This week Aaron and Michael are joined by Alaina Wiens from the StrategyCar Podcast to talk about the wild world of web strategy.

Before diving into that topic, we review Michael’s recent experience interacting with a chatbot designed by the Kansas Division of Vehicles to process car registration renewals.

HOLY SHIT. If you think I'm gonna let this "new" vehicle registration renewal "experience" go by without commentary, you're fucking wrong. pic.twitter.com/XL6Ko7YaYS

— Michael Fienen (@fienen) May 8, 2018

The technology might be new and flashy, but does it really provide a better experience to the end user? Is it about a better experience, or just cutting costs without regard for the impact? I guess you need to listen to know. Here’s some stuff to help though (it’s worth noting, there’s a lot of really positive material out there on this topic, but it’s largely generated by people selling and/or promoting the technology):

• Chatbots set to take over most customer service work, say Hong Kong start-ups
• Rise of the Government Chatbot
• The selfishness of Google Duplex
• State and Local Governments Tap Chatbots to Slash Staff Workloads

Our main topic this week focuses on a high level look at web strategy, how it’s changed, and what you can do to trying a plan for success better through it. The topic of “web strategy” itself has followed an interesting trend as the field has matured and diversified through people specializing in different areas.

Stop by the comments after listening to the episode and share your favorite web strategy resources for others. We’ve linked some stuff to get you started down below!

Followup Resources

• Content Strategy books:
  • Content Strategy for the Web, 2nd Edition by Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach
  • Letting Go of the Words, Second Edition: Writing Web Content that Works by Ginny Reddish
• Create an Evolutionary Web Strategy with a Digital MRO Plan from A List Apart
• #StrategyCar chat on Twitter
• Web Strategy: The Three Spheres of Web Strategy (and the skills required) is an older article from web-strategist.com that still has some useful introductory information
• A web strategy in 10 quite simple steps provides a great little overview thanks to Visma
• Why You Should Ignore Pinterest (For Now), where Michael tells higher ed to do less better (in the episode, it’s mistakenly said that this article referenced SnapChat)