In this digital age, proper content curation, organization, and creation are critical to consumers' experiences with your product. But, who can best advocate for users in these content processes? Increasingly, we are finding that the role is best suited to the skills of a Content Strategist This presentation was part of a panel discussion arguing whether Information Architects will be replaced by the growing field of Content Strategy or whether Information Architects need to learn how to work with Content Strategists.

1. Information Architecture
& Content Strategy
Partners In Crime
My promise to you: I have only two slides with bulleted lists.

2. •
76% of marketers share curated content on social
media; the single biggest platform for distributing
curated content.
•
73 different universities in the US and Canada now
offer Human Computer Interaction Degree
Programs.
http://writtent.com/blog/15-key-facts-about-content-curation/
https://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/degrees.asp

3. Content Strategy
Is Not Coming After
Information Architecture
Information Architecture Needs To
Partner With Content Strategists To
Create The Best Results
I’m here to tell you that Content Strategy is not coming after Interaction Architecture. And IA needs to partner with CS
for best results. And to explain the logic behind this, we have to take a little ride back in time.

4. Put
Picture
Here
In the beginning, there was Interaction Architecture.

5. Suffice to say, the creatives had some concerns. In the immortal words of Elvis Presley, “Let’s Not Let A Good Thing
Die, When Honey You Know, I’ve Never Lied To You, Mmm, Yeah, Yeah.”

6. * Best Case Scenario
This lead to what I would call a bit of tension between IAs who thought creatives were know-it-alls and the creatives
who thought the IAs could take their arrows and shove them right in their boxes. But the good news is that, as the IA
field matured and IAs had this research and expanded what they could bring to the table, detante occurred. Well, in the
best case scenarios, they did.

7. Meanwhile, something called “content strategy” came along. But too often, a “content strategist” was simply someone
who managed an Excel document that could only be opened on one computer because every time someone emailed it,
the thing was corrupted and wouldn’t open.

8. And when the IAs saw they CSs, they, well, acknowledged them.

9. But then the field of Content Strategy started to expand beyond the matrix, and developed into looking at larger
pictures of how the makers and maintainers of a website could use content to help build themselves.

10. The IAs, having heard about this, well, they acknowledged it.

11. Now we’re at the point where there’s a question as to whether Content Strategy is ready to take over the Interaction
Architects. Are the pieces ready, with the Marshalls and Generals and Miners ready to find the flag of superiority in the
board game that is the World Wide Web?

12. The answer is no. We’re at Defcon 5, and anyone who argues otherwise is looking for trouble. And remember: Defcon 5
is the “Everything’s Okay” level. Don’t make me break out WarGames for us to watch.

13. With that said, because of the path IA took, there’s a lot CS can take from it. And the more IAs work with CS, the more
IAs can inform how they build and structure their work.

14. Information Architecture
2007
Content Strategy
2014
The more I think about it, the more I think CS in 2014 is a lot like where IA was in 2007 (which was when I started down
this motley path).

15. •
It’s growing legs as its own domain.
•
Leading edgers are starting to get it.
•
There’s no “degree” that opens doors.
•
A realization is happening that it’s more than it
•
People are starting to “accept” it.
initially seemed.
And here’s why.
More people outside our little clique are recognizing that CS brings something to the table, even to the point where its a
domain that’s starting to grow itself (I think of the CS Meetups here in Chicago that Hilary’s a huge part of). You’re
starting to see companies that are forward thinking bringing real content strategy into their worlds, even through there’s
no classical degree that somehow opens the doors. I chuckle now about how I managed to get into this field in a
manner that’d be far less likely now with HCI degrees to earn. And ultimately, there’s this dawning realization that, like a
bud slowly blooming into the beautiful rose that was marked up by about 500% yesterday, there’s more to this world
than what we first thought. Just as IA isn’t boxes and arrows anymore, CS isn’t an unholy Excel spreadsheet.

16. Where do we (as two groups) go from here? First, we can learn from those battles IAs had with creatives and accept
the fact that we’re complimentary to each other. We each bring something to the table, and what we bring is important
in its own special way.

17. We can start looking at where the things we’re working on are going both in the short and long term, and use those
goals to mold and adjust how we create what we’re doing now, as to not get boxed into the future.

18. Finally, we can collaborate early and often. Too frequently things get tossed over walls in this business, and the more
we share where we’re thinking and what we’re doing, the better it makes what we do and how we do it.

19. Content Strategy
Is Not Coming After
Information Architecture
Information Architecture Needs To
Partner With Content Strategists To
Create The Best Results
All of this is why Content Strategy is not coming after Interaction Architecture. And IA needs to partner with CS for best
results.

20. Interaction Architecture
& Content Strategy
Partners In Crime