Episode 46: Candi Williams, Bumble - Leading content teams and inclusive content projects

Kristina Halvorson:

Hello and welcome to the Content Strategy Podcast. I’m your host, Kristina Halvorson, and every episode of this podcast I chat to established leaders and exciting new voices exploring our ever-evolving field of content strategy. We cover all the topics that inform how we shape digital content. From user experience design to customer experience, accessibility to content design and everything in between.

Friends and neighbors, welcome back to the Content Strategy Podcast. It's so good to feel your presence through the tubes here on this lovely day. I'm Kristina, I am your host, and oh, do I have a special guest today. Get excited, I'm so excited. I am super duper happy to introduce to you Ms. Candi Williams. I'm going to tell you a little bit about Candi. By day, she's a content design leader who loves nothing more than supporting her team solving complex content challenges, and flying the all important flag for inclusive design. By night, she's a published author of four books, and counting. When she's not waging the war against unnecessary jargon and inaccessible head scratching content, ooh, you'll probably find her tweeting, when she should be sleeping, growing her crystal collection, desperately trying to meditate more, or seeking out more brightly colored kicks. Candi, welcome to the Content Strategy Podcast.

Candi Williams:

Hello, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Kristina Halvorson:

I've been waiting for this moment. So delighted. Candi, where are you at this moment? I mean, not just in your apartment, but larger, in the larger context of things?

Candi Williams:

Yeah, I was going to say I'm in a pretty dark overcast city centre flat in Bristol, but larger picture. So I am head of content design at Bumble, which is a connections app. We have a dating product offering, which a lot of people have heard of, and also friendships and community offering. So I've been there for around a year, which has flown by.

Kristina Halvorson:

Even I feel like it has flown by since you've made that announcement. Congratulations. I usually start off episodes by asking folks about their path and their content journey to where they are today. So I wonder if you could share a little bit about your journey as a content enthusiast, and advocate, and designer up until now?

Candi Williams:

Of course. Yeah, so I would class my journey as a bit higgledy-piggledy for sure, for want of a better phrase.

Kristina Halvorson:

That took you two seconds to bust out a super British-ism. I didn't even ask you. Congratulations. I'm sorry, serious, be serious. Here we go, sorry.

Candi Williams:

I actually studied linguistics, and I specialized in sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. So how language makes people feel, makes them act, makes them do, so I did a lot of analysis of political speeches, and how it's used to persuade. I did a lot of critical analysis of semantics, and pragmatics, and meanings and connotations of language. I did a lot of work around language comprehension, how we learn languages, how we understand language, and how that shapes how we understand the world. So that was my thing. I was very embedded there in actually quite a lot of qualitative research. Back then though, when I was at university, if you did linguistics in English language, your options were, you can be a teacher, or you can be a journalist, which were both good jobs. But neither were right for me at the time, didn't really know what I wanted to do.

None of my family had gone to university, so I didn't really know what the rules were with university. Like, what do you do? I just thought you just get an office job, that's what you do. I knew I liked people, and I then went and worked in recruitment and HR for a bit, which was interesting. So I did that for about a year. I very quickly really missed the creativity, the analysis of language, the writing side of it, the understanding, all of the stuff that I had loved, and done previously. So I took an internship as a digital content writer as it was called then at a FinTech startup before they were cool, and I was doing then a lot of SEO, strategies, blogs, longer form content, some early social media, but before it was a big thing that people invested in.

I suppose, what you would call then influencers, working with people to help them share content on topics, et cetera. So I did that for about a year, and well actually then my mom died. So that made me reflect on what I wanted to do with my life generally, and it wasn't interning forever. So I took a permanent job at a full service agency where I was working on everything from big content strategies for brands, naming, website transformation. Oh, the full scale, social media, absolutely all of it, all aspects of content, not just digital, billboards. A lot of print and press back then as well.

Kristina Halvorson:

Can I just interrupt and say, I don't know what it is when people come into companies are like, "Oh, you're good with the words. We need words, we need words in so many places. Can you get the words for..." I don't know, I just, yeah, I was that person. Anyway, go ahead. I'm just sympathizing here.

Candi Williams:

Honestly, yeah, it was like that. When I look back, it was a lot. But the beauty of it was just learning about so many different methods, so many mediums, what works and what doesn't work. I feel like I saw social media evolve quite a lot back then as well, which was helpful. As I left, I was doing a lot more of the strategy side of things, so bringing it all together. So it's like, okay, you've got this nice thing on social media. How does this align with what you're saying in press, outdoor, et cetera, what's the strategy, what's the voice and tie in, et cetera? Yeah, I was there for about four years, loved that, that was cool. Then I took a step up, and went to lead the content function for a full service agency that specialized in customer experience.

So we did a lot around Jobs to be Done. How customer experience spans, everything you do, how content design is at the heart of that, and that just dwindled your whole experience, which was really, really cool. It was a mix of B2B and B2C. So what was really nice about that was moving people away from business to business, and we have to talk to people like this, if they're a business. Funny, everyone's a person, so it's a good idea to talk to them as people regardless. So taking some cool brands on that journey. I was there for a year or so, and then I knew content design. It was in the UK, thanks to Sarah. Goodness, love her. It was starting to really pick up speed and I was loving it, and I knew that was where I wanted to specialize, but there weren't that many roles outside of London.

Then I heard of a role that was recruiting for a content design team at Nationwide, which is a building society, so like a community bank that's owned by its members. So, I went there as a Senior Content Designer to start with, worked my way up to Content Design Manager, and leading their content strategy. I was there for about four years again. That was amazing, started off as one of two content designers left, and there were 20 content designers, and I'd hired a lot of them, helped and seen their careers grow, which was just awesome. Then I went to Bumble, and the rest is history.

Kristina Halvorson:

Or at least a year anyway. You've been relatively public about the difference between the work that you were doing, and the experience that you were having at Nationwide versus the environment you stepped into at Bumble just with regard to how they were seeing the advancement, or development of content design within the organization. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Candi Williams:

Yeah, I think there's a lot actually. So when I started at Nationwide, content design was a book essentially by title. So content, the beauty of content strategy, content had been a great thing for decades, centuries, et cetera. But I think content design as a title was just starting to pick up speed. I feel like a lot of people were clutching, and beautifully in awe of the content design book. But there wasn't outside of public sector a lot of implementations of it, if content design is a function, so to speak. Obviously we had GOV, we had all of the great work that was going on across GDS, but we didn't really have that many places to look to as an example of this is how you embed a content design function in the private sector that operates quite differently to the public sector in the UK.

It was an interesting journey for sure, and I think things have definitely changed a lot over the last five, six years for the better, because I mean, I'll be honest, at times I think, especially the senior content, I know we were winging it a lot. We were doing our best, but there wasn't really, this is the blueprint of how it worked for the private sector when a lot of the ways of working were quite different, for sure. So very grateful to have more of that now.

Kristina Halvorson:

Wonderful. You have been building out your team. I feel like every time I turn around, you're just like, "Oh, I'm hiring. Oh, Hey, I'm hiring, hiring again."

Candi Williams:

So it's that phase of you start somewhere and you are like, okay, so this is content. This is what content design should be doing. This is why content design is great. This is how it should be working. This is what you can get from content design, and eventually people start going, "Oh, great, cool, we want that thing." It's like, great. Okay, now we need the people.

Kristina Halvorson:

Well, and especially once they figure it out, they're like, "Oh yeah, we would like that thing." Then they get a little bit in there, and like, "Oh, we want all the things." I mean, that's what I see over and over that, the minute somebody experiences a content designer on their team, they want more, they tell all their friends, their friends want more. So then it's difficult to scale appropriately. I hear, well, at least here in the United States, the marketplace for finding content designers is very competitive. Everything calls for three to five years of experience, which there were just not a lot of teams asking for content design three to five years ago. How are you managing onboarding folks, training folks, how are you doing that as a lead?

Candi Williams:

So hiring is competitive for sure. More competitive than I have known now, I would say, definitely. It's about looking in the right places though. I think I hear a lot of, and not in any way blowing my own trumpet, but a lot of passive interests. I'll get talking to someone about a talk that I've done somewhere, and then maybe I'll post something up, and then two months later they'll be like, "Oh, you're hiring, that's great. I saw this." So I do find that when it comes to experience hires, it's really important as well as, putting the job ads out there, et cetera, that connection in the community as well. Because I think that's where we've had quite a lot of success. You might get talking to someone about something else, a different topic within the community, and it turns out they're actually interested in how things work, and it evolves from there, which is really helpful for sure.

In terms of training and onboarding, general onboarding is so important to me, especially when we're remote, and we are not all in the same location because I just think it's one thing when you are in an office with people, and you can get to know them, go and sit and spend a bit more time with them. But one thing I've really found is just the little things do make all of the difference. So, Chhavi, one of the product designers at Bumble through me a Harry Potter quiz in my second week, which was just such a nice way just to have some fun, get to know each other without a formal meeting where you feel like, I need to ask the questions, and I need to demonstrate, and represent content design.

So a lot of learnings in just trying to bring through that safe space, making sure people have buddies because not everyone's going to feel comfortable asking their manager things. I totally appreciate that, so I always make sure that people have a buddy on the project, or product they're working on, but also in the content design team that they can lean on for any questions that they've got, anything they need as well as obviously having me there as well. But yes, so many reflections on onboarding people, maintaining that sense of community, and making sure people feel welcomed into the team. I think it's pivotal.

Kristina Halvorson:

So Bumble is a fun app, and I think that everybody's relatively aware of it. I mean, if you haven't used it, one of your friends have used it. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about just for some behind the scenes, what are some recent projects that you've had, or directed within the product that you've worked on?

Candi Williams:

Good, good question. What have we been working on? So one of the projects, actually, one of the first projects that I worked on was adding pronouns to help people add pronouns to their profile. This was a really good example, I think of a content led project, because for me to really be able to understand the importance of pronouns, you have to start asking some questions around gender, and facing into a real focus on gender, and gender identity, gender expression, et cetera. So we worked with a third party, and that was great to really look at how we create inclusive content from perspective gender, so I think some of the things that went hand in hand with that were me really taking the lead on inclusive language guidelines from a perspective of gender, doing a lot of research in that space, making sure we were testing inclusively, et cetera.

This is the thing, what happens if people don't feel represented as well? So how do we have a mechanism where people can add their pronouns if the initial list of pronouns that we've got doesn't have theirs listed, how can they add those in a safe way and feel like we are evolving, listening? Because that's so important to us, we know that gender identity evolves, it's fluid, so we don't want anyone to feel like we are telling you what the options are. We want to hear from people, listen, and adapt accordingly, which is really important.

I think one thing that I've been really loving at the moment is, so it's Lisa Dance's three question framework. So it looks, initially when you're working on projects like that, really focusing in on, firstly, who's not here, who's not in this space, what biases do we bring into this room in this space, who aren't we representing, and how can we make this space as safe as possible? I also understand that not everyone does know the intricacies of gender identity and expression, but how can we have this as a safe space where people feel protected, safe, and also enables people to ask questions within the boundaries of the space, also looking at how well is this going to serve folks that we want it to serve?

Finally, I think looking up front, it's like, what happens if this goes wrong? What are the risks of this, and how can we be clear on those upfront, which I think is such an important perspective that often gets overlooked. So yeah, I think it's been really nice to be able to lead, and work on projects that are very aligned with things important to me, and things that I care about for sure.

Kristina Halvorson:

That's outstanding. I love the way that you call that out in your bio, even waging the good fight for inclusive language. So, that's a wonderful example, thank you. I want to circle back around to, we were talking a little bit about how you were building out, and thinking about, and leading your content team. I know that a topic that has come up recently within the field of content design is content leads, feeling like they want to connect with others, and find support. I mean, there was a post recently written about how it can be a lonely pursuit, trying to build out a content team and establish the discipline within an organization. You have mentioned that you actually are successful in starting to find and connect with, whether it's network, or get support, or share best practices, with other content design leads. Can you talk about that just a little bit?

Candi Williams:

Yeah, of course. So I am very conscious of the fact that I don't know all of the things, and I never will know all of the things. I'm always very open to learning more of the things, and understanding people's perspectives, experiences, et cetera. One thing that I think of this quite frankly, terrible pandemonium we've been through, one of the good things that has come out of that is, I feel like it's opened up the community more. Not that it was ever closed, but I think because conferences have been virtual, we've been chatting on Twitter, et cetera, I feel like it's felt more accessible. As a result of that, I've been able to build connections I didn't necessarily have with great people like yourself, like Jordan from Twitter, like Jon Coleman, Michael and Andy, et cetera, and that has been pivotal for me because sometimes I'll just come up against something where I'm like, I just would love another perspective on that, like career matrixes. What does a great career development framework look like for content design?

Sure, I can go away and have my lay of the land, but I would love other people's perspectives on that. So that's been really positive for me. I feel like probably quite organically it's just happened, and I've just really appreciated having folks to bounce things off of, and to share and to learn together. I am very conscious all the time of wanting to be the best leader I can, and not in a weird egotistical way, but I want to learn how to be a better people leader constantly. I want people to feel supported. I want them to have a sense of growth. I want them to feel a sense of belonging. So I'm very open to understanding from others, and learning from one another. I think that's really positive for sure.

Kristina Halvorson:

Where are you finding folks, is it the events, is it Slack workspaces, is it the conferences, is it all the above?

Candi Williams:

I think conferences were the catalyst, I would say.

Kristina Halvorson:

Which conferences would that be Candi?

Candi Williams:

I don't know, that's all I know. I'm joking. No, well, I've been very open. We could talk about that for a whole podcast, so Button was, I don't even know what year it was now, 2020 maybe?

Kristina Halvorson:

Oh, yeah, 2020.

Candi Williams:

So that was a real turning point for me personally, because I live alone. So I was locked down, lonely in a flat, struggling with quite a lot of things in terms of my mental and emotional health, nowhere near my family. So, talking to people on Twitter, virtual conferences, it gave me a sense of community and connection. Also, probably back then, albeit a very  invisible barrier, I maybe hadn't felt like I could just ask people questions that I've never spoken to before from a completely different area, et cetera. So I think that being part of conferences really helped to break down perhaps some of the perceived boundaries, and barriers I had, and made me feel a lot more confident about being able to ask questions, being able to share. I genuinely think, and I talk about it a lot in some of the people of color spaces, it might sound ridiculous, but Button was a real changing factor in my professional life as a starting point, and the connections were a huge part of that.

Kristina Halvorson:

I don't think that's ridiculous at all. I mean, that is if you are joining us for the first time, my consultancy is Brain Traffic, and we produce two events. We produce Confab: The Content Strategy Conference happening in May, in Minneapolis. If you want to check that out, confabevents.com, there, I got it in. The other is Button: The Content Design Conference, which Candi referred to and it debuted virtually by necessity in 2020. I don't know if anybody knows this, but conferences are not super great money makers, like a huge part of why we want to do that is to create those connections, and to create those safe spaces, and to create launching pads through those conversations because they're necessary for the advancement of the field.

That is a huge place to find that kind of support, and those connections. I think this was the first time we saw the Slack workspaces for these events, just on fire with people, making connections, and creating safe spaces for places to have difficult conversations with like-minded people and peers. So, I don't think it's silly at all. I think it's fantastic. You made mention of making connections, and reaching out in some of the spaces created by, and for people of color. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the shift in the changes that you are seeing within those communities when it comes to barriers to entry or opportunities within the field of content design?

Candi Williams:

Yeah, I can indeed. I was just thinking actually, when you were talking about Slack groups, and there was a people of color Slack group at Button, and some of those people were just, I would class as like, friends for life and incredible professional connections. It was a kind of magic in a way that I had never really seen before. It gave people a safe space within a safe space. I think one of the things that I've loved is, every year I have seen the Slack groups grow, I have seen people that had just joined as their first ever virtual conference go on to be doing incredible talks.

That is so important because let's be honest, a lot of conferences you do not feel represented when you look at the lineup, you do not feel like that's a space for you to go, let alone, talk or share your story. So, the representation it's far from just a buzzword, it is critical. It's just amazing, and I think that's probably one of the things I'm most proud of with the content community is the diversity that I've seen. It's just, it makes me emotional thinking about it. It's just amazing to see people go from strength to strength in their career, to see people have role models, to see people find their voice, have confidence, have opportunities.

Kristina Halvorson:

Candi, speaking of conferences, creating new opportunities, you yourself have stepped up to the plate as a new conference producer, and I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that?

Candi Williams:

Yeah, so I can, of course, so Perspectives, wow.

Kristina Halvorson:

Not Perspectives on conferences, Perspectives, the event.

Candi Williams:

Yeah, Perspectives, the event.

Kristina Halvorson:

To clarify, that's right.

Candi Williams:

So, where did Perspectives: The Content Festival, we're calling it, where did it come from? It came from, it's actually a strange story, so a while ago Nigeria were removed from accessing Twitter, which made me very concerned, especially because I mentor some folks from Nigeria. I know how much Twitter is used to keep up to date with what's going on with content design, design more generally, and unlock resources, help people make those connections, safe opportunities, et cetera. So I was concerned about what folks across Nigeria, not having access to Twitter meant for those opportunities and connections. So I thought, is there another media or platform that we can use to maintain that connection? What we decided to do, I got a few people together to do a Zoom panel, which was just answering people's questions largely around landing a first job in content.

It ended up with about 300 people attending across the world, and they got some really positive feedback, especially from Nigeria, and some of the areas that I'd been really keen that we were connecting with. We wanted to evolve on that, and build on it essentially. There are just the most amazing, awesome content conferences at the moment. So we wanted to hopefully compliment that with a bit of a focus on careers and content. So free from getting your first job, which is a question that comes up again and again, understandably so, free to navigating leadership, and just some of the many challenges that come across those careers and content.

It was a bit of an idea that James from Working in Content, and I had. So the first track, which is all about breaking into content is free. I would definitely encourage anyone early career, looking to understand more to sign on up to that, and I just hope it will bring some youthful insights and support. A real focus on some of the things that we probably don't talk enough about generally, burnout, taking a sabbatical, working part-time, why it's so hard to get that first step in the door, and some things that might help with that, et cetera. So I hope it's going to be good. I'm loving the diversity, it's just been humbling to see.

Kristina Halvorson:

It's going to be spectacular, and I have never seen a conference like this in all my time in content strategy emerge that is specifically focused on what it's called, what James's company is called, working in content. Where the conferences that we've produced, the conferences that I've spoken at have been very largely around the craft, and making things, and the strategy setting, and the stakeholder alignment, so actually doing the thing. I'm really excited about this event. Where can people go to learn more?

Candi Williams:

So, they can head over to the working in content, to www... I feel like a really bad presenter. So, working in content website, and they can find out all of the information on Perspectives there.

Kristina Halvorson:

Let me help you learn how to self promote. It is not many people's strength. So anyway, well, great. Congratulations and best of luck as you move forward with planning the program, and preparing for production. When is that happening?

Candi Williams:

So it's happening across three weeks, so the first one is the end of March 24th and 25th, and then it progresses through with different tracks, which go from landing your first gig in content to becoming a senior, managing people and teams, right through to navigating leadership. Throughout March and April.

Kristina Halvorson:

Wonderful. Well, congratulations on everything that you've got going, you're such an inspiration and it has been such an honor to get to know you over the last couple of years. So delighted to have you here on the podcast. Where can people find out more about you? Again with the self-promotion, I'm opening the door, walk through it Candi.

Candi Williams:

Yeah, wow. Where can people find out more about me? So I'm on LinkedIn, which is the professional takes, opportunities, Bumble, whatnot, what I'm up to. You can also find me, Twitter, I'm @candiwrites, which is a real mix of content takes, a lot of what I've eaten that you didn't ask for, and a lot of crystals and tarot cards.

Kristina Halvorson:

Super good, in fact, your Instagram account, you've got a crystals business on top of everything else that you're doing. What is that?

Candi Williams:

Yes. Oh, I love what you're doing. You're setting me up.

Kristina Halvorson:

I know, I'm almost done.

Candi Williams:

I love it. So Rita Sue Crystals and Healing, which is all about my wonderful witchery from Reiki to crystals, to tarot cards, which is what I spend most of my time doing when I'm not leading content teams.

Kristina Halvorson:

We are 100 percent having a part two that is specifically focused on that. You thought you were here for the content strategy, you're actually here for the crystals and witchcraft, surprise. Candi, thank you so much for your time today. It's a pleasure as always.

Candi Williams:

Thank you, and thank you for everything that you do and everything that you've done. You've made such a difference to so many, and the opportunities that you've opened up for a lot of us do not go unseen, so thank you.

Kristina Halvorson:

Well, you are welcome, and it is an honor and a pleasure. Take care, thanks everybody.

Thanks so much for joining me for this week’s episode of the Content Strategy Podcast. Our podcast is brought to you by Brain Traffic, a content strategy services and events company. It’s produced by Robert Mills with editing from Bare Value. Our transcripts are from REV.com. You can find all kinds of episodes at contentstrategy.com and you can learn more about Brain Traffic at braintraffic.com. See you soon.