I just read a great wrapup of the recent SxSX Interactive conference from Adam Schwabe. Since I was unable to attend, I really appreciated his overview, which hopefully will tide us all over until next year.
At any rate, one trend he mentioned is an increasing emphasis on content, and the rise of the content strategist:
We’ve always made pretty bold proclamations in this industry that Content is King, but it really hasn’t been. Content is all too often considered as an afterthought after wireframes and design comps have been presented to and approved by the client. Relegated to boxes as placeholders and Lorem Ipsum, too many of us take a “do it later” approach with what is most important to the user. People aren’t visiting your site to look at colours and boxes, they’re there for a purpose, and the content should be at the core of any design.
It's true: in the past I was often called in to apply content after a design was already locked in place, or (slightly better) asked to create content at the same time as the design so as to keep timelines short.
The "insert content here" approach may occasionally be expedient, but I'm excited to hear that content strategy is being recognized as important. And I confess the content strategist role is also fun. When "Content is King," a site can more easily achieve its goal of brand engagement, sales leads, etc. Long live the King.
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