What Kind of Teamwork Improves Usability?

Professionals are increasingly working in networked teams where electronic media and asynchronous communication play an important role. So how can communication behaviours in these contexts predict usability? Do efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction in the communication process lead to the same for the resulting documentation?

Edwards, Kirstie. Usability Professionals Association (2005). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration>Usability

What to Do When the Boss Says No

It's an undisputed fact. Some CEOs refuse to acknowledge that their communication skills could use a tune-up. Someone in your organization -- quite possibly you -- needs to assume responsibility for sharpening your CEO's communication skills. If your leader neglects this part of her leadership toolkit, it's time to offer some frank advice on how she can improve. You must also be prepared to deal with the sensitive matter of how to encourage the boss to accept the benefits of learning from a communication training workshop.

Barks, Edward J. Communication World Bulletin (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Management>Collaboration

When the Show Must Go On, It’s Time to Collaborate Or Die

No one knew what to do. But there was a deadline, and the reviewers were coming. As a team, we walked through the schedule again and again until we had a plan. The next day, the video was edited, the shop finished the screens, and the production crew walked through the critical paths.

Quesenbery, Whitney. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Collaboration>Usability

Where in the World Is Second Life?

Like most corporations, computer maker Dell offers a pop-up list of countries and regions on its web site. But, look closely between Saudi Arabia and Senegal, and you'll find a country called "Second Life." Click on it and you'll find that it's not a country but a world—of the virtual kind.

Gronstedt, Anders. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>Social Networking

Where the Visual Meets the Verbal: Collaboration as Conversation  

If words follow pictures, as when a poet creates a poem in response to a work of art, then words become a way of seeing. Collaborations between verbal and visual artists produce such insights, regardless of whether the poet responds to the painter or the painter to the poet, since each is speaking in turn in the artistic dialogue which collaboration produces. Yet "Artistic practice and art history have not always looked favorably upon collaborations.

Miltner, Robert. Enculturation (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Visual Rhetoric

Whikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Quickness

The fact that a Workplace could be considered 'quick' is not properly linked with the easiness to find information or with the speedy level of the communications: in this context it is linked to the Wiki feature of assuring a real-time updating access to contents and resources (data, information or knowledge and physical resources).

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2007). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Whose Team? Managing and Participating in Non-Traditional Work Teams  

The non-traditional team environment is an evolution in our way of doing things. Virtual, blended, and multi-located team structures provide solutions to a myriad of complications that arise from traditional teaming—such as economic feasibility and skill-set cause and demand. It allows clients access to talent and skills they would not otherwise have, and enables specialists greater flexibility and availability. Professionalism and integrity are key in the non-traditional environment. Team members must be able to work isolated and/or with individuals who represent other companies. Managers must be equitable and be able to maintain strong lines of communication.

D'Larenti, Chantal, Connie Davis, Alan Cross, Everett Puckett. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration

The Why and How of an Effective Workshop

I've held several workshops for my company and I've done a mess of workshops at CHI and UPA. Workshops are a uniformly great experience: Put a bunch of usability professionals in the room, propose a topic, and magic always happens. The major benefit of a good workshop is, of course, the training opportunity. In a year when we won't be able to get everyone to the UPA conference, workshops provide us with a low-cost alternative. But that's only the most obvious benefit.

Rettger, Mary Beth. Usability Professionals Association (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Usability

"Why Do We Need Editors Anyway?" Overcoming the Obstacles Facing a New Editing Group  

In the corporate arena, an editing group (particularly a newly formed one) sometimes finds it difficult to be accepted as part of a communications team and may spend an inordinate amount of its energy seeking to justify its existence. Barriers to acceptance and credibility include lack of trust and misunderstanding about what editors do or what value editing imparts. Editors can overcome these obstacles, however, through a combination of consistent work practices, clear and frequent communication with writers, and an ongoing program aimed at demonstrating the practical value of editing.

Collins, William L. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Editing>Collaboration

Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas

We all know someone that's intelligent, but who occasionally defends obviously bad ideas. Why does this happen? How can smart people take up positions that defy any reasonable logic? Having spent many years working with smart people I’ve catalogued many of the ways this happens, and I have advice on what to do about it. I feel qualified to write this essay as I’m a recovering smart person myself and I’ve defended several very bad ideas.

Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2006). Articles>Management>Collaboration

Why You Must Lead or Follow

Something curious happens when we confront things we don’t like. Instead of the useful choices of taking action to improve things or accepting things as they are, we often just sit on our asses, point fingers and complain. We’ve developed the passive habits of spectators, rather than the active roles of creators and supporters.

Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2006). Articles>Collaboration>Management

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Collaboration

The true collaboration occurs when people have the possibility to co-work on the same sub-task, activating a mechanism of new knowledge creation. Collaboration is not so obvious if is not clearly supported: the risk is to exchange this 'together' learning process with a simple cooperation process, producing not new knowledge but only a simple addition of individual regress knowledge.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Openness

Strictly linked with transparency concept, openness is at the base of the principle that people work better if they have access to the right information and possibility to assume that all over the organization. The simple access to other group member data or the possibility to know activities scheduled also in other groups are normal operations in a mature context such as is allowed to look to other team solutions or results in order to decide something for the own team.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Peering

A common element between Wiki philosophy and innovation successful case histories, is the partial or total absence of structure or, saying better, of hierarchy. The possibility, in fact, to contribute in the same way, indifferently at which level you are involved in the organization, is one of the first steps towards the reduction of barriers to collaboration, participation and involvement in the organizational life.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikibility Cultural Key Drivers: Sharing

The possibility of sharing improves an effective distribution of common resources (meeting room, projector, corporate car...). In a more general acceptation of the term, the availability to ideas or previous solutions useful for different use is an advantage that make co-creation of new knowledge and a healthy circulation of knowledge possible.

Cammarata, Vincenzo. Grow Your Wiki (2008). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration>Wikis

Wikinomics: What does it Mean for Technical Communication?

Communication technology has changed the way we think of the workplace. It is no longer a physical location with equipment and personnel coming together in one place. Equipment and people can now be spread across the campus, across the city, across the country, or across the globe. At the same time the authors write that the hierarchical structure of companies is changing along with the geography. Employees no longer need to do specific tasks given to them by a local supervisor, but instead they can all take responsibility for the welfare of the organization. Each and every employee can have his or her ideas for innovation taken seriously. An interesting corollary to this discussion, not brought up by Tapscott and Williams, are benefits of the collaborative workplace, not directly related to the bottom line.

Hackos, Bill. Center for Information-Development Management (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Online

Wikis for Supporting Distributed Collaborative Writing  

Wikis allow distributed teams to collaboratively write and edit documents through the Internet in a shared online workspace, without the need for special HTML knowledge or tools. The flexibility of wiki technology is a boon for increased cooperative work on large team projects. However, wiki technology also complicates notions of usable design as the information architecture of a wiki site may be created on the fly by all participants rather than by a dedicated technical communicator. This paper describes the basic technology of wikis, some advantages and disadvantages, and areas of concern with regard to information design.

Wei, Carolyn, Brandon Maust, Jennifer Barrick, Elisabeth Cuddihy and Jan H. Spyridakis. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Collaboration>Writing>Wikis

Wikis for Supporting Distributed Collaborative Writing  

Wikis allow distributed teams to collaboratively write and edit documents through the Internet in a shared online workspace, without the need for special HTML knowledge or tools. The flexibility of wiki technology is a boon for increased cooperative work on large team projects. However, wiki technology also complicates notions of usable design as the information architecture of a wiki site may be created on the fly by all participants rather than by a dedicated technical communicator. This paper describes the basic technology of wikis, some advantages and disadvantages, and areas of concern with regard to information design.

Wei, Carolyn, Brandon Maust, Jennifer Barrick, Elisabeth Cuddihy and Jan H. Spyridakis. STC (2005). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration>Wikis

Winning the Cross-Cultural Marathon    

Differences in value systems often impact how effectively individuals collaborate. In today's growing markets, where boundaries have, literally and metaphorically, blurred to the point of disappearing, developing a better understanding of the factors that influence successful cross-cultural communication and international team-work remains a challenge. But with a little thought, cultural awareness and planning, this can be done successfully.

International Journal for Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Collaboration>International

Women's Technologies, Women's Literacies: Sewing and Computing Across the Years    

This article compares the historical and contemporary clothing industry with the current microelectronics industry. It argues that the development of paper patterns, along with the perfection of the sewing machine as a technology in the 1870s, democratized fashion for lower and middle class women just as the development of the World Wide Web and Web-making software has democratized publishing for authors before unable to gain access to an audience for their writing. Comparing the businesses of three groups of women using the World Wide Web, this article finally problematizes these historical and contemporary democratizing technologies the sewing machine and the computer by pointing out both obvious and more subtle socioeconomic realities which undercut some utopian promises of publishing in Cyberspace.

Rohan, Liz. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Knowledge Management>Collaboration>Gender

Working in Global Teams  

Virtual, global teams require us to use our communication skills in ways that were unimaginable twenty years ago. Learn about ways to build successful working relationships in virtual environments.

Doulton, Melanie. Intercom (2007). Articles>Collaboration>International

Working Together: Developing a Joint Documentation Project in Two Countries  

As companies become more internationally orientated, joint projects among groups in different countries are becoming more common. These projects offer unique opportunities, including learning about another culture and the chance to travel. They also present obstacles, including difficulties in communication. Time differences allow a small window for phone calls. Periodic face-to-face meetings are essential, since they build under- standing and tolerance that carry over into communication by phone or electronic mail. Cultural and national differences in business practice further complicate the picture. It is important to work out all procedures, standards, and objectives in writing for the project to succeed.

King, Nancy. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration>International

Working with a Technical Editor

If you have never worked with an editor before, you may be wondering what to expect, and what the editor will expect from you. If you have worked with an editor before, you probably have some expectations about the relationship. Whether your past experiences were good or bad, you may be quite surprised to discover that the new editor's expectations are rather different from yours. This article looks at some aspects of the writer-editor relationship and what each of you can do to get the best results out of working together.

Weber, Jean Hollis. TECHWR-L (2002). Articles>Writing>Collaboration

Workspaces, Collaboration, and Information Sharing — Interview with Emma Hamer

IT project teams often need to increase collaboration and communication, but they’re hampered by the cubicle walls and other physical silos they set up in the workplace. These physical obstacles force teams to have frequent meetings — which can be long and inefficient — just to keep each other updated. In this podcast, Emma Hamer talks about both physical and virtual workspaces that project teams need to increase their performance. She also outlines the rationale for teams to gather better feedback from users, project members, and others who aren’t domain experts.

Hamer, Emma C. and Tom H. Johnson. Tech Writer Voices (2008). Articles>Interviews>Collaboration>Online

Write Your Help Desk's Mission Statement to Raise Team Awareness  

One sure-fire way to improve help desk morale and raise awareness of your technical support team is to write a help desk mission statement. Get some tips on what to include and find some samples of other mission statements.

Davis, Jeff. TechRepublic (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration>Help