Rude Awakening: Content Strategy Is Super Hard

Kristina Halvorson (CEO and founder, Brain Traffic) is recognized as one of the most important voices in content strategy. She is the author of the seminal Content Strategy for the Web (2nd edition released March 2012); the host of the popular 5by5 podcast, Content Talks; and the founder of Confab, the country’s leading content strategy conference. Kristina has appeared as a featured speaker at more than 50 conferences and is well-known for her inspiring, humorous talks. Kristina lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with two kids and a mutt. She likes Fluevogs, bourbon, heated car seats, and you. Mostly you.

Joe Gollner (http://www.gollner.ca) is the Director of Gnostyx Research (http://www.gnostyx.com) a venture he launched in 2010 to advance the state of the art in intelligent content technologies and to help global organizations realize the benefits of integrated content solutions. Prior to starting Gnostyx, he was Vice President and Chief Solution Architect for Stilo International (http://www.stilo.com) where he led a world-class team in the design, development, and deployment of industrial-strength content management and publishing solutions that leveraged the highly respected OmniMark programming language. Previously, he was the founder and president of XIA Systems Corporation, a leading XML solution integrator that he founded in 1998 and that he sold to Stilo International in 2004.
Over the last twenty years, he has designed and implemented of some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated content management and publishing solutions. During this time, he has worked closely with some of the most innovative implementers of intelligent content technologies including Boeing, Samsung, Nokia, Schlumberger, Alcatel-Lucent, Xerox, the US Department of Defense, NATO, and the Russian Academy of Science. Having encountered markup languages in 1987, he has been a champion of open standards for almost 25 years and for several years chaired the XML World series of conferences. Going even further back, he served as an Artillery Officer in the Canadian military and was educated in a wide variety of subjects at Queens University (Bachelors of Arts, Mathematics and Literature) and the University of Oxford (Masters of Philosophy).

Erin Kissane is a reader, writer, editor, and content strategist based in Brooklyn. She is the author of The Elements of Content Strategy (A Book Apart, 2011), a handbook for everyone faced with the task of creating and managing big batches of useful content for real people. Erin leads projects for Brain Traffic, the consultancy behind Confab: The Content Strategy Conference. She was formerly editor of A List Apart magazine and editorial director at web agency Happy Cog Studios in New York. As co-founder of Contents, a new magazine about content and online publishing, she seeks to bridge gaps and strengthen connections between communicators and information-slingers from all over the content/publishing world. When she isn’t doing those things, she cooks with exuberance, shakes cocktails, and reads to excess.

Mark McCormick is Senior Vice President Internet Services Group Customer Experience for Wells Fargo. An 8-year veteran of the company, Mark is responsible for the overarching vision, strategy and design of customer experience within the interface for the Wells Fargo Online and Mobile Banking channels.