I was doing some research last night, aimed at providing some real life examples of social media being used by a technical communications team. I’ve found a couple of places so far (Atlassian, I’m looking at you) but I need more.

It’s easy enough to find companies which have a “presence” on Twitter, or a company blog or suchlike, but they are mostly fairly static and little used. My fear is that, despite all the talk, and I include the team I’m part of in the following statement, we just aren’t using social media all that effectively yet.

Prove me wrong please!

If you, or your team have a blog, run a forum, push information updates to Twitter, host your documentation on a Wiki, or anything else along those lines, please let me know.

One of the reasons I started this blog was as a way of exploring my thoughts about our profession, from specific issues to wider themes. It’s only been going a few years, but I’ve learned a lot since then both writing here, and reading the thoughts of other bloggers in this industry.

I live and work in Scotland, far from the thriving centre of capitalism that is London and the surrounding areas, M4 corridor and the like. There aren’t all that many Technical Communicators in this neck of the woods so blogging helps me keep up to speed with the latest trends, and with fellow technical communicators.

I don’t really have much other motive than that, to be honest, so I was more than a little surprised to find out that I’ve been included in a list of the 25 Most Influential Technical Communicator Bloggers and, looking at some of the names on the list, I’m hugely flattered to be there.

What do you call your documents? What is the first thing you do when you start writing? What is the last?

All these things that you do without thinking about, the basic automation that your brain easily handles, over and over again, these things are, to you, so basic as to be forgettable. You don’t tell anyone else to do them (they must know, right?) and you probably don’t remember where you learned how to do them.

You bulid your own mental checklist and that takes care of that.

Need to provide a PDF of a document for someone? No problem, generate it this way, name it in this manner to keep it sensible and consistent and put it THERE (as you know everyone has access to it that way). And so on and so forth. All these things locked away in your head.

That mental checklist is made up of many things, from coping other people, reading books, and learned from mistakes. Without it you’d be lost, and with it you retain value as you are the person who knows how to do those things.

But that also means you are the bottleneck, the only person who knows X and Y, and can help with Z.

Better to share that information, let others learn and improve it (and they will). It allows them to do more, and lets you do other things. More power to the team, and a better service to the rest of the company, further cementing the value you bring to your organisation.

Information is serious stuff and must be treated with the appropriate earnest respect it deserves. Stop laughing at the back, this is not a joking matter. How do you feel when you go looking for information and can’t find it? Or find what you think will be helpful information only to discover that it is useless.

At that point, information is very very serious indeed and causes many people to gnash their teeth, wail their woes and other expressions of frustration and angst.

The reason I mention this, something I’m sure most of you are both perfectly aware and the unwitting recipients of, is because I have a tendency to be silly sometimes. Which means, say, adding an entry to a product glossary titled “Rubber Chicken” with a definition of “See Custard Pie” (and yes, the “Custard Pie” entry had the definition of “See Rubber Chicken”). Yes, it’s silly, but sometimes, if done correctly, a spot of humour can have a positive effect.

Thankfully the terminology used in software development can provide some perfect moments, so when someone recently asked “How do I destroy a custom component?” on an internal mailing list, one response (which alas I can’t post here) tickled my funny bone so much that I posted it to our developer community website.

Suffice to say that the response discussed destroying a custom component on a physical level (including dropping the hardware from a height) and the emotional level (including underming the confidence of the custom component with heavy doses of sarcasm) and had everyone who read it in stitches.

Was it inappropriate? Perhaps, but a little humour can go a long way.

Later this week I’ll be sitting down to talk to some people. Some very important people as it happens.

Yes, I’ll be talking to some customers.

I’m slightly ashamed to admit this is the first time I’ll have done this, formally at least and I’m not quite sure what to expect. The main thrust of the conversation is to go over some feedback we received, and I’ll be highlighting what we’ve done to address some of the issues they raised as well as pointing out some of the other good stuff we’ve done.

However, the real reason I’m setting this up isn’t really to go through their feedback, although that’s been very useful, it’s more about opening a line of communication.

Like many, we struggle to get access to our audience so this is a real step forward, I’m positively excited.

The real challenge will be repeating this, and ultimately I’m hoping it leads to some form of customer forum, but first things first.

Yesterday I gave a presentation on blogging as part of a series of eSeminars arranged by Adobe. The slides (shown above) can be downloaded from my slideshare account.

Also of note was the live Twitter stream that Dawn Gartin posted throughout my talk, it almost sounds like I know what I’m talking about, thanks Dawn!

Recording of my session is now available (featuring myself & RJ Jacquez)
Part one (with David Farbey & Noz Urbina) is also available.

I’ve also written up my presenter notes and made them available, just in case you can’t quite make out what I’m saying.

Are you bored of all this talk of social media? Still not quite sure what it’s all about or why you should bother with it? What IS an Information Platform anyway?

Maybe an eSeminar or two would help?

As I mentioned last month, Adobe sponsored a supplement for the ISTC Communicator magazine, in which four very handsome* and wonderfully talented** gentlemen put forth their ideas and thoughts on social media in various guises.

Caveat: I may be one of said gentlemen.

Since then, Adobe has setup two eSeminars to allow each of us to expand on our articles and hopefully get some more excitement and buzz about social media into the Technical Communications industry.

The first eSeminar took place on Tuesday this past week, and there will be a recording available soon (I’ll post the link here). David Farbey and Noz Urbina talk up a storm and offer some good advice on how and why social media offers a great opportunity for technical communicators, it’s well worth a listen.

The second eSeminar, featuring yours truly and the velvet tones of RJ Jacquez, is happening on Tuesday next week. I’ll be covering why you should consider blogging as a route to starting a conversation with your customers, and RJ will outline some thoughts on the possibilities that social media brings to our profession.

Exciting times, and I’ll add one more link to keep you all going. Yes I’ve mentioned it before but if you have queries on whether this social media thing is worth all this noise then this book will answer your questions, and stimulate your mind (and the author, Anne Gentle, is keynote speaker at this years UA Conference.

* may not be true

** is mostly true