be rewritten. It’s that third one that usually gets to be a little prickly, where you’re telling a business, or an editor, or a stakeholder that these 5 to 10 pieces of content that they’re really passionate about just might be missing the mark. We love those discussions. Let’s talk about why. Are you seeing something on a competitor’s site, where they’re writing about this stuff, and you’ve come back to read it? Help them make the case to us about why we should look at it in a different light. A lot of times, they’ll just, the data is overwhelming. We also have the advantage of having been an agency for 15 years, and being through a lot of these discussions that we’re usually able to explain to someone about why, let’s not get attached to this stuff. Let’s focus on the good, and what we can improve, and not waste your energy on these negative pieces here that aren’t going to impact your business.

[00:16:52] Adam Kurzawa:

There’s a few. The one that jumps out to me, that we use very early on. For example, if we’re coming in to do a redesign project today, one of the things we’ll ask a client, is say, “Hey, you know, you’ve got your current site up now.” As we’re doing our scrape of your site, just to audit what you’ve got, we use a tool called TreeJack, which can be implemented into surveys on an existing site. That allows us to look at the site architecture, where people are clicking, where are they going. Put almost fictitious trees, like I think we were working with a large animal organization that allowed for adoption, and the idea was, if you wanted to adopt a pet in your region, how would you get there? Starting to see how people would navigate through the site is really illuminating, and can let you know where there’s blockers or maybe missteps in the site’s information architecture. We’ll take that data along with the audit that we do, where we’re looking at all of the content, plus tools that everyone is aware of like Google Analytics, etc., to really inform those initial audit outcomes and recommendations going forward.

[00:18:17] Adam Kurzawa:

What’s fun about it is, once we’re in, whether it’s wireframing or we’re doing some light design very early on. You then have the ability to go back and share some of those things, almost in a prototype phase, and AV test some solutions, and really validate. Part of our purpose-driven design philosophy at ExpandTheRoom is that anyone’s opinion is just an unverified fact. It’s just a hunch, and we want to verify it as soon as possible, and make sure that what we’re putting forward as a solution actually has something to support it, and there’s meat to it.

[00:19:21] Adam Kurzawa:

I’m sure if we do that with TreeJack, and I know that there’s other tools that our team uses for that. I’m sadly the wrong person to know exactly what those are, but yeah. That gets into when we are working with their team, with a copywriter, and refining that brand positioning statement, or new pieces of content that they want to test out, I know that there are services that we’ve used before to test that content out.

[00:20:10] Adam Kurzawa:

That’s a great question, and it’s, look. I’d be lying if I said it’s not something I think most agencies struggle with. Especially if you’re working in a particular instance, and it’s project-based, where the launch of the site is the quote-unquote “end” of the project. The easy part is the content that we suggest that they keep. Doing that migration, that’s step one. Getting all that over, so they’re ready for launch. It’s the writing of the new content. That’s the tougher part. We certainly like to work in recurring or retainer situations, where we’re continuing to maintain their site, or evolve it, or work on other small projects with them. We find those touch points, we like to install, whether it’s biweekly or monthly, milestone check-ins, where we can just have really frank conversations about how it’s going with them. Sometimes, it’s also having worked in this industry as well, personnel can change. We’re also really cognizant of anything we deliver, we try to deliver it in a way that a new employee could come in, and be given that role, and be able to work with those materials. We think that’s really key, that handoff and that transition. It’s not just about, “Hey, yeah. You’ve been here for 10 years. I know you know everything. Here’s the three things you need to focus on.” We want to present it in a way, and oftentimes we’ve actually videotaped us presenting the work, so that they have that artifact for when new people come in and find that to be valuable. Those check-ins are where we really try and do that, and it’s a case-by-case basis. We have a client now in the nonprofit space that, we’ve delivered the site design. It’s ready to be launched. They’ve migrated the content over, and because their current site is functional, and it’s okay, it’s not broken, and they need to replace it tomorrow, they’re actually self-indicating that they’re going to take three months and build out their new content, and launch later in Q2, early Q3. That’s the best ever, right? They’ve heard the recommendations, they trust the recommendations. They know that it’s going to take a lot of work, and they’re going to dedicate their own time to do it. Those checkpoints, on a monthly basis, have been really great, because it’s, “How are you doing?” You’ve got 200 articles left to write. You’ve done 50, great. Now, we’re at 150. Is there anything we can help answer? Do you want us to just take a quick look at anything, and make sure it matches the strategy?

[00:23:23] Adam Kurzawa:

We have done that with one or two clients that we’ve had very long, meaning three to five year relationships with. Usually, year one, year two, if they’re abiding by the strategy, they’re either seeing consistent or, the curve is going up in their results insofar as traffic and happiness by the client. Or, they’re hitting a road bump, and they ask us to come back in and re-evaluate. We’ve had one or two, where we have gone back and done almost a re-audit of everything. There’s always room to improve, right? Not just technology and thoughts about design and content are changing, but their business is sometimes being challenged by external factors. Competition in the marketplace, maybe people’s desire, or want, or need for a particular product isn’t as high as it was when we started the project. Those things all have an effect on it. I think we should be doing it with every single client. Obviously, sometimes that comes down to if the team that was there when we started the work is still there, or sometimes someone will bring in a different shop when they bring in new employees. That’s the old, musical chairs, with a CMO. A chief marketing officer from a company comes in, and brings in a new team, and we’ve benefitted from that, and we’ve lost from that. That’s just the nature of business. The short of it is, though, as a business development practitioner, I take the client services part of that very seriously, and as an organization, we look to build partnerships not projects. Really, people, relationships with people over clients, and many clients we’ve had have become friends of myself and other staff members, and we’re just always looking out for the best interests of them, and how can they succeed, which will ultimately make their business succeed.

[00:25:32] Adam Kurzawa:

I think it goes back to some of the things that we proactively help our clients with very early on in that content inventory phase. It’s hard. Especially if you’ve been at, let’s say, you’re at a library, and you’ve been there 5-10 years. It’s hard to take an outsider’s view to your own content. What I would challenge people to do is just think about, forget your site altogether. If you were going to take a piece of paper out, and say, “All right. I want someone to come to my library website.” What are the three things that you want them to know about and act on? Start to just get those down on paper. Then, pull up the site, and just challenge yourself to look at the content you have, and see if it starts to meet those criteria. It’s probably a very early indicator as to whether you’ve just got a homepage that is full of legacy, old, outdated content, or maybe you’re doing a good job on two of those, and the third one is the place you really need to focus some energy on. This stuff is really hard, detailed work. I often think content strategy is the unsung hero of the digital industry. It takes persistence and a lot of hard work to really surface, what are the things that are going to have meaningful change and impact? I would challenge people to take a look at it, and maybe even ask friends and family that maybe haven’t even been on your site. You’d be surprised. You may work somewhere, and your spouse or your best friend may have never seen the site, but they’ve walked into your library. Have them go to and say, “Hey, like, if I told you that I wanted this to really focus on these three things,” how do you think we’re doing? Are we making the mark? You’ll probably get some really interesting findings from that, that could lead you down a path to remedying your content strategy.

[00:27:27] Adam Kurzawa:

Right on.

[00:27:28] Adam Kurzawa:

Let’s do it.

[00:27:36] Adam Kurzawa:

I just finished White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, which is transforamtive and blew my mind, and I’m sticking with the blowing my mind phase. I want to read How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. Which, I’ve been told is really just a great look at new science on how psychedlics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, changing mindset, all of that, and habits. I’m going to try and get into that one next.

[00:28:07] Adam Kurzawa:

I will.

[00:28:11] Adam Kurzawa:

Print. I know, it’s heresy, being in the industry I’m in. For me, finding out about content is always digital first, whether it’s Twitter, or I’ll see an article come through a feed somewhere. That’s where I get the initial exposure. If I’m going to sit down, and really get into deep, investigative journalism, reporting articles, I always would prefer to read a book or a newspaper, a physical thing. Maybe I’m just getting old, and my eyes are going, but I sit on a screen all day. When I want to focus on reading, and enjoy that experience, I’d like to have something printed.

[00:29:06] Adam Kurzawa:

I would say two things on this. One, I’m really fortunate that I have colleagues at my company that are really at the peak of what they do, both in development, and in design, and user experience. I selfishly follow all of our internal department design, department dev channels, and they’re always posting articles there. I’ll go back and read those articles, but one of the things that I did a couple years ago, when I first got into this industry, was there were so many great designers, and just artists that were sharing information on Twitter, and I just made multiple lists that I will use, and just refresh. Maybe I’ll go in every day, or maybe once a week, and just see what they’re talking about, and then go in and read those deeper articles. For me, it’s just been identifying who are those people in the industry that are really at the forefront, and just piggybacking off that knowledge.

[00:30:03] Adam Kurzawa:

My favorite thing about the library, and I don’t know if I would qualify it as a service, but it is part of their service offering, is always when my kids are kindergarten, little younger, getting them to the library, and getting their first card. That experience is, to me, it’s like a teenager getting their first driver’s license. It’s so exciting. Oh, I have responsibility now! I have this validation to take a book home, and I’m responsible for bringing it back at a certain time. I think that experience is really great.

[00:30:47] Adam Kurzawa:

Sure. They could certainly write through our contact form on expandtheroom.com, but on a personal level, I’m definitely pretty active on Twitter, which is @kurzawapower, K-U-R-A-W-A-P-O-W-E-R, which is just my last name and power. That’s probably the easiest way to get ahold of me.

[00:31:32] Adam Kurzawa:

Thanks, Tyler. Thanks for having me on. I think the show’s great. I’ve been listening to the past episodes. I think you’re doing a great job. Keep it up.