Every field has its own form of content specialist—faculty in higher education, surgeons in hospitals, and curators in museums. However, a writer or content strategist may not have the same level of specialty knowledge. How do you make sense of and promote this expert knowledge if you have no background in that subject area, let alone an advanced degree?
This session will draw from Amanda’s experience as a web designer and content strategist at the University of Minnesota, one of the country’s largest research institutions. Here you’ll find advice for establishing rapport and getting your work done:
- Hear how to build an expert’s trust in your knowledge and skills.
- Get tips for working with difficult specialist personalities, from the complete technophobe to the extreme early adopter.
- Learn how to channel your specialist’s expertise into great web content.
- Share your own questions, triumphs, and war stories.
About Amanda Costello
Amanda Costello is the lead content strategist in the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), and the director of MinneWebCon, a grassroots knowledge-sharing web conference in Minnesota. She has worked for the University in various departments since 2002, and joined CEHD in 2007. A former English teacher in Japan, she values clear communication and having a plan (plus a couple of back-ups).
Amanda is an award-winning speaker on working with content specialists and the web, content strategy, building web teams, and sharing ideas to do good work. She enjoys filling out forms because it feels like taking a test where she knows all the answers.
