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Patrick Stafford Patrick Stafford has a unique view of the state of content work in the fields of UX design and product management. As the CEO of the UX Writers Collective, his livelihood depends on understanding where the profession is going, which skills are in demand, and how writers and designers can best prepare themselves for UX writing and content design careers. We talked about: his new role as CEO at the UX Writers Collective the current scope of courses they offer and their plans for the future the range of students that the UX Writers Collective serves how he demonstrates the benefits of UX writing to designers the range of job responsibilities and job titles associated with product and UX content work the importance of adopting a content strategy mindset regardless of your role how to build your content strategy thinking muscle the growth of the UX writing profession and salaries the growing body of skills you need to be a UX writer now the variety of pathways into a content design/UX writing career his desire to see more UX designers in design-management roles and less developer-centrism in product management the benefits of a T-shaped skills set for any design professional the need for ongoing learning and professional development to keep up as expectations for the profession rise Patrick's bio Patrick Stafford is the CEO and cofounder of the UX Writers Collective. He is a former Lead Digital Copywriter for MYOB, the largest accounting software provider in Australia, and has consulted with several businesses on UX content strategy. He also hosts the podcast Writers of Silicon Valley, which features interviews with UX writers and content strategists. Follow Patrick online UX Writers Collective Twitter Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/OHu4gf_-WO8 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 94. Patrick Stafford knows the fields of UX writing, content design, and content strategy better than most. As the CEO of the UX Writers Collective, he carefully follows the UX and content professions to determine how to design and develop courses for them. As a UX writer and content strategist himself, he has developed some well-informed opinions about the importance of content-strategy thinking and about how he'd like to see the field develop. Interview transcript Larry: Hey everyone. Welcome to episode 94 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Patrick Stafford. Patrick has recently ascended to the position of CEO at the UX Writers Collective. And it wasn't just that that I wanted to have him on the show. He's a font of useful information about UX writing and that whole field. So welcome, Patrick. Tell the folks a little bit more about your role there at the UX Writers Collective and what you're up to. Patrick: Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. I recently took the position of CEO at the UX Writers Collective. We sell education and training courses in UX writing and related disciplines like content testing and chatbot design, and a number of other courses. Prior to that, I was the lead digital copywriter at MYOB, which is Australia's largest accounting software company. Digital copywriter is a weird title. And I know we'll probably talk about that in a little bit. But it's essentially a content strategist. And so I worked on a number of initiatives there related to logged-out states and a few web apps and things like that. I've also conducted a number of freelance UX writing and content strategy projects in my time for a number of consultancies and organizations down in Australia. But yeah, most of my time now, well, in fact, all of my time is now running and growing the UX Writers Collective. Larry: Okay, well, let's start there. Because I've been following you I think since pretty much the start,