Effective Use of Contract Communicators  

How to get the most from employing a contract technical writer -- common sense, but not necessarily common practice.

Info Action (2002). Articles>Management>Consulting

Egoless Writing: Improving Quality by Replacing Artistic Impulse With Engineering Discipline    

When technical communicators have a strong personal attachment to the publication they are preparing, this attachment may interfere with the design and testing of the publication itself. Documents developed by solo authors tend to be late, buggy, and exceedingly difficult for others to maintain. 'Ego-less' methods---collaborative and structured---break the proprietary connection between the writer and the book; in so doing they permit the most powerful tools of engineering and testing to be used. But they also reduce the satisfactions of the communicator's job.

Weiss, Edmond H. Journal of Computer Documentation (2002). Articles>Content Management>Documentation

Eleven Commandments for Conducting a Business Meeting  

In response to Gary M. Smith's article 'Eleven Commandments for Business Meeting Etiquette,' which focuses on the conduct of those attending meetings, Sullivan presents eleven rules for the organizers and speakers of meetings.

Sullivan, Christine A. Intercom (2000). Articles>Management>Collaboration

Eleven Usability Principles for CMS Products

The functionality of the content management system (CMS) is obviously a key deciding factor when purchasing a new product. Equally important is the usability of the CMS.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2007). Articles>Content Management>Usability

Eliminating the END GAME from Electronic Deliverables

While executive management may sometimes believe that anyone can write and that a technical writer's job is to "Just Publish It", it may be time for technical writers to look at what they can do to improve the "end game" process, which Porter describes as "All the steps needed to create the desired output format – HTML, PDF, online help system, etc. – from the source content." By taking a closer look at the publishing process, without regard to content, technical communicators may discover ways they can streamline the steps it takes to get content published and ready for the end consumer.

Porter, Alan J. Writing Assistance (2005). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Online

The Emotive Value of Professional Communication and Use of Emotional Intelligence in Mangement

Now there is a growing body of science in the field of Emotional Intelligence (EI), indicating that the proper understanding and use of emotions can help us to be more effective professionals and better communicators for the overall development of a learning organization. This paper provides an overview of this topic and includes commentary from EI experts Daniel Goleman, Peter Salovey, and others to prove how one can effectively manipulate EI. This paper also highlights the components of EI and how they can be used to help employees create more productive working relationships inside and outside their organization. Through an analysis of various models of EI competencies available, this paper argues how they can be combined with other knowledge and technical capabilities to increase one’s overall effectiveness on the job.

Kumar Panda, Prasanta. International Journal for Technical Communication (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Management>Emotions

Empathize with the Writer    

It is my firm belief that every technical writer is passionate about her work and would put in her best efforts to deliver high quality. If you are a manager or an editor and are shaking your head in disagreement, think again. Why would someone want to submit a work of poor quality?

Lawrence, Prema. International Journal for Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Writing>Project Management>Technical Writing

Employees Want to be Led by Leaders Who Lead

Virtually every employee in an organization performs a discrete set of tasks. Only the leader sees the big picture -- unless the leader does a good job of conveying that big picture to his workforce. Of course, there's more to leadership than getting people to buy into your vision.

Holtz, Shel. Communication World Bulletin (2003). Articles>Management>Collaboration>Rhetoric

Empowerment: A Manager's and Professional's Perspective  

In today's dynamic business environment, management gurus claim that corporate survival depends upon visionary leadership. The visionary leadership term bandied about most frequently is empowerment. Seminars, courses, books, and corporate communications are educating managers in this concept. The managers return to their jobs charged up and ready to make changes. But how can managers translate abstract concepts into practice? This presentation explores empowerment form a technical communicator and a manager's perspective, giving concrete examples.

Scroggs, Debbie L. and M.L. Eschen. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Management>Business Communication

Enabling Information Sharing Integrity

Most companies accept the rapid obsolescence of their documents as an unavoidable cost of doing business. Its not. When dynamic documents replace static documents, users can bring together disparate, distributed data and content and combine it in a single document that is always accurate and up-to-date.

Sorofman, Jake. Content Wrangler, The (2008). Articles>Content Management>XML>Collaboration

Enabling Language Translation with XML Tools and Standards  

Maintaining consistency between a source document and its translated counterparts can be complex and troublesome. Innumerable challenges can arise with character sets, version control, text in graphics, tables, expansion of text, updates, and so on. Using XML for translation can help overcome some of these challenges. In this article, I explain how XML tools and standards can help remedy tricky issues related to translation.

Schnabel, Bryan. ComTech Services (2003). Articles>Content Management>Localization>XML

Ensuring A Successful CMS Implementation

The single most important factor in a successful CMS implementation lies with you and your people. Your staff members are the principal users of the system, and the SMEs in your organization are the secondary users. It is their adoption of the new processes and governance structures that makes or breaks a CMS implementation. According to some, process and cultural change accounts for 90%, while technology contributes only 10% to the success of a CMS.

Hamer, Emma C. Rockley Bulletin (2007). Articles>Content Management>User Centered Design>Collaboration

Enterprise Agility - Culture, Language and Requirements Analysis  

A culture of change proficiency is an enabling element of response ability, one of the three cornerstones of enterprise agility. Change proficiency is a competency that is facilitated or impeded by an organization's culture; and is fostered, nurtured, and developed in organizations by people who recognize it as a worthwhile pursuit. It is practiced, refined, talked about, debated, valued, and taught; and seeps into the culture through this frequent exercise of language.

Dove, Rick. Paradigm Shift International (2005). Articles>Knowledge Management>Cultural Theory

Enterprise Agility - In Search of Graceful Integration Migration  

Today it is accepted as fact that the enterprise exists in an unpredictable and uncertain environment. Under these conditions, sustainable viability and leadership are both dependant on effective response to the unexpected. This generally requires agility in business processes and business process support.

Dove, Rick. Paradigm Shift International (2005). Articles>Knowledge Management>Management

Enterprise Agility - Is Risk Management  

Plain and simple, the value proposition for enterprise agility is rooted firmly in risk management. The purpose of agility is to maintain both reactive and proactive response options in the face of uncertainty.

Dove, Rick. Paradigm Shift International (2005). Articles>Knowledge Management>Risk Communication

Enterprise Agility - Managing Risk with Agility  

Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM), a medium sized electric and gas merchant utility, provides an excellent case study of agility in response able business processes. This case study focuses on the application of agility-enabling principles, and the benefits these principles generate. These same principles can be applied to the design of any enterprise strategy, business process, or system design. The value of the case study is its demonstration of how agility in anything is achieved, and should be viewed with an eye for generalization to other processes that need response-ability. Chris Hickman, executive director of engineering and technology, and Gene Wolf, principal engineer, were kind enough to spend hours reviewing this case.

Dove, Rick. Paradigm Shift International (2005). Articles>Knowledge Management>Management

Enterprise Agility - What Is it and What Fuels It?  

Agility, like any business priority that gains strategic importance, creates demand for enabling products and services. The information technology sector is usually the first to respond, for it is the core of both enterprise infrastructure and business process implementation and management. This vendor-rush to establish proprietary beachheads typically results in a variety of disparate interpretations and a techno-centric solution focus. These are valuable and natural developments, but they are not sufficient. Solutions do not deliver real value if they are not fit to the true nature of the need—and the need for agility is highly organization and situation specific.

Dove, Rick. Paradigm Shift International (2005). Articles>Knowledge Management>Management

Enterprise Agility: SOX and Enterprise Information Integration  

The intent of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) can be characterized as risk reduction: reduce errors, inhibit fraud, and provide shareholders with transparent equal-access to material knowledge. But implementation is principally procedural controls and documentation, under threat of penalty. The vague parts of SOX are where the real leverage lies: principles of intent, and corporate transparency.

Dove, Rick. Paradigm Shift International (2005). Articles>Knowledge Management>Information Design>Documentation

Enterprise Architecture Essentials, Part 6: Manageability

Organizations today face the challenge of two important enterprise architecture requirements: the need for agility and the overhead of regulatory governance. These requirements can be seen as mutually antagonistic -- if business processes must be flexible, then governance of those processes may be difficult. This article, part six in a six-part series, explores the notion of using manageability as a key enterprise architecture (EA) quality attribute to solve this problem. EA development is an ongoing process, and the central idea of this article is that by applying manageability as an EA attribute, the organizational processes, systems, and software become manageable.

Morris, Stephen B. IBM (2007). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>Regulation

Enterprise Content Management in an Offshoring Context

Many companies outsource content management implementations to systems integrators, but what if the implementers are based half-way around the world? Wipro's Apoorv Durga offers some good advice for enterprises considering taking their next ECM project offshore. As this map suggests, the view is quite different from India.

Durga, Apoorv. CMSwatch (2006). Articles>Content Management>International>Offshoring

Enterprise Content Management is a Key Success Factor for an e-Business Infrastructure  

The growth of e-business is driving organizations to manage and distribute digital content, including images, computer-generated output, business documents, rich media and more.

Zimmer, Mike. KMworld (2001). Articles>Knowledge Management>Content Management

Enterprise Content Management: A Critical Review  

A presentation about the use of ECM within the CMSwatch website.

Byrne, Tony. IAsummit (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing