Model Thinking
Model Thinking is for people who work where content, systems, and design meet.Each issue connects ideas across content strategy, content modeling, and content management system design with a focus on what actually works in practice.
The misdiagnosed relationship between structure and creativity
Issue 30 The misdiagnosed relationship between structure and creativity I’ve worked on projects that brought structured content models to dozens of content creators, and the most common pushback I’ve heard from them is that structured content kills creativity. Usually this comes from people trained in traditional writing disciplines. I see two problems with this: Creating content in a business isn’t about being creative for creativity’s sake. It’s about achieving business goals and meeting...
“Bring solutions, not problems” has a hidden cost
Issue 29 “Bring solutions, not problems” has a hidden cost We were in the midst of a large digital transformation project that we had pitched to upper management. They saw the strategic need and funded our work. Some stakeholders were aligned but others wanted to keep working the way they had—but in a new tool. Process was slow as we uncovered the root problems to solve and gained buy-in. At some point, upper management became impatient (rightly so, I’d add) with the progress and started...
Who has the authority to stop content at your company?
Issue 28 Who has the authority to stop content at your company? Before my career in the tech sector, I was the managing editor of a small weekly newspaper. I had a number of duties, but one of them was making sure that stories were well-reported and ready to be published. Occasionally I would hold stories for a few issues so that we could finalize them. And, I suppose, there were a few stories that we never did publish. Fast forward a bit, and I’ve spent most of 20 years in software companies...
Cursor, vibe coding, and the hidden cost of simplicity
Issue 27 What to make of Cursor dumping its CMS for a vibe-coded site My corner of the internet lit up in the last week talking about how artificial intelligence (AI) company Cursor dumped its content management system (CMS), thanks to its AI-powered coding tools. Lee Robinson, a developer and educator with Cursor, wrote an article about what he had done and why. I migrated cursor.com from a CMS to raw code and Markdown. I had estimated it would take a few weeks, but was able to finish the...
What readers really want to know about content strategy
Issue 26 Reader Q & A As teased in Issue 25, I’m celebrating Issue 26 as the one-year anniversary of the Model Thinking newsletter. It’s hard for me to believe that the time has gone so quickly! For this milestone, I put out a call for questions from readers, and I’m going to answer them in this week’s issue. Thanks to those who sent something. If you like this idea, I’m opening an ongoing form for reader questions that I’ll occasionally answer. Managing internal knowledge My new job uses...
Your turn to steer the conversation
Issue 25 Help shape the 1-year anniversary issue of Model Thinking Next issue will mark 1 year of this newsletter. For this one, I want you to steer the conversation: Ask me anything. If you want to know more about running my own business, writing and growing this newsletter, more about past topics, career paths, industry trends, Austin FC, books I’ve read, whatever—send it my way. AMA, as they say. As you probably know, Model Thinking comes out every other week. Through 28,000+ words, I’ve...
Audits are overrated
Issue 24 Two weeks ago, your company had a big reorganization and you’re a content strategist joining a new team that you’ve never worked with before. You’re just itching to conduct a content audit of the pages on the company website that your team owns. Not a bad step, right? It’s a logical starting point, and you need visibility into what you’re working on. An audit is a great tool to do that. And, of course, an audit gives you some data points about the quality of your content experience,...
What others are getting right about AI and content systems
Issue 23 From other smart minds Last issue was the longest issue of Model Thinking yet. There was a lot there, and to be honest, I’m still recovering from pulling all that together. So I thought I’d do a round up of some valuable writing by others in related spaces. Rounding up some valuable writing. Cattle roundups are a spring thing, but content roundups can happen any time. The Coming Collapse of Corporate Knowledge: How AI Is Eating Its Own Brain Michael Iantosca writes about how human...
Content engineer: genius, myth, or marketing magic?
Issue 22 Fair warning: This is the longest newsletter issue I’ve published. Buckle up! TL;DR Content engineering started as structure, semantics, and systems to make content scalable and reusable. Marketers now sometimes use it to mean AI-powered content production. Both definitions are valid, but mixing them can cause confusion, mis-hires, and undervalued foundations. Traditional content engineering is still essential for scaling, personalization, and managing enterprise-level content. The...
Where content strategy, content design, and content engineering overlap
Issue 21 Imagine one day you stroll into your content strategy job at Acme SaaS Corp, ready to run some audits, lead a workshop, and pop into some weekly meetings, but first you join the company all-hands meeting and you hear about the company’s new “premium” offering that will bring additional functionality to higher-paying customers of your SaaS software product. With your most strategic hat on (is that a helmet? A fedora? Interesting side trail …), you immediately start thinking that...
Model Thinking is for people who work where content, systems, and design meet.Each issue connects ideas across content strategy, content modeling, and content management system design with a focus on what actually works in practice.