How to build your own and content design's brand: A conversation with Lauren Camera-Murray

Lauren Camera-Murray is a content design manager at LinkedIn. She began her career in tech as a Technical Writer at Avid Technology. She later worked in the Bay Area for a San Francisco-based tech startup, PayPal, and eBay. She eventually returned to Massachusetts and has been working remotely for Silicon Valley-based companies for over a decade.

Queenie: Lauren, let’s start by chatting about your career trajectory. You've shifted between IC and manager roles over the course of your career. I would love to hear why you made these shifts—what drove them, how much of it was intentional and how much serendipitous.

Lauren: The truth is that I absolutely loved being a manager when I first got into management over 15 years ago. I really enjoyed learning about something new after having been in content design for a very long time.?

However, when I made the decision to move back to Massachusetts from Silicon Valley with my family, there was no concept of being a remote or virtual manager. So I quit my job and I moved back to my hometown. Eventually, I was able to work out a contract role with my former employer and that was an IC role. So that’s what I ended up doing for many years.

Then, when I came to LinkedIn, there was an opportunity to step into management again after a very long gap. I will say that I was really enjoying being an individual contributor at LinkedIn, and I wasn't sure that management was going to be the right path for me. I had doubts about managing people in a virtual environment, but I decided to take the leap anyway. Now, I've been a manager for over two years.?

Queenie: Anything that took you by surprise when you stepped into the people manager role again at LinkedIn?

Lauren: I think the thing that surprised me the most is probably how much admin work is involved: when somebody has a question about a rule or a policy, when you need to apply for something, when you need to approve a timecard or an expense, you need to send people chocolate for an offsite, or you need to put together a deck for a meeting. There's just so much work involved that would’ve traditionally been considered administrative.?

It’s important work—the reminders you need to send out and the updates that you need to make—it keeps everything running smoothly. But it doesn't feel like higher-level work than the work you were doing as an IC, you know? It maybe feels like lower-level work.?

Queenie: That’s fair. Apart from the less exciting addition of admin work, does being a people manager today look different from what it was a decade ago??

Lauren: I don't think the basics of management really change over time. You try and help your team do their best work. You try to remove obstacles for them. You try to support them, let them know that they're appreciated, try to give them feedback. That doesn't really change over time.?

Now that I think about it, I’d say that the IC role has actually changed more than the manager role.?

Queenie: Oh, interesting. Can you say more about that?

Lauren: So this is just my own experience, but many years ago, when I was an IC at another big tech company, the main expectation for an individual contributor was to get their work done, to get along with their teammates, to be highly collaborative, to deliver results for the business. And that’s it. There wasn’t much focus on being visible throughout the organization.?

Maybe that’s because it was a different time, when people weren't as much a brand unto themselves.

Today people are constantly building their brand. It's something that people do on LinkedIn as well as at LinkedIn. I’d never heard anyone say anything about building your brand years ago.?

Queenie: That's very true. Building one’s brand is so important these days to stand out. Since you’re seeing so much of this happen around you, do you have any advice on how people can go about building their brand successfully??

Lauren:

It's really important that leaders throughout the organization know who you are and that they're hearing from you, that they're seeing you, that you're presenting your work, that you're sharing your successes.

Your manager needs to be part of that as well. Your manager needs to be letting people know about the great work that you do, sharing the team's successes, and so on.?

To build your brand in a remote or hybrid environment, you have to go outside your comfort zone a little bit and try to build relationships with people from different parts of an organization. You never know what might come from those relationships.?

Queenie: You’re right—visibility and relationships are such key ingredients for a successful personal brand!?

As a people manager of content designers today, can you tell me what your day-to-day looks like??

Lauren: There are a lot of meetings! A lot more meetings than one has an IC. And I know that might be hard to believe because I think a lot of ICs already feel like they have to be at too many meetings.?

Also the main focus of your time is people and planning projects. I really enjoy the people part of it, so I really look forward to having 1:1s with the people on my team. The planning part is a little trickier—a little harder—especially since we're a horizontal organization, so we have to understand the priorities across many different parts of the business. That’s the part that’s really challenging.?

Queenie: Can you say more about the horizontal organization model? What motivated the shift to that from one where content designers were assigned to specific lines of business? What was gained or lost from it?

Lauren: With generative AI becoming a thing, there was an incredible push for building generative AI products here at LinkedIn. There were asks coming down from executives for content designers on X or Y high-priority project. And there was no way to staff those projects based on how we were organized previously—by line of business.?

We needed to be able to put the right person on the right project when a super high-priority ask came in. We needed more flexibility when it came to staffing. Being organized this way made us more nimble.?

Having said that, what can be lost when an organization becomes horizontal is the deep product knowledge that each member of the team develops within their single line of business. When content designers are assigned to a specific line of business, they have a lot of context that enables them to be immensely impactful within the group that they regularly work with. They’re also able to forge deeper relationships with their partners.

The first time a group works together as a team, everyone's figuring out how they can best work together. They're figuring out the team norms. The second time it's a little bit easier, and the third time they're very productive because the norm-setting has already been established and practiced. So, if you're just taking people and moving them around from place to place, every time ends up being the first time for them and there are constantly bumps in the road.?

Queenie: What’s it like to manage a team of content designers??

Lauren: For me, it feels like a very natural progression because the people on my team are doing the work that I was doing when I was in their shoes. So, it feels intuitive almost.

Queenie: That’s great. Have you managed other designers or other functions before or has it always been content designers??

Lauren: We didn't use the title of ‘content designer’ back in the old days; it was ‘content strategists’. So, yes, I managed a content strategy team. And then my company had a reorg where it was decided that we were no longer going to have discipline-led teams; we were going to have cross-functional teams, and that all the managers who would lead those teams would be called ‘UX managers’. There would be a content strategist, a UI designer, and a visual designer, on the cross-functional team. And so I became a ‘UX manager’ and at that point, I ended up managing a couple of visual designers, a couple of UI designers, and a couple of content strategists.?

Queenie: Got it. Have the two experiences—of only managing content designers versus managing a cross-functional team—been meaningfully different for you?

Lauren:

The thing that remained the same between the two experiences is that you're still responsible for the work that your team produces. When I switched from managing only content strategists to leading a cross-functional team, I didn't change my functional area, so I was very familiar with the features that my team was working on and that part of it was an easy transition.

As for managing visual designers and UI designers, I was very excited to manage people in those fields because I wanted to learn about what they could do. I’m not a strong visual designer, but I'm really amazed by people who do that work. So I loved learning from them! Having said that, I'm sure that on their end, it was probably a bit of an adjustment to have someone who didn't come up through their field managing them.?

Queenie: That’s fair. How did you go about upskilling in those fields so you could assess what they were doing, provide feedback on it, manage them more skillfully?

Lauren: I feel like the work I was doing as a content strategist—working really closely with visual designers and UX designers as an individual contributor—set me up for success there.

We were all designers—even though we had different titles and different focuses. We were all trying to create a great user experience. So it really wasn't that challenging to be able to assess the experiences that the team as a whole was designing.

I did complete a week-long Interaction Design Practicum at Cooper U in San Francisco to get a little deeper into user experience, design thinking, and managing teams that do that kind of work. But overall, it was a pretty smooth transition from my perspective.

Queenie: That’s great. Another transition I want to ask you about: the one that was ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before, I imagine that you largely managed an in-person team. How does management look different for you now with distributed teams?

Lauren: I’ll be honest. Because I did manage people in person as my first experience, that’s always what’s felt right to me, especially because you sometimes have to have challenging conversations with people when you're in people management. And at other times, you have really exciting, wonderful conversations, like when someone's telling you that they're going to have a baby! It just feels more human to be together during those moments.

I wasn't sure how I was going to work in a hybrid/remote environment as a manager. I had some uncertainty about that. But here I am—a fully remote manager on a hybrid team! And, I think it has gone fairly smoothly.

The advantage, so to speak, that I think we had is that we all had to go remote during COVID and we all had to learn these new skills around how to connect and interact with each other without being physically together.?

Recently, I met someone—who I've been working remotely with for 4 years and who I've been managing, again remotely, for about a year—in person for the very first time. And it felt very natural. The fact that we had never seen each other in person or been in the same room before seemed strange because we know each other so well now. So we've all adapted and adjusted to this new reality.

I think I've made the adjustment successfully, but I can say that I would love to be in the same room with the people that I work with more frequently.

Queenie: Since you manage a distributed team, how do you foster a sense of cohesion and team spirit amongst the people you manage??

Lauren:

Our team has a number of different things that we do to try and keep a sense of connection amongst us. We have a biweekly team hangout, which is really just time set aside for casually talking about different topics—what we're watching, what we're reading, what we're eating, trips that we've been on, that kind of thing. We also have a regular content design team meeting, where we try to get team business done, of course, but where we also try to come together as a discipline. We also have a team crit that we do every other week, that helps us connect with each other with respect to our craft. And then finally, we have a working session on Fridays where people can drop in and work together either silently or actively.?

These aren’t things I’ve come up with on my own. Rather, I support my own manager—the head of content design, Keri Maijala, in running them.?

Queenie: And just when we’ve adapted to this model of a distributed team, so many companies are instituting return to work policies again!

At each step in your career—when you became a manager at eBay and then again at LinkedIn—did you read any books or take any courses to develop people management or leadership skills??

Lauren: I think the way I grew in my career itself helped me slowly scaffold the skills I needed. At eBay—when I first became a manager—I made my way to manager through different levels, from Senior and then eventually through Lead Content Strategist. And when I became a Lead Content Strategist, I was responsible for the team’s work, but not the people management piece. So I learned to oversee all the work that my team was doing, but wasn’t having one-on-one people manager conversations.?

The next step was becoming a people manager. eBay had a lot of training that they provided when someone makes that move. So I went through the training, which helped a lot, and then I had a Director who I reported to, who provided an enormous amount of mentorship as I first made my foray into people management.

Also, here at LinkedIn, there's an enormous amount of support that’s provided with interactive workshops. I love to learn, so I’ve taken as many as I can. I also use LinkedIn Learning a lot. Whenever something comes up that I want to learn more about, I go on LinkedIn Learning and check to see if there are any courses on there that might help me better understand the challenge that I'm facing. And now with LinkedIn Learning’s AI chatbot, I can actually just ask a question and get an answer!

Queenie: With so many years of experience under your belt as a people manager, do you have any advice for somebody who's looking to go down the people management path eventually? Things to read or watch, concepts to wrangle with?

Lauren: Yes, for sure! A couple of things were recommended to me when I thought about getting back into management for a second time and they were really powerful.

The first was Brené Brown’s book Dare to Lead. It’s a little bit of a cliche now, but in that book, she really does challenge you to take on the risk of leading a team.

After I listened to that book, I actually felt like there was no way I could not make the decision to move into management because Brown really challenges you to be more, in a very inspiring way.?

The second recommendation is Julie Zhao’s The Making of a Manager. The book really shows you the reality of being a manager.

One can learn from all the little mistakes that Julie made as a manager at Facebook and how she herself learned from them.?

Queenie: Thanks for sharing those titles!

One last question I have about your role as a people manager: Can you speak a little to how a content design manager is assessed? What does ‘good performance’ look like in your role?

Lauren:. Honestly, it's the exact same criteria as an IC, but the how is different.

‘Good work’ is based on: Are you supporting your people? Are your people happy with the relationship that they have with you? You're also evaluated on whether the work that you and your team are doing is making a positive impact to the business. You do get assessed on your team's work, so you're effectively taking responsibility for what your team is doing. It's also important that other people in the organization know what you and your team are doing.

Queenie: That leads directly into my next question: content designers often feel like they don't have a seat at important tables. Do you have any strategies on how you've approached this problem in the past or any advice on how content design can get more visibility with cross-functional or design partners??

Lauren:

I personally think that the best way for us to prove our value and to get invited to important tables is by showing up and doing great work on our projects.?

I know that it sounds a little passive—it’s a little bit like ‘I hope you invite me, and if you do, I hope you'll invite me again’. But I think that great work does speak for itself.?

There’s also something to be said about building relationships so that people will think of including you. And then also making sure that when there's a very important project happening, that the manager makes sure that content design is involved. That's the opposite of hoping to be invited to the party. Instead, you’re just like ‘Hey, there's a party! Great news—we're coming to your party!’

Since I’m a very relationship-based person, when I spot such an opportunity, I go to the person I have a relationship with to explain why it’s important that content design be involved.?

So it's a bit of both—when you get the invitation, show up and doing great work, and at other times, walk through the door and say, ‘I'm here, can't wait to work with you.’?

Queenie: That’s true. In the latter scenario, how might one deal with gatekeeping??

Lauren: To stick with your metaphor: sometimes you knock on the door and they don't let you in. And that might mean you need to knock on another door!?

Some people are just not going to be collaborative and that’s the way it is. So, in that case, you want to invest in the people who do appreciate you and understand what you bring to the table.

It’s also important to tell the story of that collaboration. As an example, let's say you knock on someone's door and you say, ‘I'd love to be on this project. I think we could really add value to this.’ And then the door is metaphorically slammed in your face. You might say: ‘OK, that's not going anywhere’ and shift gears to engage with someone else. You then do a great job on that other project, and it gets shared at a Design All-Hands. The person who slammed the door on you before might then think: ‘Well, I made a mistake,’ and the next time you knock, they might open the door!

There’s also something else: I think we need to get away from our overidentification with content design. I think branding ourselves in that way is narrow. We need to think of ourselves as people who are designers and creators, and blur some lines. That opens up some space to think about what else we can move into. Conversation design, for example! When we think this way, we have a compelling argument to have more ownership over more than traditional UI design. Instead of being attached to content design, we can perhaps be more attached to how content design is evolving and brainstorm how we can be part of that.

Queenie: Those are a lot of actionable strategies. Thanks for sharing them.?

As you mentioned at the start of our conversation, you’ve also switched between full-time and contractor roles, and in fact were a contractor for different employers for a good portion of your career. I want to linger with that for a little bit. Can you speak to how being a full-time employee looked different from being a contractor in terms of the work you were doing? What were the benefits of working as a contractor?

Lauren: A lot of people think that a full-time job is the goal of contracting, that contracting is something you do until you land a full-time job. But that wasn’t necessarily the case for me.?

I really loved being a contractor because I didn't like the idea of being committed to any one company. I also loved the idea of being free from a lot of the politics of being a full-time employee in a large corporation.

Also, for me, the way it worked is—I was sometimes legally required to take a short break in between two contracts with the same company. And that would give me some time to be with my kids. So being a contractor for a really worked for me.?

Queenie: That’s so wonderful. The best of all worlds in a way.?

I want to pick your brain about mentorship: I know that you’re very willing to mentor people trying to break into the field or grow in their careers. When did you feel like you were ready to be a mentor? When did you feel confident enough in your knowledge about content design that you felt like you could share that with other people?

Lauren:

I think that what made me feel ready to help other people is joining the LinkedIn Coaches program and being told by the people who run it that all of us are experts and that all of us have something to share.

It never really occurred to me that I had anything valuable to share with job seekers until I worked with this program. And then when I worked with a job seeker for the first time, I realized that my writing skills were really useful when we were looking at their profile, for example. It was a natural fit!

After I'd been working with LinkedIn Coaches for some time, we had a lot of layoffs in tech, and people started asking me for advice. And my experience with LinkedIn Coaches really gave me the confidence to feel like I could give people some advice about job searching, about creating a portfolio, and to also do some advocacy where I would reach out to hiring managers to let them know about a candidate that I’d connected with.?

I will say, though, that I'd characterize what I do as coaching or just helping rather than mentoring, because I usually just meet with somebody one or two times and provide some help. And then we might have some back and forth on LinkedIn, but that’s about it. There’s only been maybe a couple times where I’ve met with someone more often. I feel like the frequency of contact is what differentiates coaching from mentoring—a coach is somebody who just steps in to give you some tips and tricks, whereas a mentoring relationship is typically a long-term one.

Queenie: Do you have advice on how people can find long-term mentors?

Lauren: I think the best thing to do is find out if your company has a formal mentoring program.? That’s often a good way to go because then the expectations are clear on both sides.?

If your company doesn't have a mentoring program like that, think about whether there's somebody in your organization that you look up to and admire. If yes, you can approach them and ask them if they'd be willing to enter into a mentoring relationship with you. They don’t need to be in your direct organization. They also don’t necessarily need to be in the same company as you. It could be somebody that you found on LinkedIn, someone who really inspires you and you want to learn from. You can ask and they can say yes or they can say no. Just asking is the first step.?

I had a mentor that I found through a program here at LinkedIn who was younger than me and was in the Sales org, which is a completely different org than the one I'm in, but she had so much great feedback for me and so much great advice to share.?

The thing that you don’t want to do is ask too much of your mentor to begin with. Let them know that you're approaching them to explore the mentoring relationship. Tell them what you're looking to get out of it and the time you can commit to it. Ask them if they’d be open to mentoring you. Tell them that the mentoring expectations you both share can be adjusted as you go forward in the relationship.?

I think that there are many people who’ve achieved a certain level of success in their careers that are hungry to give back, but there's no easy way for them to do that. So it's always okay to ask!?

Queenie: Thanks for sharing that. My final question to you is: what do you think is the future of content design?

Lauren:

I think the future of content design is likely similar to the future of all jobs in tech. I think it's going to be subject to enormous change over the next 5 to 10 years. I think that we all need to be very flexible about how we think about the work that we do.?

I also think that generative AI is going to become a big part of what we do every day. And that having human judgment is going to become more and more important. Writing the words, checking the grammar, checking the punctuation—all those things might be done by generative AI, but the human judgment piece will always be a really important part of the job.?

I don't think that we’re going away as a discipline, but I think that we’re going to be evolving and changing and that we need to be open to change to adapt and to thrive.?