Episode 34: Jonathan McFadden, Red Ventures - Working towards an inclusive and diverse industry

Kristina Halvorson:

Friends and neighbors hello, it's me, Kristina. It's really hot in Minnesota. I am so thrilled today to have someone who I've known for a while, but I've gotten to really know over the last several weeks, which is why I asked him here today.

He's my very special guest Jonathan McFadden. Let me tell you briefly about Mr. Jonathan McFadden. He is a senior content designer at Red Ventures where he works with designers, researchers, and project managers to improve user experiences for major brands. When he's not designing with words at his day gig, he's writing content for clients as the founder and owner of Jon Writes LLC. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his wife, teaching Bible study, reading comic books and being black. Hey Jonathan.

Jonathan McFadden:

Hey Kristina

Kristina Halvorson:

So I have to share that when I looked at this bio, I was just like, "Jonathan, you really want me to wrap with, with being black? Is that okay coming out of my mouth?" And he's like, "Yes, just own it."

Jonathan McFadden:

That's right.

Kristina Halvorson:

There you go. Hey Jonathan, you recently went to work at Red Ventures. I ask all my guests to share with our listening audience their journey to content strategy and content design. So I wonder if you could share that with us.

Jonathan McFadden:

Yeah, absolutely. I came into this crazy world of content, like a lot of people I know unintentionally. I was a newspaper reporter for about five years and decided that news was no longer cutting it. I wanted to leave the industry and was looking for some kind of job where I could segue into and use the skills I've learned as a reporter, as a journalist, as a researcher and as a writer, to do something that wouldn't take all of my life and consume my life.

I enjoyed having some quality time with people I loved and the idea of making more money was appealing (laughs) and not being stressed all the time. So I found myself in marketing, like a lot of folk and eventually that transition into content strategy when in 2018 I got a job as a content strategist, not knowing what the heck that really meant. And that's when I began to learn about content strategy and then eventually content design and lo and behold, here I am. And I do not look back, it's been an incredible journey.

Kristina Halvorson:

Before we talk about your gig at Red Ventures right now, I have a question for you that has actually been on my mind about people who are transitioning into the field of content strategy or content design, which is a big topic of conversation these days at Brain Traffic and you and I are going to talk about it together as well. How did you know to look for a job with the title of content strategist?

Jonathan McFadden:

Great question. I didn't. (laughs)

Kristina Halvorson:

(laughs) The end. Thanks for joining us today.

Jonathan McFadden:

Period. So when I started looking for other gigs, I was looking for content writer, copywriter, communications director, I was casting as wide a net as possible looking to boost my skills, augment my prowess and do all of that. But also just again, looking for some kind of promotion, some kind of advancement, some kind of career progression. And I landed at this company called LendingTree, which I had heard, which in the Charlotte area where I live in outside of Charlotte, North Carolina is a pretty big deal.

And so they had this job opening for a content strategist and the job description was also found under copywriter. I was really confused (laughs) I was like, "Wait, this looks like the same job." I decided to apply, interviewed for the gig, realized it was a little bit beyond the scope of what I was accustomed to as a copywriter. And I felt, I was really intrigued by the challenge, felt like I could bring a lot more head knowledge to the role, not that copywriters don't, I'm not trying to insult anybody as a copywriter, I have mad respect for you. But this gave me an opportunity to really be part of the ideation sessions, to be part of the brainstorming, to really think through problems and solutions and that appealed to me, I was ready to do that kind of work.

And I landed as a content strategist at LendingTree and just kept learning more and more about the industry. At the time, there were only two of us really doing what we were doing. And at the time of my departure, there were still only two of us doing it for the entire company. So, you know three years later I learned a lot, boosted my skills tremendously, met a lot of fantastic people in the industry, Kristina Halvorson included and just fell in love with, with the work and the opportunity to affect lives. And I think that's, that's what appealed to me. That's why I became a journalist in the first place. I wanted to help people. I wanted to provide information. I wanted to, be, this is gonna sound a little egotistical, but be a hero of sorts. You know, think journalists all have a little bit of a superhero complex and I think content strategists do too. (laughs) We want to, we want to make things right. You want to solve problems and you want to help people, you know, find some kind of result and so it just made sense.

Kristina Halvorson:

I talk all the time about how content strategists by and large are just some of the very best people. And that is exactly what I tend to narrow in on is that content strategists like want to do right by other people. When we come to the table, we're interested in understanding what people want, what our user needs are, what our audience expectations are. And then our whole job is trying to figure out how to get that information to them, how to get, you know, and crafting the words so that it's inclusive and making sure that we are representing all of the right things, standards to making that content accessible and so on. I think it has to be baked into your values and the person you are.

When you talk about, as a content strategist I want to help people, can you give me a couple examples of your day-to-day where you feel like, "Oh, this is a chance that I really have, or I did this thing and here's the outcome that I see and I really feel like I helped someone."

Jonathan McFadden:

Oh yeah, I have a treasure trove. (laughs) I think I'll draw from my experience at my current gig, without giving away too much of the secret sauce or showing people too much of how the sausage is made.

So funnily enough, a coworker and I were just talking about this, this morning, how our job is to essentially take websites from rags to riches. (laughs) So that's a good way to encapsulate our job and that's what we do. We partner with different companies and we help improve their UX. My job every day, I don't want to make this sound so violent, but it's essentially tearing things down and rebuilding them so that they're better for the user.

Kristina Halvorson:

Can you give me an example of when you talk about, looking at a webpage, you're looking at an experience and saying, "I see 40 different ways that I could make this better. I would say 99 times out of a hundred, a client or a stakeholder is not going to just roll with, "Hey, I'm the content strategist, and I can make this better." How are there points of evidence that you are able to, to present? Do you work with researchers or do you have specific data that you always will try to pull or that you especially find useful when you're trying to change minds or provide feedback?

Jonathan McFadden:

Absolutely. I mean, research literally is our best friend and it's the (laughs) probably the most effective way for us to make an argument when we're working with our partners and clients. Quick shout out, we're hiring for a user researcher, hint, hint. Throwing that out there to anybody who may be listening, a user experience researcher. And so, yeah, data informs everything. When we're having meetings with the partner about the homepage, for instance, we are hitting them with the numbers first and we are hitting them with click through rates. We're hitting them with time on page, we're hitting them with completions and a form. We're hitting them with even survey feedback. You know, we have a survey about the web experiences. So we're asking people, "Did you find what you needed?"

We're reporting those findings to the partner and using that as a convincing pitch that we need to fix something.

Kristina Halvorson:

Okay. Side note, if someone's listening and they're like, "Oh yes. I would like to be a UX researcher to work with Jonathan McFadden." Where does somebody go to find that job posting?

Jonathan McFadden:

Excellent, excellent question. They can go to Red Venture's careers page. That's a great place to start. They can also, if they want, find me on LinkedIn and Jonathan McFadden will drop a link in a DM. So I am always very approachable on LinkedIn. I have no problem connecting and I can kind of give you some details on what the job would entail, what the team is like, what we're working on, things of that nature.

Kristina Halvorson:

Jonathan, you spoke at Confab this year, our content strategy conference that my company Brain Traffic produces, and it was virtual this year. I think we were all suprised by the extraordinary way virtual conferences can still create a sense of community and careers and career transitions and recruiting were a huge topic at Confab. One of the things that kept coming up over and over was the need to increase diversity in our candidates, in our teams, in our field as a whole, and how it's easy to pay lip service to that and say, "Yep, this is hard. And we should do it and make sure you go tell all your friends that are people of color. Okay. I did it. I'm increasing diversity."

Jonathan McFadden:

(laughs)

Kristina Halvorson:

You were in the Slack community and such a leader for bringing conversations around inclusion and diversity and systemic oppression and what it's like to be black in our field, right upfront. And people engaged and people followed, which is incredible. Can you talk a little bit about what that experience was like for you?

Jonathan McFadden:

Yeah. So quick shout out to Art Schwartz Restrepo, who was also my co-presenter this year at Confab. Our presentation focused on how to maximize your word bank, your power, and your influence to advocate for underrepresented users. And if there was a thesis around the presentation it was using your leverage as a content strategist, somebody who is connected to so many different people across an organization, to advocate for the people whose voices are often times not heard. But the people who are not invited or even allowed at the table.

And so that is a passion of mine, it's a passion of arts. It's a passion of so many other people we've met at Confab, and that I've met in the content strategists, content design community. And it's so critical because there is a huge representation gap across tech. And that's where content strategy and content design pretty much sits in. Right? You know, in my experience, at least for the most part, we sit at the intersection of words and technology. We're creating experiences for people, but I think it's a very sad and jarring indictment upon the industry, that when you look at the people creating experiences for people, they often times don't reflect the full array or spectrum of people that are actually interacting and engaging with those experiences.

It comes off, to be frank, quite elitist. But technology has that problem, right? Technology is very homogenous. In thinking about our presentation and what we would say at this Confab, we decided that, you know, we could definitely use the presentations of focus solely on our work day-to-day, focus solely on the experiences, focus solely on the words.

But I think as John Paz mentioned at Confab during his keynote address, it goes far beyond what you do in your day-to-day. It goes far beyond your siloed job. You have to look at the makeup of the organization, you have to look at the makeup of the engineering team. You need to look at the makeup of the product management organization. You need to look at the demographic makeup of the content design organization if there is one, because all those people and all of the luggage that we bring with us every day to our jobs, because we all do it. We all have this luggage. I won't use baggage because it has a negative connotation, but we all have this luggage that we bring alongside ourselves, upbringing, childhood, parenting all that kind of stuff. We bring it with us.

If you look at who the gatekeepers are and who the people who are making the big decisions and are creating the experiences, they don't always look like me, yet I'm using these products. I'm using these experiences. As a user, I know when something hasn't been made for me. And so I think it is incumbent upon us. And maybe this is me foisting a lot of my values and beliefs on other people. But I think especially it is incumbent upon content strategists, content designers, UX writers, whatever you want to call us. It's incumbent upon us, it's our responsibility to advocate for the people who are not able to advocate for themselves, who don't have that level of access that we have.

We should be trying to ramp up representation. We should be trying to ensure that multiple and diverse voices are heard when key decisions about features are made, when new products are rolled out and unveiled, when websites are literally knocked down and then rebuilt again, because we need to ensure that these experiences are inclusive and can connect with people everywhere. And I know that's hard. That's a lofty goal, but it becomes easier and when you actually have people in the room who look like people in the world, and that is it's, it's sad. It saddens me that we're not at that place. But I do believe that we're getting there because there are people talking about it all the time. I'm just one voice among many.

Kristina Halvorson:

You were so articulate and passionate about this in a recent conversation that we had. Frankly I have fallen prey to, and I think lots of other privileged white people, men and women alike fall into, "I did this thing and I tried, and it's only working kind of, but at least I'm doing something and this is hard." For our conferences Confab and Button, we have launched this diversity and equity scholarship, where we invite people of color or other folks whose experiences are often marginalized within tech and society as a whole to apply for financial aid and assistance to join us at our events.

It's been successful at past events. It's helped us to increase diversity, however, it's expensive to bring somebody to an in-person conference. So we've had this pool of funds, but we've been very limited with regard to how many people were able to have join us. With virtual events, that barrier was completely eliminated. Suddenly, instead of saying, for several thousands of dollars, we can help four people of color show up to Confab. Now we're able to be like, "Oh, do we have a hundred applicants for our equity scholarship, come on in." Right? "Great. You're all invited."

Jonathan McFadden:

Yep.

Kristina Halvorson:

What happened clearly and quickly is that we saw diversity at these past virtual events spike significantly and noticeably. Suddenly our attendees were having conversations about difficult topics like, we need more diversity in our field, we need to do something about it. What can we do about it? And why aren't we, like, what is, what's the problem here? What is the excuse? What is the perceived obstacle? Those conversations, or even more importantly, I see this white speaker on the screen, who's talking about this experience and as a person of color, that has not been my experience of all. I'm going to talk about it in Slack openly and feel safe about it.

It just significantly shifted conversation within the act of community during the conference. You have spoken freely and publicly about what it was like for you to be at an event where you saw people of color, not only clearly represented on the screen and the programming, which is another intentional act that we work hard on constantly, but even more so that you were surrounded by people of color at an event in a way that you had not been before. Can you talk about what that was like for you?

Jonathan McFadden:

It was sublime. (laughs) It was glorious. It was the best conference experience I've ever had in my life. I had never felt so seen on that kind of stage before, on that caliber of stage, on a global stage where it wasn't something about oppression, you know, where it wasn't something about black people or people of color being killed or firebombed, or, you know, oppressed or dehumanize or marginalized in some way.

We were people of color that were represented well and beautifully and holistically. And we weren't just talking about diversity, equity and inclusion. Those were definitely parts of the conversation, we had keynotes talking about those things, which is fantastic. It's splendid. We need that. But we also had people talking about volunteerism. We also had people talking about using content strategy for change. We had people talking about their careers in content strategy. It felt like the opposite of tokenism. It didn't feel like we were asked to be there so we could talk about that particular topic. Those conversations naturally happened. It was organic.

We also saw people of color who are consummate professionals talking about their experiences, whether you are managing content strategy for an entire city government and you're trying to help people, deal with the onset of the pandemic, or you're working for the IRS. And you're responding to this tidal wave of requests and urgent needs from people nationwide. We just saw people of color talk about their trade, talk about their professionalism and talk about it with so much class and poise and aptitude that it just made me feel again seen, it made me feel celebrated. It made me feel welcome. It made me feel like I was in the right place. And that is not a feeling I get often in spaces that are not overtly intended for me.

And when I talk about spaces not overtly intended for me, I'm talking about most spaces. (laughs) I'm talking about places that are not my family and church, because those are probably in my life thinking about the two biggest predominantly black places in my life. And every other place I frequent or occupy for the most part, I'm the minority always. I'm the one who sticks out always and so I didn't necessarily feel like I stuck out at Confab, even though yes, we did have our people of color Slack channel. And we did have our black people at Confab Slack channel. And we had this community developing still, it felt like we were able to actually be part of the greater community and represent in a way that just isn't common and just doesn't happen all the time.

So on the one hand, it was just this, again, this very affirming experience where you just felt seen and you felt heard and you felt celebrated. And on the other hand, it was also powerful in that people were talking about the real issues, they were talking about the gaps in representation. We were holding people accountable, holding companies accountable, and it was beautiful.

Kristina Halvorson:

I would like to come back around and say one thing. In talking about Brain Traffic's efforts to increase diversity and to bring new diverse voices to our stage, I was not setting you up to just be like tell me how awesome Brain Traffic is.

Jonathan McFadden:

Oh no. (laughs)

Kristina Halvorson:

I wanted to help people understand how we got here and how the feedback that we've gotten from the other people of color, how you all felt so represented and surrounded, and supported, and really safe, because I want to be  transparent and say this. We work hard to bring diverse voices to the stage for Confab and for Button, we wanted to open up a scholarship or fellowship to encourage people of color, to come to Confab, or to remove barriers for people with marginalized experience and are suffering, some kind of financial hardship to join us at Confab.

What the leap that my brain in my white head and privileged (laughs) and person of privilege position never made and this feels so stupid to me now was in doing so, we're going to create a safe space for people to have difficult conversations that they may not be able to have as one or two people of color at a company where everybody else in the design team is white, for example, you know, that we're going to be able to provide a sense of feeling seen and a sense of community that doesn't exist within organizations.

I don't know why that didn't cross my mind. And so when I saw that unfold in front of me, I was humbled. I was grateful. And the leadership that you were showing in saying, yes, this is community, this is by creating like black people at Confab channel. Like we, this is a space that we are claiming as our own, and we are going to call out that we feel, you know, represented in a new way on stage. I mean, thank you for that. (laughs) It's just really was, was something to see and kicked our whole team into a new level of awareness that like, "Oh, this is not just about creating diversity. This is, this is about building safe spaces, designated spaces of inclusion where people can come together and feel safe, feel seen, have difficult conversations, change and exchange stories about thriving and survival and succeeding within the organizations as people of color."

Jonathan McFadden:

And I think Kristina another thing that illustrates is the hunger, right? Because we could have created the people of color at Confab channel when I did a year ago, and nobody could have joined (laughs) you know, it could have just been Jonathan McFadden and maybe two other people, and we would have had our self-contained conversations and that would have been it.

I remember last year when I initially asked Malaika Carpenter if she thought it would be a good idea to create the channel, because that was my first year at Confab. And to be honest, and this is, this is so real when you are stepping into a majority white space, you're like, "I don't know where these people are. I don't know how "woke" they are. I don't know how, you know, if they're affirming of people of color, I don't know if they want to go there, if they want to have any kind of call-out to the fact that there are people of color here," you know, I didn't know. 'Cause I was very new and still trying to feel my way around.

I now know I had nothing to worry about, but then I didn't know, I had no idea and I was dealing with something actually fairly personal that had happened to me, maybe just two weeks or a week before, in which a neighbor called the police on me because my fiance at the time, who's now my wife, she and I were apparently praying too loudly and so that experience was really jarring and this was around the same time that the Ahmaud Arbery video was circulating.

There was a lot happening, and so I had this deep hunger in attending this conference for connecting with people who look like me because I was trying to have conversations at work. And I was leading this whole diversity and inclusion initiative, helping lead this diversity and inclusion initiative at LendingTree and that was great. But here I was in this other space with people who do the same work I do. And I'm like, "I just need somebody to talk to." I just want to connect. I want to connect with other people of color who are content strategists, content designers, UX writers, because I don't know many others at all.

No one, I can't have these kinds of conversations too often with people who do the same thing I do. And there's a difference when you are, you know, we deal in words and we deal in language and we deal in content and experiences. And so there is a very profound depth that we tap into and empathy, it's part of that empathetic nature that a content strategist should possess, when we're doing the work we do, and we feel so deeply about things. And it's hard to communicate that to people who don't do exactly what we do.

Last year it was just evident that I wasn't alone and that felt good. And that began a series of conversations that helped forge connections. I had conversations with Art after Confab and that's how that dovetailed and so our presentation, Malaika and I kept in touch. Hannah Kirk and I kept in touch. And we still have regular meetings.

Community has been created and then I think just coming back to Confab this year, it was kind of an expectation at that point at least for me. You know, I felt a lot more brazen, I knew that this was a place where I could help prop up this community and that people would be responsive. And I think we just saw that exacerbate in the best way possible this year. And I have to give credit to Aladrian Goods as well  in, in helping with the formation of that black people at Confab channel, because she and I were having some conversations, some DMs between the two of us as the conference was going on. And, you know, she made a great point that we need our own space as black people, we need our own space and she was right.

And so I was like, "You're right," that let's do this. And we, the channel was created and I think it transformed the outlook and experiences for the people who are able to engage in that channel. We had Zoom calls, we met up, we talked and we plan to meet up in the future. You know, when I say meet up, I mean, over Zoom because we're all over the place. So community has been created, sub communities have been created, conversations have been started. And heck who knows content may be created out of this, I don't know. But it has, it has just been such a powerful experience and it's hard to really, I keep using the same words, it's sublime, it's powerful, it's affirming, but it's true.

That's what the experience was like. It was, it just made sense. It just really made sense. And I think, and I'll wrap it up with this and then I'll be quiet 'cause you know, I'm long-winded.‍

Kristina Halvorson:

(laughs) I love it.

Jonathan McFadden:

I think what helped this year personally, and this is just Jonathan, is the experiences I had as being one of the co-chairs of the diversity and inclusion group at LendingTree and being able to advocate for underrepresented people, not just in my job, but as an employee, which is a very different thing. You know, there's one thing in doing it again in the day-to-day, in my silo job where I'm working with certain people on a certain thing or a certain product or a certain experience. As another thing, when you affect the culture of an entire organization and you affect every person in every department, depending on who you ask, that was a good thing and that was a bad thing.

But overall it was a very positive thing, and that experience, I think just kind of sharpened me and stretched me in a way I did not expect or see coming, but I'm so grateful for it 'cause I needed it. And I think that'll just continue to hopefully, prayerfully, I'll just continue to grow and mature in that, in that area because I care about these topics and I, I feel like it's my calling. It's like a mission in my life, a godly divine mission to advocate for the underrepresented, no matter what space I occupy.

Kristina Halvorson:

It is such an honor to have you put that passion behind Confab and to have created that community that is so inclusive and I think just infused with your goodwill and I want to use the word persistence, but it's more than that. Maybe just commitment to seeing this change and to helping bolster shared experience among people of color. It's an honor to witness and it's an honor to have you involved and we are looking forward to continuing to follow your lead with future events.

I do hope that there are other events and organizers listening because change does happen and it can happen, in terms of coming to this place where we're going to have this hard conversation and start to shift things towards being a truly inclusive community where people do feel seen and they do feel supported and they do feel like, that they belong. Thank you. I am real sad that our time is up. I feel like there are 80,000 other questions to ask you about 80,000 other topics. Maybe we'll have to have you back another time, but in the interim, thank you so much for joining me. I'm all fired up. I want to go outside and run around the block four times and then come back and see what else I can do.

Jonathan McFadden:

Do it. Do it.

Kristina Halvorson:

Yeah, If I ran around four times I'd probably fall over. I'll walk slowly. Jonathan, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure.

Jonathan McFadden:

Thank you, Kristina. This was an honor. I appreciate it so much.