Episode 59: Aladrian Goods, Intuit - The role of content in generative AI

Kristina Halvorson:
This is the content strategy podcast and I’m your host, Kristina Halvorson. On each and every episode I interview someone I admire who’s doing meaningful work in content strategy and all its adjacent disciplines. If you care about making content more useful, usable and inclusive for all, welcome in, you have found your people.

Hello, friends. Thank you so much for joining us once again on the Content Strategy Podcast. Wow, do I have a special guest for you today? I'd like to introduce you to Aladrian Goods, and I'm going to tell you a little bit about her now. As a content design manager at Intuit, Aladrian partners with leaders across disciplines, functions and design crafts to elevate opportunities for content design to influence and impact product experiences. This is the best line from a bio I've ever read in my life. To continue, she has a BA in Communication from UC Santa Barbara, and a UX design certification from Career Foundry. Aladrian's powers are storytelling, connecting people, and cultivating inclusive environments. She also loves concerts, traveling, and anything basketball related. Aladrian, welcome to the Content Strategy Podcast.

Aladrian Goods:
Hello. What's up, Kristina? How are you? Super excited to be here.

Kristina Halvorson:
I'm great, and I'm excited for you to be here too. How are you?

Aladrian Goods:
I'm good. You can't see me right now, but I'm literally smiling from ear to ear and my heart is beaming. I feel like a kid.

Kristina Halvorson:
Aw, well, now I'm bouncing up and down out of my chair. Best moment of my entire week. Woohoo.

Aladrian Goods:
Okay.

Kristina Halvorson:
I was saying before we started recording your bio is the most concise, compelling, well worded bio I think I've ever read in my life, and it is in fact, you write for a living. Is that true?

Aladrian Goods:
Yeah, I think it is true. Well, some of my job is writing for a living.

Kristina Halvorson:
We are going to get to that. The thing that I usually start off with in every podcast episode is I ask my guests to share a little bit about their journey to content strategy, and in your case content design. Will you tell us a little bit about that?

Aladrian Goods:

Yeah, absolutely. So I got my degree in communication from UC Santa Barbara, graduated in 2012, and my career started off in Spain where I was teaching students English, but also working on startup projects back in the States. And then when I got back to the States, did marketing, marketing events, some digital marketing, some customer experience type roles at some startups, and ultimately ended up in Texas of all places after getting laid off from a couple of those roles. And when I was in Texas, I got to figure out like, all right, I'm at Square run ground zero. What are some things that I really want to be able to do? And the three jobs that I started off in Texas wasn't anything that I wanted to do. One of them was working at the grocery store, at Kroger's, which is a local grocery store in Texas. The other was opening a football pro shop for the Dallas Cowboys, which was fun, but it was retail. And then the last one was working in the basement of JC Penny, taking phone calls for the stores.

Now, after studying in Santa Barbara working with all these startups and all these exciting spaces, these weren't any of the jobs on my roadmap or things I wanted to do, but it actually showed me what I don't want to do. So I took a quiz online and at the top of that list was UX design. Then there was like writer, musician, artist. Thought those were really cool opportunities and things I actually care a lot about, but I couldn't be a broke artist anymore. So I looked into UX design. That's when I discovered, oh wait, this is the language of stuff I've been trying to do, solving problems and creating solutions for people using technology. But it was more tangible than what I thought design was, like coding in college.

So fast-forward to around, I would say maybe it's like summer 2019 where I was applying for UX roles after completing my design certification and working for two years at Toyota Lexus as a digital communications specialist. LinkedIn recommended the role of content designer or product content designer at Intuit to me. And that was the first time I'd ever heard about content design. But through reading the job description, I'm like, okay, yeah, I know how to write. I know how to match voice and tone. I know UX design principles since I've just finished the certification. Let's go ahead and apply. And I applied, Intuit was the first company to give me a second round of interviews, and it's been a rocket ship ever since.

Kristina Halvorson:

And tell me what you're doing at Intuit now.

Aladrian Goods:

So now at Intuit, I lead a content design team and the virtual expert platform. So our team is dedicated to building the internal productivity tools our experts, whether they're accountants, tax folks, or bookkeepers used to serve Intuit customers, who are either consumers or small businesses. So a lot of my role is making sure my team is aligned to high priority projects that content can really influence and impact. And also just connecting the dots across all of our stakeholders to make sure we got shared meaning, we're using the same words, we know what the use cases are across the different business units, and not just thinking about the language we use within those experiences, but making sure that the teams across are using the same language to communicate to each other.

Kristina Halvorson:

So I actually to start, would like to dig into the mechanics of that a little bit. We tend on the podcast to talk a lot about how folks who are working with content tend to work towards influencing, systematizing, evolving the role of content and content functions within an organization. Somehow that's where we always land. So what you just described sounds like a real combination of advocacy, education, ongoing alignment. Can you tell me a little bit about how you do those things?

Aladrian Goods:

Absolutely. So when I started in this role in January of 2022? Yeah, that's when I started. I basically did discovery. So the team had had content designers before, but it was kind of understaffed. So I asked, I'm like, okay, put together a survey, did some qualitative research to really start to understand the appetite or even understanding of what content design is, how we worked with them before, and the perception of the need for content design. So I interviewed our designers, our PMs, even got some engineering feedback from folks in the organization and taking that info, synthesizing it, I had some themes around, okay, folks think content designers are only about the writing, or folks are including content designers throughout their process. So it was good to see that, but it was helpful for me to frame how I wanted to reintroduce my content design team to VEP or the virtual expert platform like organization.

So that initial part of doing the research and creating frameworks around, "Hey, when we partner, here's how we work together. Think of us as strategic partners. Include us in those conversations. Look to us as someone you can collaborate with, not just provide instruction to. But then when we consult, you have to bring a lot of that information to the table and be really specific with where you need our help. So we can help you," whether it's in our office hours or we have an asynchronous channel where folks, there's a template where folks can add their information and then we kind of collaborate with them via that slack thread.

Kristina Halvorson:

Yeah, so you said office hours. Can you describe what those are?

Aladrian Goods:

Yeah. So office hours, we don't do content specific office hours because our team is a part of, I guess, the center of excellence where we have visual designers, content designers, and design technologists. Because as you know, and I'm sure your listeners know, is that content isn't just one part of the experience. It's a part of the collective experience. So we host those two hours a week, one for our international teams and another hour for our teams in the States where folks can sign up and get feedback from all three of those specialties, and content is also one of the people or one of the functions in that space.

Kristina Halvorson:

And just to clarify, this is around design and content and code for the software as a service experience and product experience?

Aladrian Goods:

Yeah, yeah. Yes, exactly. But it also could... We've had folks bring in decks, for example. We do this end-to-end meeting every month, and sometimes they need help with the information architecture of it, or, "Hey, is this the right sort of framing for this meeting?" So it does vary, but most of the time it is around the UX experience.

Kristina Halvorson:

So one thing that you mentioned as well is that you spend a lot of time sort of helping to connect the dots, and that is a phrase that comes up over and over in conversation and also in the consulting work that I do personally. Whereas these listening tours kind of is what you were talking about when you first landed in this role to pull together what is it that people are needing? Where can we meet a need? How do I want to reintroduce the team? That part of it is just discovering that what somebody else is doing that is completely interdependent with what someone else is doing over here, they have no idea that they're each working on that thing. Can you talk a little bit about when you think about yourself as a content design lead and connecting the dots, how do you keep that communication and that alignment happening over time?

Aladrian Goods:

Yeah, that's a great question, and I think it's something I'm still working on at least that over time piece, but I think it's almost the nature of being a content designer. So just more context, there's three of us, three content designers, and we kind of have our zones where we work on. And because we work with multiple designers and multiple PMs, we're almost uniquely positioned to see the connections, whereas maybe the PMs or the designers are kind of focused on more of their vertical. Yeah, their vertical or the specific feature set that they're working on. So I think how one is being present asking questions? And two is the relationship building between those. So do I have a functioning or a positive relationship with the designers across the studio as well as the PMs, and understand enough of the technical to have those conversations with the product in dev folks as well?

And then I'm thinking about over time how we build that in. I don't know if I have a good answer for that. I'm just thinking of examples like, okay, we do design crit. So I can ask those questions to the designers who are presenting, "Hey, have you considered working with this person around this?" If that makes sense.

Kristina Halvorson:

Yep, you've answered that question exactly. And as you were talking through that, I was thinking, gosh, all right, you've got design, you've got tech, and you've got content at the table co-presenting or holding these office hours. So people come and it's sort of even just by all of you being there in the same room, the folks that you're assisting begin to conceptualize experience design as requiring and meeting all three of these things almost equally, really. That is a relatively unique setup within organizations today, and it's something I think the content strategists and designers everywhere are clamoring for. I have found that sort of manifestation of the experience design process largely is directed by leadership. Can you talk a little bit about values at the leadership level that you see that you think are helping to support that evolution?

Aladrian Goods:

Absolutely. I think the buy-in from our senior leaders, like my VP of design, for content to be a role is super important. And then also having that sort of reinforcement per se to attend these is not optional, but almost like a requirement for being a designer in the studio, is one. And then I think at scale, I just feel really lucky to be a part of the Intuit content design community that folks like Michael Haggerty-Villa kind of spearheaded, and Jennifer Schmidt came in and taught the content strategy in of it, and Tina O'Shea is still holding it down and holding that space for us to be seen as a valid craft is super important. I feel super lucky about that.

And I would also say one of my missions for my team is less about advocating to be at the table or advocating for content design, but actually creating the table. I think... I forgot her name, Relly, said, "We are the table," at Button last year, and other colorful language, but really taking that and getting people to experience the value of content design so they feel it when we're missing.

Kristina Halvorson:

Yeah, that's always... That gap, I always say that once design gets a taste of having content folks there from research on through design and integration and testing, if that goes away, the pain and the loss is palpable, and they usually become advocates for that service.

Aladrian Goods:

Absolutely.

Kristina Halvorson:

You mentioned that Jen came in and taught content strategy. Can you just spend a minute... Just because I think that organizations are still, and we will be for a long time, wrangling content strategy, content design, content marketing, UX writing. Can you just talk about specifically at Intuit, when she came in to teach content strategy, what does that mean?

Aladrian Goods:

So I don't want to minimize she just came in to teach it, but during my first year at Intuit, they put on this content strategy bootcamp. So it was her and Sarah Mos, who's awesome and leads our style council and design systems and stuff. They put together this track of work and people can check it out on contentdesign.intuit.com and just look for content strategy 101. And that was really good to get just a baseline understanding that content design and content strategy aren't just the words or the outcomes at the end, but it's like, okay, when do you use an audit? When do you think about taxonomy? Or just giving more insight to the world of content was super helpful for me when I first started, and it's awesome that it's still here today, even though she's gone to do cool stuff at Spotify.

Kristina Halvorson:

I love that phrase "world of content" because as we wrangle with phrases like unified content strategy, enterprise content strategy, global content strategy, I think that those phrases are really trying to get at that core concept of content is really complicated. And I mean, we always say it's not just the words, right? I mean, it is. There's design, there's the taxonomy, there's the structure, there's the governance. That it's a very, very complicated beast. So I just love that phrase and wish that that's what we could formally call our discipline.

Aladrian Goods:

The world of content.

Kristina Halvorson:

Yeah. So I'm going to totally switch directions here because as we were chatting before I hit record, I sort of asked, what is really getting you out of bed in the morning? And you immediately mentioned the role of content or our role in content in generative AI, which I should have just led with it because everybody is going to want to fast-forward to this part once they hear about it. We have not had that topic on the podcast before, and I know it is top of mind in particular for so many, I think, content design leaders. I think that a lot of our writers are worrying if it's the apocalypse, and I find that people are either completely doom and gloom or they're like, "It'll be fine, it'll be fine. They still will need us." And that there's no real in between. So I'm super interested to have you just talk a little bit about what's going on with you there. What are the questions you're being asked, the things you're digging into. Just hold forth, Aladrian. Go for it.

Aladrian Goods:

Here we go. All right. So yeah, gen AI has kind of taken the world by storm a little bit and some of the questions that I've been asked, not just myself, but there's a group of folks within Intuit, the list is too long to name every single one of them. But the real question we're trying to provoke is how do we ensure our content standards, guidelines, and voice and tone are being applied to this new generated content? And there's a couple ways we've been thinking about this. My initial thought is, one, we definitely need a human aspect of this. That's one thing. Two, that human can't go chasing around all the generated content that is being created across the ecosystem. It's just impossible. It's not going to work. So what's the technical application of that? And then three, what is this training element of our workforce? Or not workforce, but yeah, I guess it is the workforce. The designers, the PMs, the data scientists, even the content designers, on what these tools should be used for and still provide an empowering context for folks who work in the craft of content as well.

So for that human element, there's been this concept of, okay, we know folks have been using tools like Writer. We've been using that at Intuit for a while, and that's been either generating content or at least just getting to know our voice and tone and how do we use that tool, scale the use of that tool so folks who are writing long form articles or help content, it doesn't take them hours in a day, but it takes them 15 minutes to maybe get to a good version one? Like how do we scale those sorts of use cases? So thinking about using Gen AI as a tool to augment the productivity of folks who are writing content while freeing them up to do other things, do audits and do strategy stuff, and think more towards the future rather than be so heads down in writing things that gen AI might be really good at doing for them.

From a technical perspective, there seems to be some opportunity to layer on what we've trained Writer to do to the generative models that we're creating at Intuit to filter the generated responses through our voice and tone guidelines, our word checks, our... Anything. But the big question here, Kristina, is if something's good, does it just show up to the customer? If something's bad, where does that feedback loop go? Right? Is there a new role who needs to pull a report or do they get automated checks? Are they notified in real time that these types of generated content pieces have been flagged? I don't know. Then how does that get back into the model to say, "Hey, these are the better ways to write this content." So that's the technical world there. And then also, again, just building confidence and giving principles and reminding our content designers that this is a tool for you to use and the tool won't replace you, but someone who's more effective with using the tool might be the one to replace you.

Kristina Halvorson:

The idea I think of prompt engineer is a new title that we've heard a lot about over the last couple of months.

Aladrian Goods:

Yeah.

Kristina Halvorson:

Are you all working on developing those prompt writing skills? Is it just trial and error? What's happening there with your team?

Aladrian Goods:

So our teams are testing that a little bit. I don't even know. I feel like it's just English. Prompt engineering just sounds so technical, but you're really just writing a paragraph, if you have a subject, you have an action, you provide the context. I don't know that prompt engineering or prompt designing is that unique of a skillset that is outside of the realm of what content designers do already. Yeah, there's some folks like having discussions. There's a lot of stuff going on in that space, but my head's been less focused in that world and more focused in how do we scale the application of our style guide that we've already put so much time and energy to. Yeah, so I'm kind of more upstream.

Kristina Halvorson:

Yeah.

Aladrian Goods:

Does that make sense?

Kristina Halvorson:

... That is one of the big promises I think of AI within organizations, or at least it has been for a while, which is just to almost automate the style guide so that it is just showing up as people are writing themselves, whether it is a red flag or a prompt or a suggestion or so on. I think we've seen that really on a variety of tools play out nicely. Of course, the challenge there is still process, in my mind. If somebody is ignoring the style guide, what happens then? Does somebody have authority to push back and say, "No, this can't go live"? If people have questions or exceptions to the style guide, where and who do they take those to? So I just see that there's still a lot of uncertainty around there and that one of the only ways that people have sort of tried to figure out how to control that is just almost by clamping down on authority of content ownership, which has its own challenges and pitfalls as well.

Aladrian Goods:

Absolutely. And I guess the caveat I should have had said is, all this is still provocation and still thoughts and really my point of view, not the point of view of the company on this.

Kristina Halvorson:

Sorry, I should actually start off with do you agree that this is just the point of the company? Send that right over to legal. It's fine. The conversation is fine. Everything we're saying is harmless.

Aladrian Goods:

Yeah, we're good.

Kristina Halvorson:

Intuit is the best. So this leads a little bit into this other topic that we wanted to touch on, which is really talking about how the field of content design is evolving or how or where it should evolve. You and I both have been in conversation with a variety of content design leads from different industries and products and so on, and there seemed to be sort of common concerns and common aspirations among this community of leaders. Do you want to talk a little bit about yours?

Aladrian Goods:

Yeah, I think just thinking about this generative space, I think content designers evolve into leaders of this space as the strategist of understanding when do we apply this and when do we don't? I think there's also this opportunity for content designers to evolve into more design leadership style roles as well. Not just being so focused and niche on content design, but I think having that depth of perspective, but be able to speak to research, be able to speak to visual, be able to speak to some of the technical and business aspects of it. We have that unique gift of storytelling and framing of information that may make us make more influential in those roles.

And then as far as the generative space, I just think there's new roles that are emerging that we probably just don't even know exist yet. So how do we train those models? How do we make sure the inputs or the information... That the data that's going into it is actually quality and information and factual and try to be free of bias? Content designers can kind of be further up the funnel rather than living at the end in the sort of fear, anxiety that this tool or this technology is going to replace them. How do you move up to the front end to influence what those outputs are at the back end? I think we're uniquely positioned to do that.

Kristina Halvorson:

Really the thing that you just said about wielding our storytelling skills in order to build influence or even more importantly, lead. I wonder, can you talk a little bit about... Actually, let me back up. When we talk about content design having, or content designers being able to evolve into more leadership roles within an organization, we're really there talking about within an experience design organization. Who's leading product design and-

Aladrian Goods:

Yeah, that's right.

Kristina Halvorson:

... And development? So can you talk a little bit about what are the common characteristics then of leaders within those organizations or within those teams in a company? Where whether or not you're design or engineering or content, there's some commonalities that we share at that level that allow us to step into a leadership position. And whether it's values or skills. I mean, I definitely think storytelling is in there. Can you talk a little bit, what do you think about that?

Aladrian Goods:

Yeah, when I think about the things that have changed for me from going from an individual contributor to a design leader, I still think about the design and the experience and the customer problems that we're solving. But the level that I'm thinking now is people, process, and technology. So from the people perspective, it's just like, okay, cool. Who are the teams? Who are the folks that are on our teams? How is their wellbeing? How are they... The collaboration and the culture and the environment set up to make sure that people are able to succeed and thrive and have the things they need to be successful? When it comes to process, process is like, okay, how do we actually get the thing done? And is there opportunities to be more effective or efficient in those processes? And then technology aspect of it is things like new technologies, generative AI, whatever, that's the topic. But also how do we use technology to solve some of those problems?

And I think those three buckets is what ties design leadership to design or to leadership in general. I think that's where that kind of ties all the crafts together in a sense. Yeah, I think that's kind of where my mind went for that. If you want to talk about just skills, I think the storytelling one is good, relationship building for sure. And then a strong understanding of what the business goals are and understanding what's in your sort of locus of control and realm of influence that you can have an impact towards it? One thing I've realized is that, okay, some of the things that I may be gung ho passionate about, it might be super important, but maybe the timing isn't correct. Or maybe I didn't bring it up in the right meeting, or maybe I didn't have the right conversation with the right person. And I think sometimes you just need to learn that as you go and yeah, I don't know. Does that answer your question?

Kristina Halvorson:

Oh, that was gold. That was great. That was amazing. Thank you so much. Having said that, we are just about out of time. I wonder, and I'm putting you on the spot here, but can you off the top of your head, tell me where are you finding conversation and inspiration, education around these topics that you're learning about and growing into?

Aladrian Goods:

Yes, that is a great question. I think inspiration around these topics, I mean, the content and design community is awesome. I know a girl, Chelsea Larsson just wrote something up about gen AI and content as it relates to the work they've been doing at Expedia. I'm in a bunch of different content channels. I guess off the top of my head, the Tempo one, Rachel McConnell runs that group. The Manager Club, which Chelsea runs too, has been a good place. And honestly, just a lot of smart people work at Intuit. A lot of smart people work at Intuit and I've been partnering with a content designer in our futures team, Julia Falkowski and Patricia Swesey. I hope I didn't ruin her name. Patricia, forgive me. Who've been really asking these questions like provocative questions and just creating the space for inquiry. So I guess I would encourage anyone who has interest in this topic, no one knows really what they're talking about, so keep asking the questions, keep having the conversations, and really try to establish a point of view on this.

And the last shout I want to give out to is Morgan Quinn, because I think when we met earlier this year, she's the one who really unlocked the understanding for me and how these things are actually built to really lay the foundation to be able to plug in and understand where those sort of points of influence should be versus just being at the mercy of it taking over our lives.

Kristina Halvorson:

So listeners, Morgan Quinn works at Google and I'm working on it. Hopefully we'll be chatting with her soon. Just stay tuned. Terrific. Aladrian, where can folks find you online?

Aladrian Goods:

You can find me on the internet. I'm on LinkedIn. Feel free to hit me up. I'm on Twitter tweeting about ridiculous random stuff. Sometimes content design, but mostly not. My Twitter handle is Aladrianno_l. My middle name is Noel, but I also like the No L, like never lost, no lines, whatever. And yeah, I'm on Instagram at aladrian_noel, N O E L. So yeah, hit me up.

Kristina Halvorson:

Thank you so much for being with us, Aladrian. You're the very best.

Aladrian Goods:

Yeah, this was fun. Thanks for having me.

Kristina Halvorson:
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.