Content Strategists are the Gladiator’s of The Web

Day 9 of 66. Okay, I’ll admit it, I dropped off for a couple of days, with all issues going on in the country and sitting around in an empty house waiting for our stuff, it was hard to find motivation to write about. But today we finally have confirmation that our belongings didn’t get lost in the abyss. They will be here tomorrow!

Today I went running for the first time since the move. I ran uphill listening to a new station on RockMyRun and just when I was about to stop the hook from Get It Girl by GTA came on. In case you don’t remember the song I was able to find it on youtube for your listening pleasure.

A few weeks ago, I was working on a deck for our new web process and added a slide of Olivia Pope from Scandal in the deck. It’s the perfect analogy really. Shonda Rhymes made her the fixer of DC’s problem and Content strategist and UX strategists are the fixers of the Internet. What we really want… What we really want is to have people come to us with their problems so we can solve them. The staff of Pope and Associates might be Gladiators in Suits, but we are Gladiators with Computers.

We even have to work with the same types of people Olivia and her team has to work with.

Let’s think about Fitz for a minute, we all have one in our world, the one person that always seems to just make things worse no matter how many ways you show them how to do something correctly, they always break it and you are stuck with fixing it.

Then there are the Cyrus’s of the web, these are the people that always try and find their own solution even it means throwing someone else under the bus as long as they are winning.

And the Rowan’s, who doesn’t have someone that just supersedes whatever you say regardless if you are wrong or right. They will succeed by any means necessary.

The Hucks of the world, they are super loyal to the Olivia’s and will work long hours to help bring ideas to life especially if you respect their talents. And they do create magic with their coding abilities. The Olivia’s will always respect their knowledge and abilities.

Then there is David Rosen, him his the one that is always lobbying for the right decision and will stand up for what makes sense to the user. He is usually the only other person in the room that understands Olivia and Huck.

We can’t forget Jake Ballard, I don’t know where he would fit into the UX world, Scott Foley is just hard to forget. I know Jake is the love interest of the Olivia of the UX world. He or She is her support system when she gets railroaded by the Rowans and Cyrus’s. He’s the one that helps her come up with a solution to overrule them or at the very least come up with a compromise.

When you are a UX’er (design or content) your job is a fixer. You fix websites, mobile apps, and other online applications. Sometimes you get hurt along the way, but you never cry. Gladiators don’t cry.