A directory of resources inthe field of technical communication.

Articles>Collaboration

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201.
#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

202.
#29367

A Lack of Coordination is Why Technical Support Isn't Working   (members only)

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

203.
#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

204.
#19514

Learning at Work: The Role of Technical Communication in Organizational Learning   (peer-reviewed)   (members only)

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

205.
#19879

Learning Discourse Conventions: The Socialization of Technical Writers  (link broken)   (PDF)

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

206.
#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

207.
#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

208.
#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

209.
#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

210.
#21101

Less Than Metcalfe's Law

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

211.
#31276

Leveraging Collaborative Environments

Meet Scott, age 28, with a Dunkin' Donuts cup costume, a web site, a MySpace page and an archive of compelling brand content that, by the way, happens to rank number four in a Google search for the brand name. Scott is among the legions of brand enthusiasts who are knocking down the walls of the traditional "us versus them" brand relationship, demanding to be let in and be a part of the brand experience.

Key, Rob. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration>Social Networking

212.
#28873

Liminality and Othering   (peer-reviewed)   (members only)

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

213.
#31337

The Link Between Communication and Teambuilding

In today's world, employees are searching for meaning in their work. They want to understand the big picture and how they can contribute to it. Companies are increasingly being asked to put the values they mention in their mission statements into practice. It is against this background that teambuilding is acquiring a whole new meaning.

Cambié, Silvia. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Communication>Collaboration

214.
#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

215.
#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

216.
#15159

Listservs: Connecting Students with Practitioners   (PDF)

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

217.
#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

218.
#31848

Long-Distance Editing   (PDF)   (members only)

Check out seven tips that will help you and your team remain busy and useful when you have extra time or gaps between projects.

Crognale, Heather. Intercom (2008). Articles>Editing>Collaboration>Online

219.
#22795

Long-Distance Teams: Facing the Challenges   (PDF)

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

220.
#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

221.
#31645

Making Connections: An Intercultural Virtual Team Project in Professional Communication   (PDF)   (members only)

This presentation reports on an intercultural virtual team project conducted by students in two management communication courses, one at the University of Delaware (USA) and one at McGill University (Canada). The goal of the partnership between the two classes was to enhance students' ability to collaborate across cultures using a variety of technologies for collaboration, a skill they need in order to succeed in the increasingly global and technologically mediated environment of work. Each team, which included students from both universities, compared communication practices in a company or type of business that exists both in the United States and in Canada. Their task was to analyze how the practices reflect and shape the particular environments in which the businesses operate. During the project they advanced and monitored their work through different technologies, including blogs, email, and a designated collaborative Web-based workspace, and they produced several genres of documents reporting their achievements. This presentation first analyzes the advantages, vulnerabilities, and faultlines of virtual intercultural teamwork as students experienced them. We then describe conditions that help teams overcome the risks of virtual work and assess how well we were able to create these conditions in the courses.

Andrews, Deborah C. and Dorreen Starke-Meyerring. IEEE PCS (2005). Articles>Collaboration>Online>Case Studies

222.
#30139

Managing a Documentation Project from Both Sides of the Atlantic   (PDF)

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

223.
#29862

Managing Chapter Competitions   (PDF)

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

224.
#31718

Managing Conflict

Conflict is characteristic in any situation that brings diverse groups together to manage tasks and obstacles. Nowhere is that more apparent than in business environments based on hierarchical structures where teams are inherited and divergent objectives create barriers to effective teamwork. Conflict resolution is among the many tasks delegated to managers, yet it is often the most difficult to master.

Harris, Kerri. Writing Assistance (2007). Articles>Management>Collaboration>Workplace

225.
#29659

Managing Content: Version Control in a Collaborative Workplace   (PDF)

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

 
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