Empathy, Change, and CATsWhat I Learned at CS Forum

Paula Land

Sessions

Empathy: Content Strategy's Hidden DeliverableCorey Vilhauer, Blend Interactive

Embracing Your Role as a Change AgentJonathan Kahn, Together London

Common Themes

• Soft skills—less focus on tactics, strategy, deliverables as the starting point

• Listening and reframing• Being advocates• Change requires changing organizations• Overcoming fear, uncertainty• Failure is okay

Empathy

Definition: “The act of understanding, being aware of, being

sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts,

and experiences of another…”

“The trend towards greater and greater customer

empowerment requires a deeper and deeper understanding of

customer needs.”

--Gerry McGovern

• Replace Content Strategy with People Strategy• Practice empathy not just with the people

who are the consumers of the content, but with the client (or team, co-worker, boss, editor…)

How to do it

• Be curious– Ask questions

• Be clear and deliberate– Get to a shared understanding of terms– Consistency promotes trust

• Be conniving– Identify strengths and play to them– Use politics as leverage

• Be a teacher– Provide tools

How to do it

“Your job isn’t to make the change happen – only your client can do that. Your job is to present the change, understand the issues that will serve as barriers to that change, and walk a bit in their shoes.”

--Corey Vilhauer

Change

• Change is hard• Failure is certain, unavoidable, necessary• Content strategy work involves systemic

change• You can’t solve problems without changing

organizations

Traditional organizational models

• Top-down• Hierarchical

“…the idea of limiting communications, so that they flow only from one layer of the hierarchy to the next, was part of the very design of the system at the dawn of managerial culture.”

Here Comes Everybody, 2008 CLAY SHIRKY

Mind shifts and power shifts

• Moving from product to service• From consumer to customer

To bring about systemic change we combat:• Denial about change• Org-centric thinking

The arguments against change

• My organization is too complex• It’s different in a large company • It’s different in a small company • It’s different in non-profits • It’s different in higher ed • We can’t do this agency-side • This is impossible in government

Areas of focus

• Service design• Cross-channel UX and CS• Web and digital governance• Learning lessons from the lean startup and

agile movements

How to be an agent of change

1. Let yourself be vulnerable (make mistakes)2. Fight the culture of shame3. Embrace failure4. Get out of the building

“Denial about change, silo-centric thinking, and poor governance and strategy lead to

disappointing user experience outcomes and substantial business risk. As web professionals, we can’t be effective until we become agents of

change.”--Jonathan Kahn

Sources

http://www.slideshare.net/blendinteractive/empathy-content-strategys-hidden-deliverable-cs-forum-2012http://eatingelephant.com/2012/10/empathy/

http://www.slideshare.net/jdkahn/embracing-your-role-as-a-change-agentcontent-strategy-forum-2012#btnNext

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