Are Halland: The Core Model – Episode 108

Content Strategy Insights

Are Halland Are Halland's "Core Model" has guided the work of content strategists, information architects, web marketers, and other digital professionals for more than 15 years. The model grew out of the need to align stakeholders around a practice that could balance user needs, business concerns, and content creation for websites. It has evolved into a versatile tool that can improve the content experience in any digital product. We talked about: his quarter-century career as an information architect, consultant, and educator the origins of the Core Model in 2006, as a solution to the content industry's "Tower of Babel" communication problem the tragic ongoing story of the "typical website" and how it buries the important content that users are looking for the elements of the Core Model - the target group, the user task, the business goals, the inward paths, the core content, and the forward paths - and how they serve as a silo-busting communication tool enhancements to the model that he made as he wrote his new book the importance of identifying top user tasks that your content addresses the need to think like a behavioral designer as you design the forward paths from your core content the use of the Core Model in the increasingly important discipline of content modeling the increasing adoption of the use of the model in apps, marketing content, customer journey mapping, omnichannel strategy, and even mundane artifacts like invoices his new book, which has been 15 years in the making - the Norwegian edition is available now, and the English version is scheduled for release in early 2022 Are's bio Are Gjertin Urkegjerde Halland is the inventor of the Core Model, and has 25 years of experience with strategy, content, and product development. He has worked both as a consultant and in-house with business strategy, innovation processes, user research, UX design, content strategy, and information architecture. From 2006-2019 he worked for the Norwegian digital agency Netlife Design, implementing the Core Model as a cornerstone methodology. He now works as an independent coach, speaker, facilitator and consultant, helping people take advantage of the simple power of the Core Model. Connect with Are online Twitter TheCoreModel.com Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WA-WXHq-mg Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 108. Every once in a while, someone comes up with an elegantly simple model of a complex business process. Fifteen years ago, Are Halland did this for the content strategy and information architecture professions. You can understand his "Core Model" in about five minutes and start applying its strategy, business, and design methods right away. But then, you can also spend fifteen years - as he has - discovering new ways to use this powerful tool. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 108 of the Content Strategy insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Are Halland. Are is best known as the inventor of the Core Model. And that's why I was excited to get him on the show to talk about that. So, welcome Are. Tell the folks a little bit more about the work you do and how you to develop the Core Model? Are: Yeah. Hi, Larry. Great to be on show. I've been in the business for a quarter of a century I found out the other day. So I've been calling myself an information architect since 1999 I think. And I've been a consultant mostly, but also in-house, but I work with right now, I'm a freelance or working for myself with my wife actually. And we do facilitation course as speaking engagements and so on and within strategy. Yeah. Behavioral psychology and content strategy and whatever, use the experience, yeah. Larry: I love that you have like a behavioral foundation to your work.