Margot Bloomstein
Margot Bloomstein is the author of Trustworthy: How the Smartest Brands Beat Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap (March 2, 2021, from Page Two Books) and Content Strategy at Work: Real-World Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project (2012, Morgan Kaufmann). She is the principal of Appropriate, Inc., a brand and content strategy consultancy based in Boston. As a speaker and strategic adviser, she has worked with marketing teams in a range of organizations over the past two decades. The creator of BrandSort, she developed the popular message architecture-driven approach to content strategy. Margot teaches in the content strategy graduate program at FH Joanneum University in Graz, Austria, and lectures around the world about brand-driven content strategy and designing for trust.
Twitter: @mbloomstein
Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?
In Powers of Ten, Ray and Charles Eames draw in the viewer with a familiar scenario, and then use repetition to create a consistent rhythm as the backdrop to surprising information. I find that approach so engaging for writing, too. I like using anecdote as a hook to draw in the reader and gain an emotional foothold to educate and dig into data. Then it’s useful (for me and them!) to introduce parallelism or alliteration as familiar rhythms that enable surprising statements to break out of the flow.
Is there a genre of music that influences your writing/thinking? Do you listen to music while you write?
If I’m listening to music, I can’t hear the rhythm of my own words or carve the contours of my own sentences. So I put Rainy Café or a similar white noise app in my ears—often, even, while I’m working in a café.
Favorite non-reading activity?
Let me explore a museum for the day and I’m delighted. I’ve worked in natural history museums and spent hours in the collections of many large art museums, but my favorite destinations are purpose-built single-artist museums. Just as sculpture is the process of revealing the art trapped within the marble, exhibit design is an act of editing to reveal a clear thesis. I love when that thesis offers visitors a provocative story—especially in a building designed to complement the artist’s work. My favorites are the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, and The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? Do you sew? Paint? Draw? Knit? Dance?
I use writing to tease out my thoughts and clarify my ideas. I keep a sketchbook with similar goals: it helps me slow down and pay attention to the details of a person, place, or experience, and those details make all the difference. As an author, I focus much of my effort on taking in the details and synthesizing the story so the reader can glean the relevant meaning to guide their own action. I sketch in a mix of watercolor and pencil, and I’m constantly wrangling with decisions about the details: which are most important to convey the mood and the bigger meaning?
If you could create a museum exhibition, what would be the theme?
Years ago, I was walking through the Tate Modern in London and sat down in a small, dark room housing the painting of Mark Rothko. My eyes adjusted to the light and I could see the depth in the thin layers of color and the subtle contrast between adjacent shades. After a bit, I walked out and turned the corner to see a large Monet. It was the first time I really appreciated the intensity of color and light in his work, and the time I’d spent soaking up Rothko had gotten me ready for it. I’d love to bring a third artist into conversation with them: Edward Hopper. Hopper’s architectural paintings depict flat areas of color in somber tones that leave the viewer bereft and lonely. The continuum from Monet to Hopper to Rothko offers a dizzying study of those emotions and the effect of color and light on mood.
