This post has been bubbling for the past year or so, ever since I started this blog. It’s a bit of a ramble but if I don’t publish it now I’ll just keep adding to it and it’s long enough as it is!

I question everything. It’s part of the way my mind works, and is something I’ve embraced and believe it makes me better at my job as a technical communicator. That attitude has also helped me realise that there is a common thread that can be found across several different areas of our industry, which I (and others) are slowly pulling together. Convergence is the word that springs to mind, and as businesses clamber onto the social networking bandwagon, now is an excellent time to grab the reigns and take control.

Let’s step back a little.

Late last year, on two separate mailing lists, I followed discussions about what the myriad of people who share my profession have as job titles. I prompted one discussion on the ISTC mailing list, and chipped in some thoughts on the TechWR mailing list before dropping out later on when the noise ratio, as ever, got too high.

I wonder how much useful information I miss when I do that? Ahhh something else to ponder. But not today.

Anyway, discussions around how we as a profession should be referring to ourselves, envitably leads to discussions and thoughts about what we do, where our skills lie, and the benefits we can bring to an organisation. Something I’ve toyed with before, but which is wrapped up in many layers of ifs, buts and other such caveats.

Following on from that, I read an article by Virginia Lynch in the CIDM newsletter (and if you aren’t subscribed to their newsletter, you should be) entitled Information Developers - The New Role of Technical Writers in a Flat World which encapsulates a lot of my current thinking on how to take my current team forward, making sure we are matching company strategy whilst allowing the team members to retain a focus on maintaining and developing their core skills. The article title rather neatly alludes to Thomas Friedman’s book The World Is Flat: The Globalized World in the Twenty-first Century which is certainly worth a read.

Virginia mentions that JoAnn Hackos recently referred to these core skills as “Basic Hygiene”, citing the fact that, regardless of how the collation and production, distribution and usage of information may change, as we explore the burgeoning arena of new tools available to us under the banner of “social web applications” our core skills remain. Typically they tend to drop off as we are pushed to create more, faster, with a rise in quantity favoured over a maintenance of quality.

style, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and even clarity seem to have been sacrificed for quantity —JoAnn points out that knowledge of basic writing skills is still critical to our success as writers. Basic Hygiene also comprises an understanding and appreciation of editing, the information development life cycle, fundamental web and computer skills, and of course attention to detail.

However it is important to note the nod towards quantity being a business leader, and those of us tasked with managing a team need to consider how we achieve that business aim, without impacting our integrity as Technical Writ… umm… Information Developers?

So, how do we produce more whilst maintaining quality?

Wait! What’s that coming over the hill? Ahhh yes, the shining white knight of single source, armour gleaming, his trusty DITA (or DocBook) in hand, ready to do battle against the ills of productivity measurements and over-zealous QA departments. What else were you expecting? Ohh more resource? No, not these days when everyone is a “content creator”, not these days when we should be embracing and encouraging our audience to help plug the gaps in our information dykes (I really must stop mixing my metaphors).

Topic-based writing certainly seems to tick the required boxes and every business case and ROI I’ve read (and I’ve written a couple myself) points us towards the promises found over the horizon and the “he’ll be here real soon, honest” arrival of the aforementioned white knight. The trouble is that, whilst it is easy to agree with the theory, I’m not all that sure the white knight is all he seems. Certainly as we climb the hill towards him, auditing our content, deciding on chunking levels, agreeing metadata requirements, we begin to see that that armour seems a little thin and dented in areas, and I’m not entirely sure the knight is filling that armour as much as he should. Aren’t they supposed to be big strapping warriors? He looks a little weedy to me…

Topic driven content written with a minimalist slant, deferring here to the instructions of Strunk and White* rather than Roy Carroll, are where we seem to be (need to be?) heading and that’s fine and good from where I’m sitting.

* A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid detail and treat his subject only in outline, but that every word tell.

On the flip side, there is a definite growth in awareness around the use of Web 2.0 technologies and systems, building online communities, integrating Wikis, blogs, RSS feeds into the information flow either as part of end user deliverables or as methods for encouraging information creation by everyone involved with the product, internal or external.

A large part of our job concerns the collation and filtering of information so as far as I’m concerned anything we can do to make the creation of source information easier has to be welcomed. Extending these mechanisms beyond internal usage means it should be easier to provide information to the people who really need it, with the added bonus of a greater level of trust in that information. Don’t believe me? Which type of information do you put most weight on, the information passed to you by a trusted colleague who you know uses the product heavily, or the product documentation? (and bear in mind that we technical writers pre-disposed to favour the work of our peers). That in itself is another issue which may be alleviated by embracing social content creation, pulling on the goodwill generated by openly inviting contribution and collaboration, whilst giving technical writers a chance to show their worth in full public view.

So where is all this heading? I’m not sure if anyone is too sure but there do seem to be some trends appearing. The use of Wikis to host documentation, the creation of community websites with few restrictions, and more. There are plenty of tools, and with a little work you can get them talking to each other. Technology is not the limiting factor anymore, attitudes are now the only things stopping us trying these wonderous new things. It’s a big step for some companies, and some people, to free their information, to pass their hard earned knowledge about willy-nilly without a clue as to how it will be used.

Once you’ve gotten past the limitations, the real effort, once you have your community or collaboration up and running, is the surrounding processes. Do you want to pump content into the website regularly? (yes). Do you want to allow anyone and everyone to contribute to that same store of information? (yes). Do you want to allow others to quietly correct your mistakes? (yes). Do you want to give the people who need it, access to information about your product, regardless where it originates, trusting them to use their judgement? (yes).

The final pieces of the jigsaw are the finer details of implementation. Presuming we want to reuse information as often as possible where do you store information and how do you allow access to it? Who should be involved in verifying new information? Where/how is the level of trust established?

Pulling together the threads of this emerging role is tricky, with so much overlap into multiple areas and so much to consider there is a danger of not seeing the wood for the trees. This post is an attempt to step back and make a little more sense of what I can see, what I know, and the changes starting to drag our profession in interesting new directions. I fear I may have muddied the waters, but hopefully they’ll settle and things will start to make sense.

Regardless of whether I’m right or wrong, one thing is for sure, these are exciting times and we have a great opportunity to finally leverage technical communications into the spotlight. The value of information is finally being properly realised, and we are ideally placed to help any organisation make the most of what information they have and help them understand and create the information they really need.

The timing of this post, and the announcement by the Cherryleaf blog that they’ve created a Facebook group for technical authors, is completely coincidental. However there does seem to be a genuine move towards online communities, or perhaps it’s just the latest fad?

It’s an interesting time to be building an online community, and I’m lucky that I can pull from the past ten years or so that I’ve had an online presence.

When blogging first started there were few tools available, but in a short space of time they started cropping up all over the place and these days there are many different ways you can post to your blog (as well as many different ways/places to host it). The same seems to be true of the current rise of “social networking” sites.

Places like MySpace and Bebo focussed on the network surrounding one entity, whilst FaceBook and LinkedIn focus on central groups, and finally services like Ning allow you to build an entire specialised community which can then focus in on central areas of commonality.

I have a LinkedIn profile, a Facebook profile and I’m a member of a Ning community, and for me they represent different things. Ohh and please don’t be offend if I don’t “friend” you on any of those websites, I do try and keep that sort of thing under control.

For me LinkedIn is, in essence, a smart contact manager that allows me to find other people related to previous places of employment or study, whereas Facebook is something I dip in and out of and which I primarily use to keep in touch with friends and other personal/social goings-on. Ning, specifically the Content Wrangler community, is very much focussed on my profession and is a good way to interact with my peers across the globe.

I’m wondering if my perception of these sites are common? The reason I ask is that whilst creating a group on Facebook or LinkedIn is very easy, perhaps the usage of such sites needs to be considered. There has been a lot of chat about companies starting to “lever” these websites, alienating users/customers. So it definitely isn’t just me that has a fixed idea about for what these websites should be used.

I’m in the midst of trying to build an online community for the technical users of our product, and I’m very conscious of the unwritten rules and presumptions that go hand in hand with how people act online, and which boundaries need to be respected. It’s a balancing act, that’s for sure, but a fascinating one.

A phrase I spotted online the other day rings true: “someone hit them with the Web 2.0 stick”. I’m a big fan of Wikis, blogging and online communities, and I think they offer some excellent ways to be part of the conversation, but perhaps we all need to step back a little and make sure that the tools we are using are the right ones for the job.

The boom of the internet is better documented elsewhere but the one key and founding principles is the ability to converse with anyone, anywhere in the globe. From the early days of IRC and email, onto graphical websites and instant messaging through to the current swathe of, for want of a better phrase, Web 2.0 services.

Twitter, blogs, social bookmarking, and online communities are the current rage but, do they work?

I’m a member of several email lists, swapping emails with a large number of people on a range of topics. I spend a fair amount of time filtering out topics which don’t interest me, and over time I’ve come to recognise various people by name. However email, whilst great for sharing information, is a limited when it comes to building communities.

Understanding who you are conversing with and the additional interests they have helps build trust, helps build better conversations and helps build communities. Transferring that kind of interaction online means we can better leverage shared experiences and hopefully make it easier to find other people with the same, unique, slice of knowledge and interests.

It’s only now, pulling together all the available technologies that such online communities are possible.

And the good news is that we, as technical communicators (content professionals) now have such a community.

Scott Abel, aka the Content Wrangler, has launched the Content Wrangler Community website and, having signed up and started using it a little I have to say that it is well worth a look. There are already several hundred members (825 at present), and these early adopters have started forming focussed groups, all of which relate back to our profession. In the words of the website:

Network with peers. Find jobs. Share information. Start a blog. Upload and watch videos. Join a group. Begin a discussion. Learn about software. Find events. Ask for help. It’s all here. Become a member. It’s free!

It’s safe to say that “social networks” aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I’d strongly urge you to check it out. Despite only having been launched a couple of weeks ago, it’s already proving popular and, as the conversations start and people start to find clever ways of using the various features available then it’s only going to get better and better.

Visit the Content Wrangler Community website today, sign up and join in!

Having been off ill for a couple of weeks, almost completely off-line for that time, I’m still catching up with work and my blog reading. The beauty of monitoring RSS feeds is that all I need to do is check through my unread items list in Google Reader and, finally, it’s approaching zero.

Over on the right you can download a file which contains links to all the RSS feeds I monitor (it’s an OPML file and most RSS feed reading applications will be able to import it). That said I am always on the lookout for more good quality blogs in the area of technical communications, design, information development and anything else that may be of interest. If you have any favourites you think I, and everyone else, would enjoy, please let me know by leaving a comment.

There is another reason for this, namely that I’m about to start writing a monthly summary of what is going on in the technical communications blogosphere. And that’s the last time I’ll be using that horrible word.

Revisiting an old post over on the Cherryleaf blog, where Ellis was prompted to ask “Can technical authors be part of ‘the conversation’ in the connected Web 2.0 world that’s emerging?” (excuse the paraphrasing).

As a long-term blogger, and someone who believes that there are many tools in the Web 2.0 world that can and should be embraced by technical communicators, I immediately started thinking about this. It’s taken until now for me to distill my rambling thoughts into something coherent. Mainly because it’s a fairly open-ended topic, and because his post includes several questions:

1. If we are going to be part of the conversation, will we be let in?
2. What would make people do that?
3. Once we are in the conversation how can we best add value to that conversation?
4. Will engaging with a community in a social networking environment create a new and better way of providing user assistance?
5. Will social networks create an opportunity for technical communicators to eavesdrop a conversation as well as take part of it?
6. Will the rise of streaming websites both for audio and video such as YouTube enable technical communicators to be more viral in their efforts to provide effective user assistance?
7. Will technical communicators see snippets of their technical information embedded in other people’s Web pages?
8. Might the lines between technical support and technical authors start to cross over?

I left a comment on the Cherryleaf blog, which I’ll expand on here, but the jist was that I think Technical Communicators are (can be, should be) the social web of the workplace.

However, I guess we first need to understand what we mean when we refer to the “the conversation in the connected Web 2.0 world”. The fact that you are reading this blog suggests that you are already au fait with the Web 2.0 world, and are probably familiar with the popular commenting system most blogs have. That is one part of the conversation, a direct dialogue with the author and with others who have an opinion on the current topic. Now, take that conversation, expand it on your own blog, mention it in your Facebook, add a publically shared link to your del.icio.us account, or even link to it using Twitter… all of those expand the conversation by increasing the audience. There are other examples but you get the gist, the Web 2.0 world allows multiple discussions, centred around one conversation, to take place in different places, with different people and provides them ALL with a way to find out what everyone else is saying.

Needless to say, information is the key component of these discussions, and it is at this point that you realise just how valuable that information has become. Because information is now passed around, diluted, distilled and deconstructed, then rebuilt, reposted and reworked, in multiple places by multiple people with multiple aims, then the person who is central to that information becomes a V.I.P. indeed.

Whether we like it or not, our primary role SHOULD become information guardians. That will mean less writing, and more knowledge/information management and architecture. It will mean a shifting of skill sets towards new areas, where there is no best practise only gut feel, and the embracing of openness. Information will still need to be filtered, focussed and published, but once you’ve set it free, you’ll also need to nurture it as it develops. The delivery of information, naturally, becomes paramount.

We are the ONLY people (in the IT space) that can fill this role properly, and so getting a foot on the rung now will stand us in good stead. Embracing Web 2.0, and thinking about content rather than documents is a small step but a vital one.

So, let’s revisit those questions:

1. If we are going to be part of the conversation, will we be let in?
   Why are we waiting for an invite? Perhaps the future of technical communications models itself on sales and marketing rather than the technical departments. If WE want this, WE need to grab it.
2. What would make people do that?
   Convincing others of the growing value of information is paramount. Those that get it will embrace the change and happily let us push the conversation forward, those that don’t will flounder.
3. Once we are in the conversation how can we best add value to that conversation?
   By monitoring it, gently tweaking it, and making sure it has a useful life, wherever it is. This may mean collaborating with your competitors, it may mean sourcing information externally, but as long as you remember that the conversation is a big value-add to the information, then you won’t go far wrong.
4. Will engaging with a community in a social networking environment create a new and better way of providing user assistance?
   Yes. How can it not? Is it better to lock away your information, leave the users to stumble around for their own solutions and create a distrust of the information you provide, or be open, honest and provide assistance as and where needed, realising the value, power and benefits of having a thriving user community?
5. Will social networks create an opportunity for technical communicators to eavesdrop a conversation as well as take part of it?
   Yes and no. Yes, you will be able to eavesdrop but I’d encourage that to only be used in the “monitoring” sense. Get involved, ask your own questions, post your own thoughts.
6. Will the rise of streaming websites both for audio and video such as YouTube enable technical communicators to be more viral in their efforts to provide effective user assistance?
   Possibly. I would argue that information shouldn’t be viral but expected. However, it may be a useful way of raising awareness and kick starting the conversation in the first place.
7. Will technical communicators see snippets of their technical information embedded in other people’s Web pages?
   Yes. Why not? It’s not “your” technical information really, it’s information for the uses of your product. In fact, if you DON’T see this happening then the conversation is failing.
8. Might the lines between technical support and technical authors start to cross over?
   Yes. There are already signs that this is happening. Ultimately, a conversation friendly company won’t care WHO is doing the talking, as long as the conversation is taking place.

There does seem to be a trend in our profession to expect things to happen a certain way, only for them to pass us by in favour of others. Ellis makes the point that Technical Communicators should’ve been more involved during the rise of Intranets, yet that never happened. The same may be happening already, with the Web 2.0 conversation already taking place. Yes, that’s right. Somewhere, people are already talking about you and your product. It may be on their blog, in a Wiki or forum, or maybe it’s all hidden away in emails and instant messages. Regardless, the conversation has already started.

So go and find these people, get to know them, make friends, chat a little. Understand what they want, find out what they are discussing and contribute.

Join the conversation.

Just visited the McAfee website and on one of the forms encountered a, shall we say, anomaly presented itself.

I am a patriotic kind of guy, and I’m not in any way anti-American (I’m well aware that the percentage of idiots over there matches the numbers we have here), and when you actually consider what I’m about to tell you isn’t really about patriotism, jingoism or somesuch.

Rather it’s a wonderful piece of bad programming that I’ve seen before, centred around the fact that (at least for the purposes of this discussion) the country I am identified with is known as both the United Kingdom (UK) and Great Britain (GB).

I’m Scottish, and my country is part of Great Britain (which is the main island mass which also includes Wales and England). Add in Northern Ireland and you have the United Kingdom. It confuses me but that isn’t really the issue here.

When selecting my nationality in an online form, invariably I have one option: United Kingdom. On some forms I am delighted to be able to select Scotland, and on others I have to hunt for Great Britain.

However, the McAfee form in question proved a little troubling.

On highlighting the Nationality list, and tapping the U key, I was taken down to Uganda. A few more taps of the DOWN arrow key is usually all that is required to get me to “United Kingdom”. Not this time though, so I clicked the list top expand it, just to make sure I hadn’t keyed too fast but no, there was no United Kingdom.

No problem, I think, I’ll just tap the G key to get me back up the list towards Great Britain. This time I expanded the list first and scrolled down to… hang on… no Great Britain either? Great! Must be an option for Scotland!

Nope.

Somewhat puzzled now I double-checked that there was no entry for Scotland. There wasn’t. United Kingdom? Not listed amongst the rest of the nations of the world that begin with U. Must be Great Britain then?

And there it was, nestled away amongst the Gs. “United Kingdom”.

Now technically I can figure out what has happened, the label which is displayed to the user is “United Kingdom” but the value, on which the list being sorted, is set as “Great Britain”.

I have to wonder if this was tested at all and if so they have missed a fairly obvious set of test cases. If you are a global company then you need to consider these things.

OK, admittedly it is a tiny mistake amongst a large and complex website but it does serve to remind me to take the unhappy path through our own software now and then. I have a tendency to check through screens and processes presuming a lot of knowledge and taking the happy path.

Footnote: I worked for Dr. Solomons for a year before they were purchased by McAfee. One of the projects (ditched by McAfee) concerned a global company update system, during which many long design meetings centred around just this kind of “international” issue. But hey, I’m not bitter that they made me and 250-odd other people redundant almost immediately after they bought us, honest…

Make my living writing software documentation. There is, of course, much more to it than that, but that remains the bulk of the job. I also write as a hobby, both on this blog and on my other more personal blog. I also maintain a third website although that has been somewhat neglected recently (note to self: get the finger out!).

Suffice to say I write a lot.

In addition to that I have also adopted what is increasingly known as ‘web worker’ tendencies. As I work with, and on, computers it is simple enough to switch between different tasks, and the web is a key part of that working practise.

And the key part of that practise, for me, is Google Docs. The ability to import and export to Word, to easily maintain the content in relevant folders, and of course the ability to access and edit the content from any PC… well it’s almost a no-brainer.

But one thing that I’ve recently found useful, is the ability to share the documents, allowing others to view and edit them. Admittedly it was only between two people, but if you have a small team, or are working on a project that spans the globe (something that is increasingly common these days) then it’s worth having a look at Google Docs.