Michaela McDonald

Content Strategy & Knowledge Management Leader

I design content & knowledge base systems that work for people & with AI.

experience building UX strategies, help center ecosystems, content governance

16+
years

frameworks, and AI-native content programs in various industries.

red and white light digital wallpaper

LinkedIn Help Center

During my time as a Senior Content Strategist for LinkedIn's Knowledge Management team, I created and updated thousands of help center articles and technical documents for customer service reps. This help center article was one of the first of its kind on LinkedIn and I wrote it near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in response to the amount of people losing their jobs and subsequently searching for new employment.

97%

475%

Higher Page Views

Helpfulness Score

Work Samples + Impact

Skills & Tools Used: Tableau, SQL, Oracle Service Management (RightNow), HTML, Jira, Confluence, SEO, Generative AI

PMI Citizen Developer®

I was the first and only Digital Content Strategist at the Project Management Institute. I was tasked with overhauling the PMI Citizen Developer™ landing page and all associated pages. The goal was to educate site visitors about what the PMI Citizen Developer™ product was and encourage them to purchase the certification courses. The site changes resulted in an overwhelming amount of positive reactions from leadership as well as a 340% increase in page views, 25% decrease in bounce rate, and 21% more courses purchased within the first 3 months of the changes going live.

I'm the sole content strategist for the digital team at 7-Eleven, which means I support over 36 UX designers across seven verticals. The digital team is still relatively early in its UX maturity level, so I've been working from the ground up to change the narrative from "copywriter" to "content strategist" and set up best practices, intake flows, and standard content designs. This has created 10x efficiency gains and reduced the amount of re-work by 40%.

Some of the cool projects I've had the opportunity to work on include (but aren't limited to) -

  • The 7-Eleven app

  • 7-Eleven Gold Pass™ (subscription service)

  • Fuel

  • The Speedway app

  • The Skipcart app

  • The 7NOW app (delivery service)

  • Help Center

  • Merchant Portal + Merchant Onboarding

  • Enterprise dashboards

  • Legal/Terms & Conditions

  • Marketing/Promos

  • Push Notifications

  • Emails for subscribers

  • Elevator wraps for the 7-Eleven corporate office

7-Eleven App

The article was unique in the sense that it was the first Best Practice available on the LinkedIn Help Center and that it had a PDF checklist attached to it that LinkedIn members could download and print. The article was deep-linked on the job search area within the LinkedIn desktop/browser view and saw a massive success rate - 97% helpfulness score (70% was the baseline for high quality content) and 475% higher page views than any other help center article.

I have other LinkedIn content available upon request. I completed countless audits and worked across multiple verticals/product lines. I was also the designated "data guru" for the team because I love and understand numbers.

Skills & Tools Used: Sitecore, Dovetail, SEO, Marketing, Video Production, Generative AI, Figma, Miro

Full site available here.

Skills & Tools Used: Figma, Marvin, SEO, Marketing, Jira, Generative AI, Confluence, dscout, Frontitude (AI), Mixpanel

BEFORE

AFTER

Other Work

Most of my work from J.P. Morgan Chase and my current role at 7-Eleven isn't shareable on a public forum, but I'm happy to walk through additional examples on a video call.

silver MacBook beside space gray iPhone 6 and clear drinking glass on brown wooden top
silver MacBook beside space gray iPhone 6 and clear drinking glass on brown wooden top

Why Me?

In addition to 16+ years working with content strategy and picking up various hard skills along the way, I bring a series of soft skills to the table that aren't easily learned. I'm a well-rounded individual who will get the job done and greatly exceed your expectations.

I'm strategic.

I don't just write great copy - I think about the big picture and ensure there's a rhyme/reason and strategy behind what we're doing and why we're doing it. I want to ensure that whatever work is done has a measurable ROI and makes my team shine.

*Pictured is a recent game of Magic the Gathering that I played - a game that requires a great deal of strategic thinking.

I value people.

I care deeply about people and strive to show that in everything I do (both professionally and personally). I live with the mentality that cross-collaboration, communication, empathy, and transparency are key to a healthy and successful workplace.

*Pictured is the photo of me with some of my Anytime Fitness employees the day I sold the gym.

These are recent snippets from my Farewell Figjam board of notes my colleagues from J.P. Morgan Chase left for me. I'm including these to showcase that I'm someone who "gets it" and isn't afraid of getting things done quickly and collaboratively.

★★★★★