#28234
Focused Sharing of Information for Multi-disciplinary Decision Making by Project Teams 
Today's electronic and paper-based approaches to the sharing of project information do not scale to the information sharing and interaction challenges of multi-disciplinary project team meetings. The inability to share and interact with information easily and effectively is one of the biggest bottlenecks in using electronic (online) information for collaborative decision-making. Through scenarios from recent construction projects, this paper summarizes existing approaches to the sharing of information and assesses their effectiveness in supporting multi-disciplinary decision-making by project teams. It then discusses recent research into interactive information workspaces where, with minimal software overhead, participants can share information that is relevant to a particular context to establish a common focus. We believe that the construction community can make significant progress quickly in leveraging existing and future investments in information infrastructure if it not only pursues information sharing through the use of product models but also formalizes the focused sharing of information and separates information interaction and view control from software services and underlying data as outlined in this paper.
Liston, Kathleen, Martin Fischer and Terry Winograd. Stanford University (2001). Articles>Collaboration>TC
#26583
This paper explores the possibility that trained business communication professionals might perceive differentially the quality of the identical entrepreneurial presentations, depending on whether they are in audio or print form. By conducting a comparative analysis of heard and read versions of these speeches, we uncovered evidence which frames the following discourse. Results point to the variables which shape either (1) oral communication with an immediately- present audience, or (2) written transcripts with a distanced or imagined set of readers. This has aided us in identifying the funding for new ventures.
Sokuvitz, Sydel and Stephen Spinelli. Association for Business Communication (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration>Genre
#31688
The Fox and the Hedgehog Go to Work: A Natural History of Workplace Collusion 
The author argues that an ironic approach to collusion can help shift the focus of resistance away from the relatively rare events surrounding implacable opposition or total unanimity to the quotidian aspects of workplace politics. Collusion is characterized as an outcome of organizational politics conducted between the traditionally opposed parties of radical industrial sociology (i.e., managers and workers) under the guidance of an ironic mode of cognition. Irony is depicted as a foxlike way of gaining 'a perspective on perspectives,' which provides a means of understanding stalemate, accommodation, and collusion by showing how opposing ideological positions are indebted. It also illuminates the moments when collusion breaks down and resisting parties become implacably opposed hedgehogs (one position prevails over the other), leading to overt conflict and resistance.
Sewell, Graham. Management Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Management>Workplace>Collaboration
#12933
While writing attention-grabbing, informative queries--a much-covered topic in the freelance writing arena--is important in landing assignments, don't overlook one important aspect that can help you continue landing assignments time after time: Establishing and maintaining good relationships with the editors you work with. This article offers advice, how-to and why-to information, and techniques to apply throughout the publishing process that can help you build good relationships with magazine editors. Although the following sections provide specific details and steps, the message is simple: A little understanding, consideration, and effort go a long way.
Ray, Deborah S. TECHWR-L (2001). Articles>Writing>Collaboration
#19463
From Sea to Shining Sea…Bi-Coastal Teaming 
This presentation addresses the issues that technical communicators face when team members are in different geographic locations. Issues such as communication, team building, project management and planning, and successful practices that help teams succeed without regard to their physical locations will be discussed. The management of distributed teams, what obstacles managers face, including labor and employment laws, cost-of-living relative to salaries in varied locations, and how to conduct performance appraisals when managers and employees work thousands of miles apart will also be explored, along with employee perspectives and issues of change and collaboration.
STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Online
#27758
Functional Specifications Subvert the Hierarchy of Nature
When you use a spec, you give your trust and authority to a piece of paper rather than the people on your team. You codify laws. You strip your 'judges' of the ability to act on intuitive feelings. There’s no fluidity. There’s no ability to respond, change, and evolve.
Fried, Jason. Signal vs. Noise. Articles>Collaboration>Specifications
#31808
Gender Differences in Employees’ and Students’ Knowledge of Office Politics
Office politics goes on in most work environments. Learning the rules of office politics helps employees of both genders reap the rewards to which they are entitled. As future employees, students must become knowledgeable about office politics to be successful in the world of work.
Green, Catherine G. and Lillian H. Chaney. Association for Business Communication (2008). Articles>Education>Business Communication>Collaboration
#29027
Getting Personal: Individuality, Innovation, and Technical Communication
This philosophical article explores individuality and innovation (creating new technology) as they relate to the communication approaches of scientists, engineers, and technologists. I suggest that effective communication between technical and non-technical people is difficult because technical communication lacks humanity, a personal dimension. I also suggest that dimension is lacking because technical people give up their identity to be considered competent and I argue that a different approach to communication education for scientists, engineers, and technologists is required to equip them with requisite communication skills to make their personal contribution to successful innovation.
Steiner, Carol J. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (1999). Articles>Collaboration>Technology
#18378
Getting Reluctant Stakeholders To The Table: Experienced Mediators Share Insights
Most mediators agree that inclusion is a bedrock principle of public dispute resolution, that everyone with a stake in a dispute should be at the table helping to resolve it. This principle helps ensure that any consensus agreement reached will be seen as legitimate by all parties and the public and will have broad support when it is being implemented. So what does a mediator do when a key stakeholder is reluctant or even refuses to participate in a dispute resolution process?
Thomas-Larmer, Jennifer. Mediate.com (1998). Articles>Collaboration
#15139
Presents ten humorous suggestions for technical writers on how to persuade reviewers of documentation to do their jobs.
Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2000). Articles>Editing>Collaboration
#28274
Getting Started with Performance Management
What are some ways to effectively track and manage a group’s performance? Wiley examines a way to do so using specific requirements designed to measure the success of an STC SIG.
Wiley, Ann L. Intercom (2006). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Methods
#31562
Communication professionals can and should have frequent, direct access to and influence on executive leadership. Your CEO needs you, but are you ready? It is a misperception that CEOs are too busy, uninterested or unreceptive. While some communicators have close contact with executives, many other communication professionals rarely see the CEO and may have many layers of management between themselves and that "C-level" suite. But you don't have to report directly to the CEO to get his or her ear.
Gayeski, Diane. Communication World Bulletin (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Management>Collaboration
#31339
Global Teams: Communicating Across Time, Space and, Most Important, Cultures
With the birth of the Internet and the advancement of other information technologies, companies and organizations are now able to operate across borders, cultures and time zones at lower costs than ever before. One way this occurs is through virtual teams, which allow companies to maximize their global expertise and resources, while team members can remain in their home countries.
Apud, Salvador and Talis Apud-Martinez. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Collaboration>International>Cultural Theory
#19705
Grid Computing--the "Electrical Outlet" Model of Computing
This column presents overviews of new technologies that may affect technical communicators in the near future.
Perlin, Neil E. Intercom (2003). Articles>Collaboration
#27449
Group Communication Specifications: A Comprehensive Study
View-oriented group communication is an important and widely used building block for many distributed applications. Much current research has been dedicated to specifying the semantics and services of view-oriented Group Communication Systems (GCSs). However, the guarantees of different GCSs are formulated using varying terminologies and modeling techniques, and the specifications vary in their rigor. This makes it difficult to analyze and compare the different systems.
Chockler, Gregory V., Idit Keidar and Roman Vitenberg. MIT (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Groupware>Semantic
#22019
Group Dynamics: Building a Dynamic Web Team
As a team you need to consider: Which tasks will you do together as a group? How will you divide the tasks among yourselves?
University of California San Diego (2003). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration
#22021
Group Think: Building in Quality 
What kind of organizational structure is best for sharing information that will result in quality decisions? Researchers at the University at London provide insight into what empowers management groups make better more competitive strategic decisions. The quality of decisions is improved when all members of the group have access to information.
Rulke, Diane L. and Joseph Galaskiewicz. HRZone (1998). Articles>Collaboration
#18862
Group Work and Collaborative Writing
Working with a group on a project can be a pleasure: responsibilities are equitably divided, the tedium of work is punctuated by conviviality and commiseration, and large problems dissolve under scrutiny from a variety of perspectives. Working with a group can also be frustrating, the seemingly indirect and digressive, as well as anxiety-ridden and inconvenient. But still, the product of group work has better odds for success than does the product of an individual.
Connery, Brian A. and John L. Vohs. University of California Davis. Articles>Collaboration>Writing
#28888
Growth of Science and Technology Journals in India
This paper estimates the growth of Science and Technology (S&T) journals in post-independence India.
Shafi, Muzamil. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Publishing>Scientific Communication>Collaboration
#31015
Explains how a leading global law firm manages its market and client research. Outlines the firm's divisions, business activities and client base. Explains in detail how the firm uses business research, covering use of market intelligence on the business issues that an individual client faces, and the gathering of intelligence about the client, to disclose the nature and extent of the firm's ambitions to advise the organization concerned. Discusses the staffing of a law firm's business research capability, pointing out that not only staff expertise but also confidentiality concerns mean that it is not always efficient for lawyers to access internal and external information sources directly. Suggests that defining the minimum business research necessary improves the usefulness of the information delivered and saves the firm time -- and that removing the uncertainty about what is required improves job satisfaction as well.
Blaxland, Diane. Business Information Review (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Legal>Collaboration
#25011
Harnessing the Earthquake: Reaching Group Consensus When Changing the Documentation Process
A causal-analysis session is a problem-solving method that brings groups of people together to jointly solve common problems and make process changes. This method ensures that everyone who will be affected by a process change has the opportunity to provide input and agree to the solution. In large departments, reaching group consensus is a challenge. This paper presents our department's implementation of the causal-analysis method.
Coppola, Carolyn M. and Kristine Logan. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration
#30100
Calm tension, communicate more easily, and run your projects more efficiently by applying the right relationship management techniques.
LaFerriere, Keith. List Apart, A (2007). Articles>Management>Collaboration
#29336
The Hidden Relationship Between Project Managers and Technical Writers
Want to know the secret to better quality documentation and improved software design? Will Kelly outlines how the key is an effective relationship between project managers and technical writers.
Kelly, William T. TechRepublic (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Project Management>Technical Writing
#14051
Hot Politics: The Changing Places of Political Participation in the Age of the Internet
Among the many complexities of power, economics, interests, personality, passions, social interaction, ideology, culture, and religion that keep politics both more and less than rational deliberation are those that arise from the dynamics of literate interchange, the historical formation of forums, and the generic shaping of utterances within those forums. Recent research on genre and discursive systems, along with situated cognition and action, suggests that the character of the local activity space is extremely important for what happens, what people think and learn, and what social consequences emerge. While the shape of politics to emerge in the cyber world is still somewhat obscure, by considering the forums of political interchange that are emerging on the internet, how they draw on previous forums and genres of political interchange, and the pressures that seem to be encouraging the heightening of certain elements within those genres, we may gain a first reading of some choices in front of us.
Bazerman, Charles. UCSB (2000). Articles>Collaboration>Online>Politics
#18377
How Can We Assist Clients in Becoming More Successful at Conflict Resolution?
A void exists in our social skill set that leaves us incapable of successfully resolving the conflicts we face in our personal and professional lives. Conflict and dispute resolution is a skill we all must learn. Practitioners need to assist clients to reach beyond just settling their current conflict. We should include the skill building, coaching and support necessary for disputants to make the paradigm shift from disputing parties to conflict resolution advocates with a positive perspective on conflict and its resolution.
Odidison, Joyce. Mediate.com (2002). Articles>Communication>Collaboration
