Marli Mesibov: Content Strategist & Writer

The great and powerful Margot Bloomstein wrote a thought-provoking article on what I like to call “anecdata.” Anecdotes, which too many people confuse with data. She concluded her article with a “personal acrostic,” which in turn was inspired by Josh Silverman’s post.

Ever one to jump on board a (valuable, interesting, and fun) train, I present you with my personal acrostic: the URLs that autocomplete when I type each letter of the alphabet into my browser. Continue reading →

My inner Grammar Nazi has always cringed at I can Haz Cheeseburger memes, but my love of UX humor trumps that today.

Last week, I experienced the wonder that is UX Kitteh, shared through Twitter by Christina Wodtke. Then I found out that anyone can make these.

http://cheezburger.com/7670260224

Any new business has to ask themselves: “what should we write about on our website?” More specifically, many companies find themselves saying “Let’s start a blog! Now, what should we write about?” Continue reading →

“It used to be that the writers read their own work. But he had changed that. Many a bad paper was praised because its author was a dramatic reader.  And many a possible literary treasure was lost to the world because its creator read it in a dull monotone. The Prof solved the whole thing by reading all the themes aloud. That way each one got an even break in the reading.” – Betty Smith, Joy in the Morning

Replace “a dull monotone” with “a terrible website,” and voila! The current issue. How many wonderful businesses fail because the creators appear to have built their website in Geocities? Less dramatically, how many ticket sales does a wonderful company such as, (for example) the BSO lose to a poor website design? Continue reading →

“Websites still have the same problem they’ve always had: Writing good, consistent content that people care about is hard.” – Justin Jackson (@mijustin on Twitter)

It’s very chique right now to acknowledge that our job is hard. We’re not wizards, and we’re not do-gooders, cheering one another on to save the world with content. We’re people, finding ways to engage, educate, and delight other people through words, images, sounds, and the combinations therof. And, it turns out, it’s hard.

But I worry when I hear people communing over our hardships. I worry that we’ll get disheartened, or jaded, or lose ourselves as a community and stop crafting beautiful messages and detailed strategies. Continue reading →

I know, I know, I’ve already written quite a bit about Confab. But to be honest, it’s such a great conference that it’s hard not to geek out over it. Here marks the end of my official Confab 2013 Recap, where you can find links to everything else I’ve written about this year’s content strategy conference.

Continue reading →

Inspired by Kirstina Bjorn’s recent post of 27 skills she keeps off her resume, which was in turn inspired by Josh Gondleman’s list of 50 skills he keeps of his resume, here is a list of skills I keep off my resume:

Continue reading →