Originally published on October 27, 2016 I’ve been in writing/editing roles for my entire career, and I’ve been a professional copywriter since 2011. As any experienced copywriter knows, the actual writing* represents only a small portion of our day. …

Originally published on October 24, 2016 I’ve been seeing more and more articles about Artificial Intelligence technology that promises to churn out marketing copywriting indistinguishable from a human copywriter. One company, Automated Insights, has built a “natural language generation platform that lets you produce human-sounding narratives from data.” Their algorithms…

Originally published October 24, 2016 It’s a common occurrence. In fact, it’s happened at every professional job I’ve ever had. Someone — often, but not always, from outside the Creative or Marketing departments — will come to my desk with panic in her eyes. “I need to write something for…

It took 5 years. Here’s how I did it. — Copywriting has plenty of perks. You get to be creative every day. Investigate new clients and industries. Chat with brilliant subject matter experts. On the best days, you can go to bed knowing you’ve removed confusion from the world and filled the gap with humanity. (And also puns. Or at…

2 innovative metrics and a powerful learning engine are helping Fidelity measure whether our content is inspiring better financial futures — Fidelity has a long history of providing authoritative, credible content on financial topics. But how do we know whether our content is improving our users’ financial standing? For years, Content Strategists adeptly used diagnostic metrics (page views, scroll reach, bounce rates, etc.) to optimize our content. …

As a copywriter and content strategist, I’ve partnered with dozens of talented designers on hundreds of print and digital projects. And I’ve worked within creative teams that range from one extreme (extremely process-oriented, assembly line production) to another (throw the spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks). One constant…

NOTE: This piece was originally published on 5.2.16. /// “So you’ll be, like, a stay-at-home dad?” my brother asked, with a mixture of genuine curiosity and probably a little amusement. “I prefer work-from-home,” I responded. “But, yeah, that’s the plan.” … I was explaining the plans my wife and I…

NOTE: This piece was originally published on 4.5.16. /// At a dinner party a couple of weeks ago, a friend shared the news that his wife is expecting. It’s their first, and, after months of fruitless efforts to adopt, very welcome and joyful news. My friend asked me what piece…

NOTE: This piece was originally published on 2.18.16. /// One of the biggest surprises about the last six months is how easy parenting is. Now, our daughter is barely half a year old right now. She’s still stationary. She drinks from a bottle. She doesn’t talk, so she doesn’t talk…