We have two great content strategy speakers this year at CanUX, Kristina Halvorson and Rahel Bailie.  Each bring a unique perspective and plenty of experience and knowledge to the topic.  Last week I sat down with each of them individually for a chat about content strategy and what they will be presenting at CanUX.

The first interview with Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for the Web, and president of Brain Traffic, points out the differences between project based content strategy work, and enterprise content strategy. Large companies tend to have many departments that all write and manage their own content and communication channels, but once you move all of these disparate groups onto a single website it becomes even more important to have a cohesive content strategy.

We also chatted about how content creation can fail, often due to placing it too late in the project. Many teams think of content as something you can fill in at the end, rather than placing it up front and allowing the content to help determine the needs of the design.

Later that day I spoke to Rahel Bailie, president of Intentional Design Inc, about her content strategy practice. Coming from a strong technical communication background, combined with information architecture and usability practice, gives Rahel a unique understanding of content and it’s place in the design process. She talks about content strategy as a way of managing content throughout its entire lifecycle – from concept through creation and publishing, all the way to archiving and revising.

To hear our entire conversations check out the MP3s linked below. Audio Recording Disclaimer: It sounds like college radio.

CanUX Speaker Interview – Kristina Halvorson (~10 minutes)

CanUX Speaker Interview – Rahel Bailie (~9 minutes)

Sign up for CanUX to hear these amazing speakers, plus lots more! If you register before Oct.31 you can save $300, plus use the cnxblog discount code to save an extra $100.

Montreal-based Akoha is one of Canada’s coolest startups, creating a “social reality game” that rewards players for doing good. Along with the game Akoha has created a social network to connect players. To succeed, Akoha needs to create a great experience—and that’s where they turned to Toronto’s Normative Design.

Normative principal Matthew Milan worked with Akoha founder Alex Eberts not just to design a better experience, but to create a culture of design in a company composed of developers. We’ll hear their story, along with practical tips and tricks for adopting and encouraging a design culture in organizations of any size.

Rahel Bailie, one of the world’s leading content strategists, joins the Canux line up to share a real world example of content strategy in action. We’re excited to have Rahel share her insights and experience at Canux.

Here’s a little more about Rahel:

Rahel Anne Bailie is the principal of Intentional Design, and brings substantial business, communication, and instructional design experience to her projects, where she and a select group of professional partners help organizations create and better manage their communication products.

Her focus on performance improvement means beginning with an analysis of business goals and ensuring that any improvements support those goals.

Rahel has many years of experience in the areas of content development and user experience environments, including environments producing localized and/or internationalized content. She understands the complexities of content architecture and flows, and synthesizes her findings to match business requirements to user need.

A self-identified geek, Rahel is drawn to technology like a moth to flame, and embraces technologies that serve to improve the performance of communication products and the processes to create and maintain them. She was elected Fellow of the Society of Technical Communication in 2009, is involved in the , and holds memberships in related professional associations such as Content Management Professionals Association, Information Architecture Institute, and Usability Professionals Association, as well as local groups HTCE and VanUE, in order to keep current in pertinent practice areas.