Ellen de Vries, Clearleft

I’m Ellen de Vries. I’m the Content Strategist at Clearleft. I’m also a facilitator; I love bringing interdisciplinary groups together face-to-face to develop shared understanding of complex ideas. I’ve hosted sessions on artificial intelligence, vision work, storytelling and creating guiding principles. Most of the time I help organisations wrangle their information and their language, as well as training teams in the ways of content.

How did you get into content strategy?

I started off as a ‘communications’ trainer in the Netherlands, helping people in companies with crafting presentations and proposals — I even created a module on diplomacy skills for young diplomats at The Hague International Tribunal!

When I came to the UK, nearly 15 years ago, I worked as an eLearning writer and instructional designer, including a big project for the Chartered Institute of Marketing — that work gave me a solid footing in how to construct text so that people can grasp new concepts in an educational setting. It helped me learn how the scope and constraints of digital projects work. It also helped me understand the intricacies of collaborating with designers.

All of this work became directly applicable to the work I do now. If I’m not training people on content, then I’m working with designers to design the content — after all, 99% of the time people are looking for information, which is a form of seeking to learn.

What does a normal day look like?

There’s no such thing as a normal day at Clearleft. I often remark on how they’re all so different. I often stick my nose into different projects that are running concurrently, to offer content support and ideas, so I spend a lot of time running up and down the stairs speaking to different teams. If I’m not at the office, I’m out running workshops with clients.

What are the top 3 apps you use?

• Gather content
• Google spreadsheets
• Basecamp
• Trello
• Dropbox

Where do you go and what do you do for inspiration?

I enjoy going to conferences — but I seem to pick ones that are more design focussed than content specific. The Story, UX London, Leading Design, and Agile Content Conf were the ones I went to last year as well as speaking at a few. I read a lot of books on digital practice, as well as Medium articles. I’m really into books on Information Architecture.

Are there any books or blogs you’d recommend?

Mike Atherton and Carrie Hane’s new book, Designing Connected Content, for the more advanced content angle. Abby Covert’s book How to make sense of any mess should be on everyone’s desk.

What have you worked on that you’re most proud of?

Good question. I did a Masters Degree in Puppetry (Theatre Practice) at the Central School of Speech and Drama. We ended up performing three shows that we wrote ourselves, one on an island inside the arctic circle, and 2 in London theatres. I still can’t believe we did that. It was awesome. It taught me so much about working with interdisciplinary groups, getting people to speak the same language and communicating a narrative!

Then, last year I went back to Norway as a facilitator for an ‘Artificial Intelligence’ retreat. I was completely in my element again — bringing groups together to establish some kind of clarity in a complex world!

Is there a sentence that you’ve crafted that you’re particularly proud of?

A long time ago I wrote a strapline for a children’s school uniform company, they wanted to differentiate from the stuffy world of school uniform company names and go more ‘fat face’ — the line is “Made for the adventure of life”. They’ve stuck with it. That project really showed me, more than any other company I’ve worked with, that there was great power in differentiation, particularly when it feels safer to stick to a convention or a norm — or to meet expectation.

I believe true thought-through differentiation counts for so much in the work we do, but often falls between the cracks in a project. It can be a magic bullet, a bonus boost to the brand. Differentiation is hard though, it demands looking at your strategy, looking at your company vision and taking the risk of giving users something a little more aspirational to cling to.

What are the biggest challenges you face as a content designer?

Helping people understand the power and impact of content design, or designing with content. Every day I fight the battle to make sure designers use authentic content in their work, and that clients understand the need for that iterative process.

What’s your biggest content pet peeve?

Lorem ipsum.

Do you have any advice for aspiring content designers?

Be a badger. Be with people who don’t write content. Get everyone to write. Stick your nose into design meetings, and design discussions. Hang out in places where there are no other content designers. Speak out in meetings when people haven’t mentioned content. Make sure you collaborate with developers. Don’t be scared to get messy with content. Iterate. Collage. Scissors, glue and A4 paper are your friend.

Is there anything you want to promote?

I wrote a book for GatherContent with lots of tips and techniques and quotes on interdisciplinary collaboration: collaboratebook.com

Where can people find you?

On Twitter I’m @eldevri, or you can find me at Clearleft.com.

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Thanks again to Ellen de Vries for taking the time to answer these questions.