A conversation with Kasandra Staniscia
Changing jobs is tough, but changing fields entirely can be truly daunting. While it can be scary to think about, it can also be exciting! Just take it from Kasandra Staniscia— journalist turned yoga teacher turned communicator turned content strategist extraordinaire. Talk about an impressive resume! Kasandra is now part of the content strategy team at Yellow Pencil, and we had the chance to talk with her as part of our ongoing series Ask Kobot Anything!
For the uninitiated—what even is content strategy? According to Kasandra, it’s finding the sweet spot between the needs of the organization and the needs of the users. That includes everything from interviewing stakeholders, to conducting user research, to making sure the final product is accessible for everyone. And depending on the size of the shop you work in, the other members of your team, and whether you are in-house or agency, this job can look totally different for each of us.
And how does one get started in content strategy? Everyone I’ve ever talked to has come to this job from a completely different background. There isn’t a direct path, there isn’t a program to study content strategy. There’s no such thing as a “classically-trained content strategist.”
For Kasandra, it definitely wasn’t a linear path. She participated in a guidance counselling course for adults to help her find what she needed in a role and identify what was most important to her. For Kasandra, the workplace and the environment —the teammates and the working relationships—were more important to her job satisfaction than the day-to-day tasks.
The course also didn’t allow applying for jobs online, suggesting students take people for coffee instead. Not to ask for a job, but to have exploratory conversations about what people do and learn more about their industry. In the course of taking people out for coffee, Kasandra got connected to Yellow Pencil, and the rest is history.
To hear Kasandra’s full story more about her work at Yellow Pencil, including the content strategy process for some huuuuge sites, check out the video below! And make sure to follow Kasandra on Twitter for some major content inspo.
For those of you looking to get started in content strategy, or just to expand your horizons, here are some of the amazing resources we talk about during the course of the show.
Sharing the (content) wealth:
Books
- Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson (the godmother of content strategy)
- Content Strategy Toolkit by Meghan Casey (If you’re struggling with a thing, someone has probably already solved it and put it in this book)
Blogs
Pods
Tools
Meetups
- YEG Content Meetup
- DPM Meetup (Not specifically content strategy, but very helpful nonetheless)
Slack Groups
This blog post is based on a recent episode of Ask Kobot Anything, our weekly Instagram Live where we let you ask us, well…anything! Questions or comments about this post, or just want to see something discussed on the show? Email us! And catch Ask Kobot Anything every Friday at 11:30 MST on our Instagram.