#26061
The Responsibilities of an Information Architect in the Technical Information-Development World
In working with information-development groups who want to move into content management and a structured writing environment, I often find that the potential for role of information architect is not well understood.
#22155
Selecting a Content-Management System 
It's not about buying a tool; it's about understanding your requirements.
Hackos, JoAnn T. and Tina Hedlund. ComTech Services (2001). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing
#18896
Selecting a Content-Management System
Your output requirements will drive many of your decisions when selecting a content-management system. An abbreviated version of the checklist from JoAnn Hackos’s book, Content Management for Dynamic Delivery, follows to aid you in defining your output requirements.
Hackos, JoAnn T. and Tina Hedlund. STC Proceedings (2002). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing
#22149
Seven Things New Managers Must Do in the First 90 Days
Discusses the creation of managed and sustainable workflow.
Hackos, JoAnn T. and Marty Williamson. ComTech Services (2000). Careers>Management>Collaboration>Workflow
#22165
Single-Source Content Management: If, Why and How
Introduces the five levels of single-sourcing.
Hackos, JoAnn T. ComTech Services (2002). Presentations>Content Management>Single Sourcing
#24446
Prospective authors, especially those writing books on technical communications, need an honest view of the publishing process. This panel dispels romantic myths about what is involved in writing and publishing a book so that potential authors hae a greater chance of getting successfully and profitably published.
Barnum, Carol M., JoAnn T. Hackos, William K. Horton III and Terri Hudson. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Publishing
#22161
Redesign your information; write topics, not books.
Hackos, JoAnn T. ComTech Services (2001). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design
#22158
What is strategic planning? A process for determining: where you are; where you intend to be; how you’re going to get there.
Hackos, JoAnn T. ComTech Services (2000). Careers>Management>Project Management
#24303
Strategic Planning: Creating a Vision of the Future
Strategic planning, the process of determining where you intend to be and how you’re going to get there, is absolutely essential to the success of any organization. But our assessment of the information development community indicates that the majority of organizations, whether operating as standalone businesses or as internal functions within larger companies, do little or no strategic planning. One of the main reasons is that they don’t know what strategic planning is, why it’s important, or how to do it.
Hackos, JoAnn T. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>TC>Planning
#20723
Strategic Planning: Creating a Vision of the Future
Strategic planning, the process of determining where you intend to be and how you’re going to get there, is absolutely essential to the success of any organization. But our assessment of the information development community indicates that the majority of organizations, whether operating as standalone businesses or as internal functions within larger companies, do little or no strategic planning. One of the main reasons is that they don’t know what strategic planning is, why it’s important, or how to do it.
Hackos, JoAnn T. STC Proceedings (1999). Careers>Management>Planning
#21484
Strategic Thinking and Planning for Information Development Organizations
This panel will introduce the audience to the basic concepts and components of strategic thinking and planning and will provide practical examples of application in a variety of information-development organizations.
Breuninger, Charles L., JoAnn T. Hackos, Heather J. Fox and Angela W. McAlister. STC Proceedings (1996). Careers>Project Management>Planning
#14610
Trends for 2000: Moving Beyond the Cottage
This article is one of two cover stories detailing trends in technical communication 2000. JoAnn Hackos predicts that technical communication will move from a 'cottage' industry--one that is dominated by independent craftspeople with a personal vision of their product--to a corporate industry. To survive in this team-oriented, cost-effective environment, Hackos suggests that technical communicators take note of some of the trends guiding the profession from a cottage to a corporate industry:
Hackos, JoAnn T. Intercom (2000). Articles>TC>History
#30141
The 1998 trends panel will be a continuation of the successful 1995, 96, and 97 programs. Leaders from the communications industry--a mixture of STC strategic thinkers and some new faces from outside of STC--will present their thoughts on the state of the our industry and what will be necessary to keep our members in the forefront of change, as well as what avenues we should explore with our special expertise and how we should prepare for the next millennium.
Hackos, JoAnn T. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>TC
#21264
How do we prepare for the future? How will trends affect our careers as technical communicators? Do we have the right set of skills to survive?
Hackos, JoAnn T. STC Proceedings (1997). Careers>TC>History
#23144
How do we prepare for the future? How will trends affect our careers as technical communicators? Do we have the right set of skills to survive? Will it be most important to learn the latest technologies of information delivery? Will it be most important How do we prepare for the future? How will trends affect our careers as technical communicators: Do we have the right set of skills to survive? Will it be most important to learn the latest technologies of information delivery? Will it be most important to become effective consultants and members of product- and informationdesign teams, experts on the communication and use of information that supports human performance? Just what will the next five or ten years bring? How will the technical communication professional survive and prosper?
Hackos, JoAnn T. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>TC
#22148
Using the Information Process-Maturity Model for Strategic Planning
Why should we be interested in strategic planning for our information-development organizations? We might simply apply specific tactics for getting our everyday jobs done. We might focus our concerns on producing a manual or getting the online help finished. We might even plan far enough in advance to send staff members to workshops on the latest online help development tools. These tactics would get us through the day, or the week, or even through the end of the year, and we would be busy doing useful things (or at least things that we hope others find useful). But as we keep busy doing our everyday jobs, we may find ourselves surprised by the decisions of those who decide to eliminate our function, outsource our tasks, or disperse our staff throughout the organization. Only then we will recognize that we lacked an overall goal, a vision of what we should be doing, of how we want to be perceived in the future.
Hackos, JoAnn T. ComTech Services (2000). Articles>Project Management>Management
#14512
What Have We Learned From Usability Testing?
This panel repeats the form of our popular panel from the 40th STC annual conference. We enjoy presenting some of the guidelines we have been developing from our years of experience watching the performance of usability test subjects. This year we repeat the theme with new topics from our recent research and a concentration on documentation guidelines.
Hackos, JoAnn T., Janice S. James and Janice C. 'Ginny' Redish. STC Proceedings (1994). Presentations>Usability
#14528
If we look at many publications organizations today, we find many examples of process gone awry. Deadlines are routinely missed, original schedules are considered impossible, little or no planning occurs, plans that are written are ignored, project management is virtually unknown, and writers madly write and rewrite until someone blows the whistle and insists that the whole mess be shipped to the unwitting customers. This scenario is so common that many technical communicators hardly believe any other is possible.
Hackos, JoAnn T. STC Proceedings (1994). Presentations>TC>Methods
#22153
A Writer's Guide to XML Content Management
A discussion of how XML changes what you do as a writer.
Hackos, JoAnn T. and Tina Hedlund. ComTech Services (2000). Articles>Content Management>XML>Writing
#24255
You’re Going to Visit the Users! Now What Do You Do? Lessons in Conducting a User Site Visit
You are ready to visit users and observe how they perform tasks and use documentation. Come work with JoAnn Hackos and Ginny Redish in this demonstration/workshop and learn how to conduct the site visit by observing, probing, listening, and interviewing.
Hackos, JoAnn T. and Janice C. 'Ginny' Redish. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Usability>Methods
