#18711
Improving Your Interpersonal Skills
To succeed in the corporate world, then, technical types have to learn to live with -- even serve -- nontechies. This article gives tips to help you get along with -- and maybe even learn to like -- people, whether the same as us or different.
#22880
Increasing Chapter Membership Through Public Relations 
The Orange County Chapter of STC (OCSTC) set a goal of increasing membership by 20% in one chapter year, with increased public exposure and improved member services as the primary goal. PR Committee volunteers planned and carried out eight programs to increase corporate awareness and media coverage, improve intrachapter communications, and extend community relations. Chapter membership grew by 31% during that year and membership retention was above the International average. In addition to international recognition, committee volunteers gained professionally useful skills through their efforts.
Giles, Sandra J. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>Public Relations
#29060
The Influence of E-Mail as an Interoffice Communication Tool in Small Organizations 
E-mail has significantly impacted the way we communicate in business, possibly going so far as to affect the social structure of organizations. One under-explored effect of e-mail is how it impacts communication in smaller organizations. Given the ability of regular face-to-face interaction, is e-mail necessary to boost communication? A report of employee attitudes in one small business did provide an opportunity to observe the impact of e-mail on communications and employee attitudes. As a result, it is suspected that interoffice e-mail may serve to link formal and informal communication channels, particularly in terms of including managers to the informal communications network.
Adrian, C. Mitchell. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Workplace>Collaboration>Email
#14286
The Influence of Gender on Collaborative Projects in an Engineering Classroom
Using a qualitative approach to data collection and analysis, this article discusses some of the findings from a larger study on collaboration and the role of gender. Here, we profile three student engineering teams as they participate in processes leading to the submission of a report for a team-based technical communication course. While some theorists suggest that gender can play a significant role in achieving a successful team dynamic, our study only partially supports that claim. A synopsis of two women from two predominantly male teams reveals glimpses of what the literature describes as traditional gender-linked behaviors by both men and women, but the all-female team does not conform to stereotypical patterns and their behaviors call into question the existence of these interactional styles. We suggest that factors other than gender and independent of a team’s gender composition—such as team commitment and a strong work ethic—exert a greater impact on collaboration. Nevertheless, the study does caution against assigning women to predominantly male teams since, when a team’s social structure is mostly male, traditional gender-linked interactional behaviors as well as manifestations of the culture of engineering are more likely to emerge. Overall, the study underlines the importance of examining specific face-to-face interactions to see how behavior is situationally produced in order to more fully understand the interactional strategies open to individuals.
Ingram, Sandra and Anne Parker. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication (2002). Articles>Collaboration>Writing
#29547
Information About Video Conferencing: What You Need To Know
Video conferencing is the technique of meeting in a group over a network employing video and audio transmission technology and equipment. Armed with information about video conferencing businessmen, technologists, scientists and government heads started to explore ways to bring the world closer together and enable meetings of many people located in different parts of the globe. Video conferencing is the process of being able to see and interact with a group of people located at any point of the world at the same time.
Shakir A. Ezine Articles (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Videoconferencing>Online
#10431
This article reports on an online discussion of the Advisory Council for Information Development Management (CIDM), which is composed of directors, managers, and CEOs from corporations and a consulting firm. The conversation, conducted over 3 weeks in January 2000, covered several key themes: The expectation of greater productivity while budgets are flat or decreasing Meeting this expectation means a considerable rethinking, doing more with less, improving processes, and understanding total cost. The need for higher quality and improved usability This important need leads some organizations back to traditional editing, to embracing different development techniques (such as single sourcing, structured documents, and standard English), and to more robust interfaces. Innovative leadership and effective organization Strong leadership in a supportive and flexible organization is ultimately the cornerstone for success.
Rosenquist, Deborah J. Technical Communication Online (2001). Articles>Management>Collaboration
#22475
Inside Out/Outside In: Transcending the Boundaries That Divide the Academy and Industry
Having lived and worked on both sides of the academe-industry border, I've thought a great deal about the negative attitudes held by so many who live in both of these parts of the larger world of technical communication.
Hayhoe, George F. George Hayhoe Associates (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Industry and Academy
#21651
Instant Messaging in the Workplace
Proposes six guidelines for employee use of instant messaging.
Hoffman, Jeff. Intercom (2004). Articles>Workplace>Collaboration>Instant Messaging
#18674
INTERACTIONARY: Sports for Design Training and Team Building
This is an experiment in design education. The idea is to explode the process of design by forcing insane time constraints, and asking teams of designers to work together in front of a live audience. From what we've seen, it forces the discussion of design process, teamwork, and organization, and asks important questions about how designers do what they do. Below are summaries of previous events, and information about how to organize your own Interactionary.
Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (2001). Articles>Management>Collaboration
#31690
This article argues for the theoretical and practical incorporation of aesthetic sensibilities into the communicative management of hybrid organizing. Using Dewey's Art as Experience as a conceptual framework, it explores imaginative and aesthetic practices as knowledge-producing resources for organizing and social change. The analysis centers on the complex and contradictory ways that artful capacities and instrumental rationalities interweave to achieve the organizational order of a collaborative art studio. Using discourses from multiple stakeholders, this article examines in detail three themes: art as creation and vocation, art as ephemeral integration, and art as survival and social change. Findings are discussed in the context of other scholarship committed to recovering and fostering alternative logics for organizing.
Harter, Lynn M., Mark Leeman, Stephanie Norander, Stephanie L. Young and William K. Rawlins. Management Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Organizational Communication>Collaboration
#22979
A rich discussion of collaboration as integral to writing in academia and the workplace has been on-going for some time among writing instructors and researchers. The outcomes of this discussion have convinced some writing instructors to promote peer feedback as one of the forms of collaborative writing in the classroom. In this paper we report on the preliminary stages of a longitudinal study of the role and place of peer feedback in the development of students' writing.
Artemeva, Natasha and Susan Logie. LLAD (2002). Articles>Education>Engineering>Collaboration
#31847
Is Lone Writing Becoming a Team Sport?
Larbi discusses the transition—including advantages—that many lone writers face as globalization becomes more prevalent and individual consultants transform into lone writer teams.
Larbi, Nancy E. Intercom (2008). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Collaboration
#27155
Is Open Source is Killing the Lone Coder?
It is probably more true that open source is helping the lone coder find a niche or their own market share. There are plenty of them and more are appearing everyday. With potential clients looking for specialists in content management software like Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, Typo3 and a gang of newcomers finding a niche is becoming increasingly easier.
Hiveminds (2005). Articles>Collaboration>Software>Open Source
#21945
Is the Internet a Self-Correcting Mechanism?
The hype surrounding the hype surrounding the Internet has made it into all kinds of animals. But it's a self-correcting mechanism.
Fleishman, Glenn. Adobe Magazine (1996). Articles>Information Design>Collaboration
#28125
Your staff may already be using one of the most productive collaboration tools ever built.
Dickerson, Chad. InfoWorld (2004). Articles>Collaboration>Content Management>Wikis
#13920
The Issue of Quality in Professional Documentation: How Can Academia Make More of a Difference?
This article recommends strategies academics can use to contribute to an issue of great interest in industry: how best to define, measure, and achieve quality documentation. These strategies include contextualizing quality definitions, advocating the use of multiple quality measures, conducting research to identify specific heuristics for defining and measuring quality in particular workplace contexts, and partnering with industry to educate upper management about those heuristics and the benefits of promoting technical communicators to the strategic role of organizational “gatekeepers of quality.”
Spilka, Rachel. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration>Technical Writing
#27323
Issues You Will Confront When Using Third Parties To Build Out Sites
Nearly every ecommerce site revolves around a database to support inventory, listings and transactions. Building out the database can be a challenge. Here is what to expect.
Pires, Halstatt. Ezine Articles (2006). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration>E Commerce
#23584
It's More Than E-Mail: An Overview Of Inter-Networking
Although global computer networks have existed for many years, they have grown explosively only in the last few—particularly the one called the Internet. ARPANET, the forerunner of these network, was set up to aid communication between the government and people doing defense research in universities and industry. The network got a major boost in the late 1980s when the National Science Foundation created NSFNET, linking the five NSF supercomputer centers with networks at university campuses and the ARPANET. Continuing advances in reliability, speed, capacity, and ease of access have made the Internet an international medium for information exchange.
Hibbard, Jeffrey L. and Eric J. Ray. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Collaboration>Online>Government
#18433
It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know: Work in the Information Age
We discuss our ethnographic research on personal social networks in the workplace, arguing that traditional institutional resources are being replaced by resources that workers mine from their own networks. Social networks are key sources of labor and information in a rapidly transforming economy characterized by less institutional stability and fewer reliable corporate resources. The personal social network is fast becoming the only sensible alternative to the traditional 'org chart' for many everyday transactions in today's economy.
Nardi, Bonnie A., Steve Whittaker and Heinrich Schwarz. First Monday (2000). Articles>Workplace>Collaboration
#19852
It’s the Communication, Stupid: Lessons in Communication-Driven Product Development
Changes in software design and development are creating new opportunities for technical communicators at DDS. Writers have become an integral part of product teams, evaluated on their ability to help get products out the door. In some cases writers’ deliverables have themselves become full software development projects. As technical writers take on new roles they’re getting increased visibility, more interesting and varied work and a chance to move up ladders outside of the traditional technical writing group.
Dykstra, Peter. STC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Communication>Collaboration
#18302
Just a Cog in the Machine? Implications for Technical Communicators
This article explores the implications of choosing to work as a cog in the field of technical communication. The author includes perspectives from cog-colleagues and manager/cogs, and touches on concepts of ownership, recognition, and egoless communication. She recommends exercises in discipline-specific poetry and editing in a workshop setting as practical ways to work toward detachment.
MacQueen, Lisa Clare. Orange Journal, The (2002). Articles>TC>Collaboration
#22980
Using activity theory as a supplement to genre studies, this article explores a case of the disintegration of a traditional engineering firm. It focuses on the causes of such disintegration and the role of different types of communication in serving as sites where contradictions can be brought to visibility and resolution. The authors' goal is both to show the power of activity theory in illuminating issues of tension, contradiction, and dissonance that lead to the breakup of the original organization into two separate firms and point to fundamental differences in the cultures of traditional engineering firms and software design enterprises.
Artemeva, Natasha and Aviva Freedman. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Engineering
#24768
Keeping In Touch--Staying Online
As technical communicators, we need to reach out and 'keep in touch' with customers if we want to provide truly user-friendly documentation. If we include our customers in the document development process, and convince them that they are an integral part of that process, we increase customer satisfaction. In this panel, writers will discuss practical, step-by-step approaches they use to gather customer comments.
Jacobowitz, Barbara E. and Peggy A. Yates. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Collaboration>Correspondence
#23765
Key Open Source "Best Practices" Supported in the Tigris Project
Software developers spend a large part of their time communicating with each other. Clear and effective technical communications are needed to keep the team in synch and to allow individuals with key knowledge to apply that knowledge where it is needed. One tenet of the open source community is that techincal communications should take place in public forums. Mailing lists are the backbone of open source communications. Beyond that, open source projects need support for precisely communicating technical details and for group decision-making.
Tigris (1994). Articles>Collaboration>Open Source
#18848
The Knowledge Editor(SM): Innovative Editorial Solutions to Meet Your Quality Objectives
This paper represents over 30 years cumulative work experience, as both corporate staff members and as consultants, and shares recommendations for providing highly valuable editorial contributions. The authors also introduce a new concept for innovative editorial methods that meet the technological and productivity challenges facing today’s information design organizations.
Holland, Mary T. and Kristen Sutton. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Editing>Collaboration
