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176. #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 177. #22410 Knowledge Management: The Collaboration Thread Knowledge management is a thick web of themes from a variety of professional disciplines. The field is populated with people who resonate with the ideas first articulated by Larry Prusak and Tom Davenport, Tom Stewart, Carla O'Dell and others. "Getting the right information to the right people at the right time." Isn't that what information architecture and the information sciences are all about? "Leveraging the intellectual capital of the organization." Isn't that HR turf? "Harvest and refine reusable intellectual artifacts." Hello? Are there any technical writers out there? "It's about connecting people with people and supporting them with technology." Does anybody know that research in computer-supported cooperative work began in 1984? Anklam, Patti. ASIST (2002). Articles>Knowledge Management>Collaboration 178. #29367 A Lack of Coordination is Why Technical Support Isn't Working Technical support relies heavily on users' abilities to perform tasks, and we're all more than familiar with the difficulty involved with assisting inexperienced computer users. Most widespread worms and viruses take hold and spread due to poorly maintained systems, commonly home systems found on broadband networks. Yarden, Jonathan. TechRepublic (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration>Help 179. #30355 Leadership Through Empowerment Assigning responsibility without sharing authority is like making someone a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but leaving out the bread. They know what they're supposed to chew, but have absolutely no way to handle, no way to manage the project. Juillet, Christopher. Boston Broadside (1990). Articles>Management>Collaboration 180. #19514 Learning at Work: The Role of Technical Communication in Organizational Learning Concludes that technical support is an important audience for customer documentation and a source of knowledge. Proposes that technical communicators produce documentation that meets the needs of technical support and taps into that knowledge. Wahl, Scott. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Workplace 181. #19879 Learning Discourse Conventions: The Socialization of Technical Writers Newcomers learn about the practices and values of an organization through a process called socialization. Organizational socialization research provides useful information on the resources (such as mentors and written materials) that are available to these newcomers within organizations and the strategies (such as indirect questioning and disguised conversation) that new employees can use as they move into unfamiliar settings. At a time when there is a great deal of movement and uncertainty within industry, an awareness of socialization resources and strategies can be critically important in helping technical communicators make the transition to new assignments, divisions, or organizations. Katz, Susan M. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Workplace>Collaboration 182. #14209 Learning from the Work of Others Rolf Molich has conducted two experiments comparing the work of different usability teams, examining their practices, and looking for patterns and differences. His experiments provide extremely valuable material for sharpening individual usability practices. Schroeder, Will. User Interface Engineering (2002). Articles>Usability>Collaboration 183. #22732 Learning Languages with Instant Messaging While e-mail and discussion groups are other popular communication genres on the Internet, instant messaging is the most conducive to learning languages because of its synchronous nature. There are many ways to communicate over the Internet, but instant messaging is unique, because it almost simulates a face-to-face conversation. Unlike e-mail and discussion groups, users are not simply leaving messages to be read later. Users are both present, holding a live conversation. Although some of the subtle features of conversation are lost (such as facial expressions or tone of voice), instant messaging makes up for these disadvantages by being so widely accessible to so many people across the world. Dean, Heather. Techniques (2003). Articles>Language>Collaboration>Instant Messaging 184. #22690 Learning the Fine Art of Reviewing If you asked me what the most painful part of being a technical writer is, my answer would be: 'Getting reviews on time. Getting good feedback and inputs on your work.' For me technical writing has been very pleasurable because I hardly got any review comments. My morale has therefore been very high. Project managers, developers and others are so busy trying to come up with good software (read trying to fix all the goof-ups and bugs!) that they usually tend to give documentation lesser importance. User manuals, who reads them anyway? We do not have time for it! Kamath, Gurudutt R. IT People (2003). Articles>Editing>Collaboration>Technical Writing 185. #26423 Learning to Use Virtual Team Collaboration to Solve Wicked Problems The focus of this paper is the ELEARNING RESEARCH PROJECT (hereafter referred to as the EProject), a project to investigate how virtual teams collaborate to solve highly complex or wicked problems. The EProject designed, constructed, and assessed a Web-based collaborative learning environment to support virtual teams of intelligence analysts. The mission of these geo-distributed and cross-disciplinary teams is to learn to collaborate in order to integrate knowledge from diverse domains and thereby produce solutions for wicked problems. Cupp, Stephanie, Joel Foreman, S. Gievska-Krliu, and Rachelle S. Heller. ACM Crossroads (2004). Articles>Collaboration>Online 186. #21101 Metcalfe's Law basically tells us that as you connect n number of machines you get n squared in potential value. So, with 2 machines you get a value of 4. When you connect 10 machines, you get a value of 100. When you connect 200 machines, you get a value of 40,000. People like to apply this idea to the internet. In particular, people claim that the strength of the internet is a direct result of so many machines being connected. I think that this is bullshit. Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Online 187. #28873 Subject matter experts, under the influence of modernist notions of authorship, often view technical writers as mere grammar and punctuation specialists and marginalize them as their ignorant 'other.' Technical writers, on the other hand, as rhetoricians occupying a liminal space between different disciplines, can understand different disciplinary rhetorics. If subject matter experts, instead of marginalizing technical writers, would view them as liminal subjects who are knowledgeable in different disciplinary rhetorics, then technical writers, through liminal practice, may be able to use their knowledge of audience and rhetoric to improve the quality of documentation. Jeyeraj, Joseph. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2004). Articles>TC>Theory>Collaboration 188. #30326 Listening: the Often Forgotten Ingredient If listening isn't in the mix when developing documentation, then the project may not cook. Allen, Clare. Boston Broadside (1992). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration>SMEs 189. #27246 Listening to the Customer's Voice Perhaps the greatest challenge facing the software developer is sharing the vision of the final product with the customer. All stakeholders in a project-developers, end users, software managers, customer managers-must achieve a common understanding of what the product will be and do, or someone will be surprised when it is delivered. Surprises in software are almost never good news. Therefore, we need ways to accurately capture, interpret, and represent the voice of the customer when specifying the requirements for a software product. Wiegers, Karl E. Process Impact. Articles>User Centered Design>Collaboration 190. #15159 Listservs: Connecting Students with Practitioners An instructor of technical communication describes how she uses technology to give her students access to professionals in the field. Dyke, Julie L. Intercom (2000). Articles>Collaboration>Mailing Lists 191. #30005 Location is Everything When it Comes to Getting Information from SMEs A 20 minute monologue about the best way to get information from SMEs--sit by them, permanently if possible. Many IT organizations station the writer remotely from the developers, programmers, and other SMEs, but nothing could be more damaging to getting the information you need. Increasing your proximity also increases the communication you receive. Johnson, Tom H. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>TC>Collaboration>SMEs 192. #22795 Long-Distance Teams: Facing the Challenges Offers advice for managers of long-distance teams on working across time zones, accommodating team members' cultural norms, easing the difficulties of language differences, and nurturing team spirit. Legg, Kathy A. Intercom (2004). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Online 193. #29427 Mail Your Newsletter with Less Labor and Cost A lot of STC chapter and SIG mailings are done the old-fashioned way: envelopes stuffed by hand, and stamped manually or--occasionally--with a stamp machine. That's an awful lot of work, and expensive too. When I confronted this problem a few years back for my current employer, some research revealed a solution that eliminated the annual pressganging of volunteers to stuff envelopes and also saved us a fair bit of money. Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (1999). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>STC 194. #30139 Managing a Documentation Project from Both Sides of the Atlantic Most of us struggle every day with keeping the lines of communication open between developers, subject matter experts (SMEs), customers, and writers. Sometimes you can circumvent these difficulties by simply walking upstairs or across the hall and chatting with the appropriate person. But what happens when it's not a staircase or hallway separating you but a very large ocean? The best way to keep an overseas project on track is to put together a writing team in the most convenient location; meet at least once with the development team; and set up your communication channels early. Morgan, Sharon. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration>Online 195. #29862 Holding competitions at regional and local levels enhances the value a chapter provides its members. This workshop, designed for chapter leaders and competition managers, provides a practical and well-tested plan for managing the chapter’s annual competition. Attendees will receive a complete package of samples, spreadsheet and document templates, and presentation slides that they can customize for their chapters. Levander, Deanne K. and Preeti Mathur. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>STC 196. #29659 Managing Content: Version Control in a Collaborative Workplace The increasingly collaborative nature of the workplace--including writing teams and documentation groups--heightens the need for sophisticated document management solutions. Written for managers of workgroups and writing/editorial leads, this paper examines some common issues, including version control, document lifecycle management, and support for collaborative authoring and review. This paper also presents a model for finding and implementing a technology solution that makes sense for your team, as well as a case study of a successful implementation. Angier, Jenny and Paul Foy. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration 197. #23798 Managing Multiple Deliverables with a Small Staff Managing multiple deliverables with a small staff is a discipline unto itself, different from those departments where each writer has specific responsibilities. In this environment, each member is required to have multiple skills and the flexibility to jump from one project to the next quickly. Because of the demands, heavy training costs are often incurred, and the involvement of other departments is mandatory, all of which makes management support essential. It is an exhilarating, often exhausting environment, but the rewards are multiple skills, a wide variety of assignments, and the satisfaction of being part of a tightly-knit, highly-productive team. Beadle, Diane. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Collaboration>Workflow 198. #24358 Managing the Communication Between Writers and SMEs The development of a modern software product is a complex process involving a variety of disciplines, including that of the technical writer. It is essential that the writers establish close relationships with all other groups in the process and that they build effective and efficient systems of communication between them. The job of the writing manager is to ensure that the writing team obtains the information it needs in a timely manner and that the group interacts effectively with other groups in the process. This can be achieved by a blend of intergroup communication, background research, documentation and schedule planning and a well organized documentation review process. Morgan, Sharon. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>TC>Collaboration>SMEs 199. #28763 I talk with Katherine (Kit) Brown, Brenda Huettner, and Char James-Tanny about their latest book, Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and Other Collaborative Tools. Brown, Katherine 'Kit', Brenda Huettner, Char James-Tanny and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Content Management>Podcasts 200. #19740 Writing is popularly considered a spontaneous exercise, and often is. Spontaneous writing, however, does not always result in high quality results. Aiyyangar, Ramesh. Indus (2002). Articles>Writing>Collaboration>Technical Writing
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