Timi Stoop-Alcala: Knowledge Domain Modeling and Content Advocacy – Episode 195

Timi Stoop-Alcala When the concept of "content" comes up it can be hard to get everyone aligned on exactly what you're talking about. At IKEA, Timi Stoop-Alcala focuses on the "what" of content via the practice of knowledge domain modeling both to deal with the complexity of content and to highlight its importance. Her knowledge-focused, human-centered approach has also elevated the role of content in the organization so that content is now recognized as a core competency. We talked about: her work as a principal content strategist at IKEA in their Content Center of Expertise her recent talk on "Falling in Love with the What," an introduction to knowledge domain modeling their attitude at IKEA that "content is the interface between our brands and our customers" the ubiquitous and varied forms that content takes and how she communicates the importance of this idea to her colleagues and stakeholders how she stealthily instills in her org the superpower of an ontological mindset through her use of knowledge domain modeling how the concept of world-building from world of role-playing games can help content creators and strategists how knowledge domain modeling in the context of a human-centered design practice cultivates empathy and helps in dealing with ambiguity and complexity the challenge of deciding where in a typical design development process to put knowledge domain modeling the interactions between content modeling and knowledge domain modeling the maxim that she includes at the end of every email: "Content starts and ends with people. It rises and falls with relationships." the enduring importance of seeing how content relates to real world objects and their relationships with each other Timi's bio Timi is Principal Content Strategist at IKEA where she strives to cultivate quality, innovation, and confidence in content using a broad set of human-centric design principles and systems thinking. The content maxim she lives by: “Content starts and ends with people; it rises and falls with relationships.” She’s a change leader and driving force in creating structural and semantic foundations to enable contextual content — essential components for enabling customer agency and responsible personalisation. She weaves the disciplines of knowledge domain and content modelling, taxonomies, game thinking, teaching, and AI conversation modelling in her work. Timi hails from the Philippines and now lives in The Netherlands. She swears that playing the tabletop RPG ‘Pathfinder’ is essential to becoming a good and happy content strategist. Connect with Timi online LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/obaybjOz2T8 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 195. The word "content" can mean something different to everyone who utters it. The fact that content is ubiquitous and complex and can take different forms across its many varied delivery formats and uses doesn't really help people grasp its importance. At IKEA, Timi Stoop-Alcala helps here colleagues understand the scope and impact of content with a simple and succinct observation: "Content is the interface between our brands and our customers." Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 195 of The Content Strategy Insights Podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome to the show Timi:. Timi is a principal content strategist at IKEA. And welcome to the show, Timi. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're doing these days. Timi:: Hey, Larry. Thank you for having me. Yeah, so I'm Timi, and I am a principal content strategist at IKEA. And specifically, I am with the Content Center of Expertise in the Experience Design Group. And so my team and I, we're made up of content strategists and content designers and content writers. And yes, we focus a lot on making sure that we look at how ...