Jonathon Colman
Senior Design Manager, Keynote Speaker | Intercom
Dublin, Leinster, IRELAND
I lead content design at Intercom. I'm a Webby Award winner and keynote speaker who’s appeared at over 80 design & tech events.
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Biography
Jonathon Colman (@jcolman) leads the global content design team at Intercom. He's a Webby Award-winning content designer and a keynote speaker who’s appeared at over 80 events in 8 countries on 5 continents.
Previously, Jonathon led UX content strategy for Facebook’s Platform and Marketplace teams. Prior to that, he was REI’s principal user experience architect, managed global digital marketing for The Nature Conservancy, and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer for 2 years in Burkina Faso, West Africa. He completed a master’s degree in Information Management at the University of Washington’s Information School in 2013.
Jonathon’s worked on the web since 1994 and is grumpy that it’s not done yet.
Industry Expertise (8)
Design
Media - Online
Writing and Editing
Non-Profit/Charitable
Advertising/Marketing
Social Media
Training and Development
Internet
Areas of Expertise (7)
Content
Content Strategy
Writing
Product Design
User Experience
Information Architecture
Content Design
Accomplishments (4)
Webby Award Winner (professional)
2009-05-05
My leadership, strategy, and teamwork contributed to winning The Nature Conservancy two Webby Awards.
ASIS&T New Leaders Award (professional)
2012-10-30
The ASIS&T New Leaders Award is given annually to new ASIS&T members who are identified as having the potential for new leadership in the Society
University of Washington Benjamin F. Page Fellowship Award (personal)
2012-05-21
The University of Washington Benjamin F. Page Fellowship Award is given to an outstanding and high-achieving UW Information School graduate student in their second year.
REI Anderson Award (professional)
2010-12-07
The Anderson Award is a peer-nominated award given to only the top-achieving REI employees each year.
Education (3)
University of Washington: M.S., Information Management 2013
2012 University of Washington Benjamin F. Page Fellowship Award winner. 2012 ASIS&T New Leaders Award winner. Frequent guest-lecturer on SEO, Internet Marketing, Online Content Strategy, and Web Analytics.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Certificate, Human-Computer Interaction 1998
Concentration in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with focus on graphical user interfaces. Emphasis on user interface design, web development, usability and software wizards.
Michigan Technological University: B.S., Scientific and Technical Communication 1997
Concentration in graphic design and information design. 6-month internship with IBM; focus on information development, technical writing. Dual minor in American literature and biology.
Affiliations (8)
- Information Architecture Institute
- ASIS&T
- SEOmoz
- SEMpdx
- The Nature Conservancy
- REI
- Society for Technical Communication
Links (2)
Media Appearances (5)
STC Summit ’14: An Interview with Keynote Speaker Jonathon Colman
Society for Technical Communication (STC) online
2014-03-26
Last month STC introduced Jonathon Colman (@jcolman) of Facebook as the keynote speaker for the 2014 STC Summit. His talk at the Summit is titled “Information Entropy: The Next 10,000 Years of Content Strategy” and promises to be a great kick-off for the conference. Your Friendly Neighborhood Blogger reached out to Jonathon to get to know a little more about him. See below for the brief interview.
Content Strategy Interview with Jonathon Colman of Facebook
Top Rank Online Marketing online
2014-02-05
The subject of today’s post is Jonathon Colman, a Content Strategist at Facebook. Jonathon and I first met when I was programming a Search Marketing track for ad:tech. I had known of him through his participation in the search marketing industry and really appreciated his results focused approach to optimizing online marketing performance. As a SEO at REI, Jonathon could not only show much revenue per keyword the company was making but also how much revenue was being lost because of slow loading web pages. I noticed he was also very attune to customer experience and content – something many SEOs are just catching on to now. An insatiable learner (Masters in Information Science), wicked smart, focused on results, kind and thoughtful, Jonathan is definitely someone you can learn a lot from. In this interview he shares his journey from REI SEO to Content Strategist at Facebook, offering really useful tips, tools and resources along the way.
eTail Gets to Know…Jonathon Colman, Former Principal Experience Architect, REI
eTail online
2013-10-02
Lori Hawthorne, the Events Director of eTail, interviewed Jonathon Colman, former Principal Experience Architect at REI, who recently transitioned to the Content Strategy team at Facebook. In the last six months alone, he completed his Master’s Degree, spoke at a number of industry events, kept a content strategy blog, and still worked full-time at REI. Talk about a busy year! Read the interview below to hear about his career and a few fun facts.
Content Strategy at Facebook: An Interview with Jonathon Colman
Content Strategy Forum - Helsinki online
2013-09-02
Jonathon Colman is a content strategist at Facebook. At CS Forum Helsinki he will talk about how to align core values with content strategy. We had a chat about what content strategy is like at Facebook – and also about Tolkien, the Finnish language and content strategy in general.
SEMpdx SearchFest 2013 Mini-Interview: Jonathon Colman
SEMpdx SearchFest online
2013-01-25
Jonathon Colman will be speaking at the “UX and Audience” session at SearchFest 2013 which will be taking place on February 22, 2013 at the Governor Hotel in Portland, Oregon.
Event Appearances (30)
KEYNOTE: Wicked Ambiguity and User Experience
Confab Central 2015 Minneapolis, Minnesota
2015-05-21
KEYNOTE: Wicked Ambiguity and User Experience
SearchFest 2015 Portland, Oregon
2015-02-27
KEYNOTE: Wicked Ambiguity: Solving the Hardest Communication Problems
Society for Technical Communication - 2014 annual summit Phoenix, Arizona
2014-05-18
Sine Qua Non: Core Values and Content Strategy
Content Strategy Forum 2013 Helsinki, Finland
2013-09-11
Content Strategy for Marketers
SMX Advanced 2013 Seattle, Washington
2013-06-12
Data Sets You Free: Analytics for Content Strategy
Confab 2013 Minneapolis, Minnesota
2013-06-04
Enterprise SEO & Content Strategy: STOP THE PAIN!
Intelligent Content Conference 2013 San Francisco, CA
2013-02-07
How to Build SEO into Content Strategy
Content Strategy Forum Cape Town, South Africa
2012-10-25
Agile Marketing: 4 Principles and 13 Hacks
MozCon Seattle, Washington
2012-07-25
SEO From a Content Strategy Perspective
Seattle Content Strategy Meetup Seattle, Washington
2012-06-14
Web Performance Optimization: The Silver Bullet of SEO
SMX Advanced Seattle, Washington
2012-06-05
Agile Marketing: From an Army of 1 to True Organic Agility
ad:Tech San Francisco, California
2012-04-04
Building Enterprise eCommerce SEO Traffic and Sales
eTail Palm Springs, California
2012-02-27
SEO, Site Speed, and Battlestar Galactica
SearchFest Portland, Oregon
2012-02-24
Making The Case For Local Search Optimization
SMX Advanced: Local University Seattle, Washington
2012-06-07
Site Speed: The Ultimate UX Feature for SEO
ad:Tech New York City, NY
2011-11-10
SEO and User Experience: A Vision of Collaboration
Seattle Interactive Conference Seattle, Washington
2011-11-03
Agile SEO: Infrastructure Innovation by Iteration
SMX Advanced Seattle, Washington
2011-06-08
SEO and UX: Like Chocolate and Peanut Butter
Information Architecture Summit Denver, Colorado
2011-04-02
Total Search Marketing Optimization: Testing Paid vs. Organic Search
SMX Advanced Seattle, Washington
2010-06-10
Agile Marketing: Adapting and optimizing in today's break-neck brand world
Social Media Club Seattle, Washington
2012-05-29
The 4 Principles of Agile Marketing
SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday SEOmoz Headquarters, Seattle, Washington
2012-08-10
The Four Pillars of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Online Marketing Summit Seattle, Washington
2010-06-14
Building Buzz Without a Budget
eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit Washington, DC
2008-10-03
Fundraising on Facebook: A Case-Study on Cause-Related Marketing
Bridge to Integrated Marketing & Fundraising Conference Washington, DC
2008-07-09
Social News for Social Good: Building Buzz and Breaking Records with Digg
Forum One Communications Seminar Washington, DC
2008-02-25
Cultivating Your Constituents Online
American Marketing Association Nonprofit Marketing Conference Washington, DC
2007-08-01
Using Online Social Networks to Build Buzz, Community & Support for Your Cause
NTEN National Technology Conference Washington, DC
2007-07-20
Cultivating Your Constituents Online
American Marketing Association Nonprofit Marketing Conference Washington, DC
2007-07-11
Web Marketing for Fundraisers: Get Found, Get Traffic, Get Ahead
United Jewish Communities Continuing Education Program Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2006-07-26
Sample Talks (1)
Wicked Ambiguity and User Experience
How do you solve the world’s hardest problems? And how would you respond if they’re unsolvable? As user experience professionals, we’re focused on people who live and work in the here and now. We dive into research, define the problem, break down silos, and focus on people’s intent when as we create. But how does our UX work change when a project lasts not for one year, or even 10 years, but for 10,000 years or more? Enter the “Wicked Problem,” or situations with so much ambiguity, complexity, and interdependencies that—by definition—they can’t be solved. Using real-world examples from NASA’s Voyager program, the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, and other long-term UX efforts, we’ll talk about the challenges of creating solutions for people whom we’ll never know in our lifetimes. The ways we grapple with ambiguity give us a new perspective on our work and on what it means to build experiences that last.
Style
Availability
- Keynote
- Moderator
- Host/MC
- Corporate Training
Social