Episode 36: Laura Barnes

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Transcript

Andy Vitale:

Lisa today, our episode with Laura Barnes, it really hit home for me. It was her story, it was almost like so close to my own that it was so inspiring yet so like a chance for self-reflection at the same time and had so much goodness around her history and content and where it sits and how organizations can really look to leverage content in ways that maybe not typically are done.

Lisa Welchman:

Yeah. I really loved hearing about her journey through advertising into content, into website content and her perspective on management and leadership, which I think is really, really relevant in the content world. We've been talking earlier about some of the similar dynamics in the design world of just when do you stop being a designer and lead? When do you stop being a content strategist and lead and some of those dynamics? So I think this conversation's going to be really interesting to folks, so I hope everybody enjoys it.

Laura Barnes, thank you so much for joining Andy and I on Surfacing. I've really, really been looking forward to this conversation. I want to say you and I go way back, but we don't really go way back, but we've worked together and I've always enjoyed working together and so you were definitely a person on top of list for me when we were talking about who to interview for season two. So welcome.

Laura Barnes:

Thank you so much. I love this podcast. I learned so much from it and I just feel really lucky to be here, especially after all we've been through together in our governance journey.

Lisa Welchman:

There you go. So this season we're focusing on the individuals. So just for starters, it would be really great to hear about what your current role is and how you got into that job.

Laura Barnes:

Well, right now my title is senior director Content Strategy, and so right now that's the title. The role is I lead a content team within a new team, which was formed in January, brand Experience and Corp Comms. So my team was moved within corporate communications in January. So we are responsible for messaging, creating corporate assets, translations, SEO, and then content strategy for redhat.com, our community websites and the Red Hat blog, so that's new as of January. So we have a couple more properties on our team now, web properties. But it's interesting when you're thinking about this season and how you want to focus on practitioners, I'm not a digital native, a lot of us aren't, and so I started my career. I really was thinking about broadcast journalism and just really into journalism. So I loved hearing stories about, but the telling of the story wasn't really my thing, it was the hearing of the story.

I just loved to hear people's stories and when I was really young, I had a subscription to People Magazine, which is so weird to me. I don't know why I was really into people's stories. So I studied newspaper writing and wrote for college newspapers. I was the editor of my college newspaper and then went to school, got for a journalism degree, got my journalism degree, and then soon went into advertising. I got an internship at an ad agency, so that wasn't really my goal, but when I started and as we all do, we started looking at making a living, my goal was not to go back home again. I was not going back home again. That's the goal. So my salary was higher in advertising than it was in journalism. I was actually offered a job at a paper in Augusta, Georgia, and I said no.

So I worked in advertising as a writer for many years in Charlotte and then I decided to go to grad school because I realized I was self-taught. So went talked to a few creative directors and said, "I'm thinking about this." So they pointed me toward what is now the brand center. At the time it was the ad center in Richmond, Virginia, and I will never forget sitting in the parking lot of my agency I work for and hearing the director of the ad center tell me, I got in and I think it was in the second class, they had official class for the ad center. It's a two year school, went through grad school and got a job at the Martin Agency in Richmond and then moved on.

So from there the career was, it was hardcore advertising, hardcore copywriting. I learned so much about creativity and all the things, but then I started moving into management. So I went on to work for a design firm as a creative director and just was management, management, management. And then I volunteered with AIGA, do you know A I G A, the national organization. Okay. So I volunteered with AIGA and ended up, and that was 11 years with AIGA in board positions. So I was eventually president of AIGA and Raleigh. So that was also, I think the career path also, your learning comes from not only your job but your volunteer work and or where your professional volunteering, which I think is an interesting track too to follow.

So I learned so much at AIGA about leading people and it connected me to people at Red Hat where I work now because there were a lot of people from Red Hat, which is headquartered in Raleigh, a global software company. A lot of folks at Red Hat at AIGA. So it made that connection too, which was cool. So when I started at Red Hat, I was actually hired as a brand writer, but the week before I started, a giant reorg happened in marketing and I was asked to lead a content team. Yeah. So that's the origin story.

Lisa Welchman:

Did that happen after you'd been hired and accepted, or what came first, the chicken or the egg on that one? Or did you just show up and find out you had a different job than the one you had said yes to?

Laura Barnes:

I mean, so I had a weird wonky schedule where I was working at actually SaaS, which is another software company.

Lisa Welchman:

Yeah. Oh my gosh, I remember them. I worked with them for a bit. That's funny. All the southern North Carolina companies.

Laura Barnes:

That's right. I've worked for them all. But no, I was working at SaaS, so I gave my two-week notice, but I took a week off and then I went back to work just because of scheduling. I had a beach holiday or something so. So had my week off and then went back to SaaS to work the week, and then I was going to go straight to Red Hat and the week I went back to SaaS, my then boss called me and said, Hey, got some good news for you, but it said switch, we just had a reorg. You're not going to report to me, you're going to report to someone else, but you're going to lead a team. You're going to be a manager.

So I'm the person when somebody puts that in front of me. I don't know why, but I'm just like, "Yes, give me the ball." I'm just like, "Yes." So I was very excited and I was nervous because I had a new boss and I thought, well, I don't know who this person is, but otherwise I thought, "Okay. This is cool because I've managed people before, so cool with this." But yeah, that's how it worked out.

Andy Vitale:

That's awesome. It's so interesting to hear that journey because it reminds me so much of my own. I went back to school also to get my master's degree because I wanted that foundational knowledge because I was self-taught and I wanted that confidence in how I articulate my decisions. But then I've also worked with AIGA and head board member spot in the Minnesota chapter. But hearing that just the entire journey, I'm like, "Wow. That's so similar to mine." I'm curious, based on this journey, what seemingly unrelated skill or expertise have that has helped you and guided you along that journey and makes you successful in your job today?

Laura Barnes:

Well, where I stopped in the journey was now I'm a leader of a content strategy really. So I don't know if it's unrelated. I thought I have thought about things I've learned along the way starting out as a creative copywriter and then going to digital. And I think the creative process, I learned a lot of fundamentals in grad school and it's like I always go back to them. I will shout out to my copywriting Professor Kaz Kotsius and my second year Professor Jelly Helm who taught me these fundamental skills such as, and I always go back to them. It's bringing two seemingly different things together is creativity. So you think about, and it can happen in any facet of your life. So it doesn't have to be creative writing or copywriting or conceptual ads. It can be in digital work.

So there's something about that I love about the science of content strategy, the data and how you can rely on that. Because honestly, when you're in a creative work, it's so hard to be in the gray area all the time. And creativity is so subjective. It's really when you're selling your ideas, I feel like what I've learned is that that creativity is still there. But for me, the bringing in that structure of data has grounded me in a way that I feel like I'm not always untethered and just like, "Well, if they don't like my idea, then I'm terrible and I'm not good at my job."

Andy Vitale:

Based on what you had just said in earlier when you talked about where your team is positioned, it's super interesting to me to have that content strategy team that's focused on brand, which makes total sense. And being in corporate comms, I've worked in places where corporate comms has been small teams and relying on so many other groups to help put things together and how do we tell the story? And it turns into more how do we become more defensive about our corporate comms as opposed to how do we create and craft this strategy to really push our company and our brand forward in ways that are beneficial to us for attracting talent, for retaining talent, for market share. So just super curious, being in that place, the strategy behind putting content strategy and focusing on that in such maybe uncommon for a lot of companies place. Curious your thoughts on that.

Laura Barnes:

I have studied your conversations on your podcast about where digital sits, different teams sit within an organization, and Lisa and I have talked about that in our governance conversations, where do people sit? So I think it's really interesting to even to have an org chart with every guest because can you imagine at the end of your series, where does sit that we interviewed this year? I think that would be an interesting exercise. But yeah, so when we moved, or I think it's interesting, the origin story of the team where it started in Markcom. So Markcom had content and design and PR/AR and customer references these teams. And then over time, our leader of Corp Comms became a VP and our head of digital experience became a VP. And I'm content and I moved from Markcom over to Corp Comm. So that tells you where I sit.

So I sit with PR/AR, these folks who and brand. So brand is creative and design, and then I have content. So copywriting sits with brand and I have the digital content side of it. And I think it's really interesting because we're meeting next week. Our leadership team meeting next week to have an offsite, we're going to talk a lot about business strategy, corporate strategy, and how the website sits squarely within supporting that. A lot of times, especially in a software company, the business units, the product teams, when I say product, I mean actual software product, not the digital product, but it's getting to be a digital product. It is a SaaS. We're becoming more of a SaaS company. The BUs, product teams, when I first joined Red Hat their message was running everything. It was like we had 17 different campaigns.

So we over time have been level up, level up the message to a portfolio story, but right now we're really looking at the hierarchy of all of this. So brand and then the brand is closely tied to of course for us it's cloud, a cloud story, open hybrid cloud is what we call our technology vision. So that maps in and then the product story level up to that. So my team does a lot of sorting of that. When you think about the information architecture of redhat.com and how all that fits together, we're constantly sorting that. And sometimes it looks like teams on the ground with be business units saying my product story, my product story, here it is, tell it. But then we have to make that make sense within the full story of what Red Hat offers as any marketing team would do, but then up to the brand. So it's a very interesting place to sit, and we're right there with PR and AR and understanding not only what we want to talk about, but how it's resonating with the industry. With AR especially.

Lisa Welchman:

There's two things that are clinging on as we move into this third question. One is Lisa's pet peeve, which is the disintegration of content and platform and software and code. So which is what I like, yay content. I'm not saying anything bad about content, yay content. And most of the trouble that we get into online is this disconnect between the code and the data and the content. People think these are different things when it's actually one entity in and of itself, and there's a lot of ignorance in these silos around what's going on. So holistically, no one actually knows what's going on. So that goes to my second thing, which is around a word that you used, which is hierarchy. So when you think about the hierarchy of content or hierarchy of anything in a digital system, I like to think of it more systemically.

So depending on what you are trying to do at any given moment, what I am trying to do as a potential Red Hat customer, the hierarchy is very, very different. What's important and what is not important isn't about what you all think it is. It's about what I think, which means it's constantly relational, constantly shifting, constantly. It's relative. It's relative to what it is that I'm trying to get done. Which is why I think it makes it so difficult because you can't definitively say, "This is the most important thing. That's the most important thing." And which is why everybody gets organizationally focused on it. Based on what my business unit's trying to do, I think this particular piece of content's more important, which then harks back to user center design, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that's my little treatise of just what I have to say based on what you said.

But that inability for anyone not dinging you, anyone to be able to manage, look at and perceive content and information in this way is what I think causes a tremendous amount of harm. Harm for the organization because they can't actually use what they have in the most effective way harm for individuals because people serve up information in ways that aren't sensible or they use data in ways that violate people's privacy or don't make sense, or they use data sets that are incoherent.

So when you think about that as a leader of a content team, what's in your wheelhouse? What do you do? What can you do to help diminish some of those negative dynamics, not the ones that I just described, but any other ones that you could potentially see? I know that was a long-winded Lisa moment, but I haven't had one too much yet this season. But I think you're picking up when I'm putting down. People can't see you, but I see you nodding your head.

Laura Barnes:

I'm picking it up. No, I do. I am. Yeah. So a couple of things I think about a lot are the political nature of websites. Sometimes that manifests itself in people having a website who don't know how to run a website, but they need the website because it feels like it is because, and I don't want to be judgmental there. It could be just this place of, I don't know how else to get my message out, and they almost see a website as a brochure. It's like, I need my brochure out there, I need my story, and I either have a hard time getting that work done or it feels like I need this thing. And the other thing is how we communicate, and this is not 100% related.

Well, maybe it is related to what you said, but I'm really keying in on the fact that there's so much jargon. And I don't mean this as a style guide thing. I mean the way we communicate, we're almost afraid to be authentic and clear, and when we're not, it causes so much confusion and strife. And I talked to my leadership team last week and I was like, I really want to focus on communicating and using the word accessible along with it. Accessible communication, be accessible language and content. Accessibility can be a DEI message. It can also be just a comms message. I talked to my-

Lisa Welchman:

A common sense, yeah. Use language people understand

Laura Barnes:

100%. So these are two things I think about a lot. The other underlying piece of this is they're fluid. We talk a lot about the what's not fluid is the platform stack.

Lisa Welchman:

A stack. Yeah.

Laura Barnes:

That's right. But what's on top is fluid. So people need to not think of a page as a thing that sits there. Again, like a brochure. I want to get across that concept of the fluidity and the layered nature of digital and what it can do. So I've been talking to my team a lot about the organic state of things and then the personalized state of things and how we can be the editorial for the organic state of things. Anyway, so those are some things I've thought-

Lisa Welchman:

Say more about that. But I like that concept. So there's the organic and what was the second one?

Laura Barnes:

And then there's the personalized state. I don't know who you are and I'm, I'm going to connect with you because I don't know who you are, but somehow we've connected maybe through an organic state, and then I know you a little bit better and I'm going to deliver something, that sort of thing.

Lisa Welchman:

Yeah, I mean, this is really fascinating to me and I really appreciate you bringing up this. One of my other pet peeves, which is people often talk about the speed of moving at the speed of digital. And I'm like, okay, there's a bunch of stuff that moves really fast content's one of them extremely fluid, it's moving on top. And then there are things that just hardly ever change. And I think the deeper you get into the technological stack, the more unlikely things are going to be to change rapidly. The exception to that rule is something that you already mentioned, which is this move to the cloud. There are a lot of infrastructure components that used to be super hard that have now moved into the cloud, but once it's there, it's not like that's changing every day either. So I think that's really fascinating.

So I think people use that speed as an opportunity not to... Well, I'll use my own language. Not to govern will, not to actually take ad advantage of that. And I'm wondering if you think there's any risk in that arena, in the content world, from what you can see talking to other content design people of just using that as a cop, not on your team of course, but using that as a cop out to not do a good job basically. It's moving fast. It's disposable. It's just going to move on or whatever. What does that all mean to you?

Laura Barnes:

Yeah, that's a good question. I don't see the disposable nature. Where I see disposable is a landing page that people forget about and then it's still there two years from now and it's outdated and that kind of thing where it's the forgotten... It serves a purpose, and then it's over here. And people don't think about it anymore. They don't think about and they don't see it. It's like not a pile of paper in their house where they know that they've got a shredded or recycle it because somebody's going to see it and it's going to do damage. But that I see a lot. That landing page that just floats out into space and it's still there and never goes away. People don't think about the lifecycle management of content.

Lisa Welchman:

It's the ROT, the redundant, outdated, trivial stuff.

Laura Barnes:

I see that a lot. So that happens and it's getting better. It's definitely getting better, but it happens. So one of the things I hear people say, especially in content is, "Hey Laura. We're not trying to be perfect here, so don't try to make this perfect." And I always say back, "I don't want perfection." Where digital gets perfect is when we test, to me. Testing here is where I'd like to see us do more. So I think sometimes we can't get to an answer. And I think that's the purpose of digital. Yes, we don't know the answer. That's the truth. That is where we are most of the time is we don't quite know the answer. And that's great because what that leaves room for is people. I always say data is people telling us what they think.

They're just giving us their opinion. Data is people's opinions coming at us or their experience coming at us. So that's the beauty of digital should always be in a space of, I don't know or what if, and I'd like to see us get there. Sometimes we get too wrapped up in, well, it's budget season or we got deadlines. But what if is where people should bring that to digital. So I guess when you're asking about the speed, to me, the way to check speed is with testing. Say, yeah, you want to do it fast. Well, let's try this and that and see what people think, and then we'll decide if it's right or not. Because a lot of arm wrestling, and when I first joined Red Hat, now I think many people have this experience. There was a phrase who holds the pin. And it just made me so nervous because I was like, "Okay. I don't think that's the question. The question is how do we get to the best content with the skills that we have combined?"

Lisa Welchman:

Which is very user focused. It's interesting, it's user focused and it's organizationally focused. If you get to that best content, it's going to serve the purpose. The other one is about who has power inside the org. And it's a subtle difference, but I think it makes all the difference. But anyhow, I've used up my questioning time. I'm going to turn it over to Andy who's sitting there patiently.

Andy Vitale:

Yeah, no. So Laura, you've given us a lot of goodness, a lot of tips for you wish someone had told you when you started out on this journey.

Laura Barnes:

I read something recently where they said, I think, I don't know if it was Harvard Business Journal or something I saw on Instagram, but it was that, "Be careful about the work ethic you set when you're 25, because that will sit with you the rest of your life." And I thought about that a lot. And I don't have kids, and so I didn't have that governor of that life change where you have to shift. So I've always worked really, really hard. So that balance of my life and my work, my work has been my life. And that's a little frightening sometimes. I'm like, "Well, do I ever retire?" Probably not. So I do think people need to think about the setting the tone for how they live their lives and work early and what that might look like too. I thought about this a lot too, is when do you switch jobs?

Because that is a big upheaval. And I think the longer you're in a role, the more this big jump happens where you're just like... I just hired someone. And he said, "This was a big effort to switch jobs. It was a lot." And he was like, "It's just getting harder for me." So I think you just have to think about... There's a lot of things I did. Actually, I'm lucky. There's a lot of things I think I did really well. I mean, honestly. I'm just going to say it. I've always been a learner. I've always been ready to jump and do something new and just yes give it to me. Those are things I think I'm happy about.

But the challenge I saw was just working myself especially in creative. When you're working at the Martin Agency and I remember sleeping on sofas in the office, and I don't necessarily regret that, but I think it's important not to do that forever and to take care of yourself along the way, whatever that looks like.

Andy Vitale:

So I love that. I think that's a great tip and advice for people listening. And I can't thank you enough. It hits me at home.

Lisa Welchman:

Yeah, I mean, think it's fascinating and I'm always it depends, Lisa. I'm writing a blog post right now and I'm trying to justify, it depends and justify relativity as I was talking about earlier. And I think one of the interesting things it's you and Andy do have a lot in common. I'm listening and I'm going like, "Wow, this sounds like Andy," as much as I know about Andy, you guys should hang because you guys have a lot in common and a lot of similar dynamics. But I think there's just room for everybody, and there's room for a lot of different ways of being. And I think that inclusivity of somebody who's got to leave and go pick up their kids from daycare or me, I was an entrepreneur and a single mom all at the same time, which was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Yeah. And I think about that now and wonder how I even did that.

I guess what I'm really saying is there's no shame in working hard. There's no shame in having very little work, work-life balance if you really enjoy your job. And there's room for people who have jobs where maybe they're not actualizing themselves completely in the work that they go to every day because they do. And as you mentioned earlier, an incredible amount of volunteer work. Or maybe they do something with their faith organization if that's what's up there. And I think the beauty of it is we make space for all of it because all of those different perspectives and ways of thinking are going to feed the content that you're creating. It's going to create that inclusivity and diverse perspective inside an organization that we need.

If everybody's workaholic, it's not reality. And then you're not going to be able to create information in a system for everybody in the world. So I think that's really great. I appreciate both of you all, so just as you are. And you shouldn't dis yourself too much. But yes, Andy, you should drink your water because that's just good for anybody. But anyhow, thank you so much, Laura. I really, really appreciate this time with you. It's good to hear more about you. We've worked together professionally, but never really had a chance to hear about your background, so it was great to hear more about you.

Laura Barnes:

Thank you so much. That's a huge compliment. I really appreciate it. Really enjoyed meeting you too, Andy. I've heard a lot about you and I didn't put our AIGA roots together, but that's really cool.

Andy Vitale:

Yeah, no, awesome. And we'll definitely find a way to get together in North Carolina.

Laura Barnes:

Yeah. I know you're busy. Lisa's been telling me. Yeah.

Lisa Welchman:

I think Barb Barbecue would be something. I know Andy eats barbecue. I don't know if you eat barbecue, Laura.

Laura Barnes:

I'm a pescatarian-ish.

Lisa Welchman:

We'll find some fish to barbecue.

Laura Barnes:

Yeah.

Lisa Welchman:

Anyhow, well thanks again.

Laura Barnes:

Thank you.

Andy Vitale:

Yeah. Thanks so much.

Laura Barnes:

I just love talking to you all, and I've been listening to your podcast, so I'm just ready for the season. I really am. I love it. So thank you. You're helping my team a lot.

Andy Vitale:

Awesome.