Technology Transfer: An Unparalleled Opportunity for Technical Writing Professionals    

This nation does not effectively transfer expensively acquired knowledge into cost-effective, labor-saving tools and processes.

Roberts, Suzanne S. IEEE PCS (1991). Articles>Knowledge Management>Technical Writing>Technology Transfer

Situated Software

I'm seeing is a change in the software ecosystem which, for the moment, I'm calling situated software. This is software designed in and for a particular social situation or context. This way of making software is in contrast with what I'll call the Web School (the paradigm I learned to program in), where scalability, generality, and completeness were the key virtues.

Shirky, Clay. Shirky.com (2004). Articles>Education>Programming>Technology

Does Technology Enable or Determine Communication?

Communication technologies, especially those that are participatory, clearly do both, determine and enable communication. They determine communication by function of display possibilities, editing capabilities, information-chunk size allowances, access affordances, cost implications, communicative capabilities (one-to-one, one-to-many, etc.). Clearly, however, these communication technologies enable communication that otherwise would not be possible.

Brown, Konstanze Alex. Konjektures (2009). Articles>Technology>Communication>Theory

Talking Tech with Newbies and Older Generations

Tech newbies, and often these are people from an older generation than us techies, are easily overwhelmed by technology. Why do we expect them to get it? It's not their business to get it, it's our business to get it and then translate it to them. Do we think we are impressing them with all our knowledge? Chances are we are intimidating them. We need to stop, slow down and listen, ask questions, understand where they are coming from and then meet them where they are at. It isn't condescending or patronizing to slow things down and start with the basics.

Banner, Jeb. SmallBox (2009). Articles>TC>Collaboration>Technology

The Sociology of Technology Adoption

Realizing that technology adoption is as much a sociological phenomenon as a technological one is key to identifing which technologies are appropriate for use in your shop. The "publicity velocity" a new technology attains is based on sociological factors: it is not a technical judgement. The self-interest of the industry trade press, industry analysts, vendors, and computer science researchers all intersect to create an intense publicity vector for a technology at a certain time in its life cycle. While ultimately any technology faces the test of its usefulness, this does not usually occur until sometime after the hype phase dies down, and real-world IS gains experience with the technology. Knowing when a technology has passed from the hype phase into real IS usage is essential to judging the viability of the technology for your installation. As technologists, those of us in IS are sometimes prone to overly-simple technology assessments, ignoring the sociological context of our decision-making. Being aware of the sociological nature of the technology acceptance is crucial to understanding which technologies succeed in the marketplace, and why.

Fosdick, Howard. RexxInfo (1992). Articles>Technology>Planning

David Pogue's Secret Weapon: Patience

New York Times gadget guy David Pogue, a former Broadway orchestra conductor and MacWorld back-page columnist, is probably the world's most widely read and watched tech product reviewer. As a fellow contributor to the Times, I can confirm that anything Pogue writes pulls down several times as many page views as my most popular work. How does he do it?

Boutin, Paul. Industry Standard (2009). Articles>Technology>Writing>Technical Writing

Tech-Rhetters Go Back to Grad School

A while ago, I queried the techrhet mailing list for suggestions. I asked: Which five technical/technological skills (beyond the basics of e-mailing and word processing) would you make absolutely sure you had under control at the start or the end of the PhD process? Here are the responses.

Whipple, Bob, Jr. Bedford-St. Martin's (2009). Articles>Education>Technology>Rhetoric

A Call for Realism

If there once was an implicit social contract in this area, it has arguably broken down on a personal, day‑to‑day level in much the same way that it did during the prohibition of the 1920s. Enforcement of copyright laws remains nearly impossible under existing Internet architecture for the type of private copying that takes place in cyberspace on a daily basis.

Biegel, Stuart. UCLA (2001). Articles>Intellectual Property>Copyright>Technology Transfer

Risk Communication and Public Perception of Technological Hazards (Part One)

Research on risk communication relates basic risk perception studies to the formulation of policies, the currently evolving legislation dealing with hazards, the key issues of public involvement, the risk and environmental management. Risk communication is a relatively new field based on a sociological approach. The discipline comes from risk perception studies (psychological approach), which try to investigate how the public is influenced by certain variables in perceiving risk as "acceptable" or not. Risk communication involves some aspects of risk analysis methodology, since it results that also the technical analysis is influenced by the co-operation between the actors involved.

Recchia, Virginia. Social Science Research Network (1999). Articles>Risk Communication>Technology

My Journey to Writing With a Wiki

Wikis aren’t just tools for techies. They're also also for writers. In this article, one writer describes how he uses a wiki for his work.

Nesbitt, Scott. ScottNesbitt.net (2009). Articles>Writing>Technology>Wikis

Writing Technical Articles

Some advice on writing articles about technology (and other topics) for a mass audience.

Nesbitt, Scott. ScottNesbitt.net (2008). Articles>Writing>Technology>Technical Writing

Writing Technically: Bad Docs Rarely Mean Bad Sales

Technical writing is a cost activity, not a revenue or a profit activity.

Basu, Anindita. Writing Technically (2009). Articles>Documentation>Technical Writing>Technology

Thoughts on Creating a Backup Strategy

Far too many writers have been in a situation where something goes wrong with their computer and their work is wiped out. They have to scramble to recover or (usually) redo that work, all for want of a good backup strategy.

Nesbitt, Scott. ScottNesbitt.net (2009). Articles>Technology>Writing

The Social Influences on Electronic Multitasking in Organizational Meetings    

Meetings serve an important function in organizational communication. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have infiltrated meetings and allowed a new range of communicative behaviors to emerge. This cross-organizational study relies on key elements in the social influence model to predict variables that influence engagement in electronic meeting multitasking behaviors. The observation of organizational norms and the perceptions of others' thoughts concerning the use of ICTs for multitasking during a meeting explain a considerable amount of variance in how individuals use ICTs to multitask electronically in meetings. Implications for workplace ICT use in meetings and contributions to the social influence model are also discussed.

Stephens, Keri K. and Jennifer Davis. Management Communication Quarterly (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Organizational Communication>Technology

Why Good Projects Go Bad

The number of IT projects that end in failure is staggering. According to a 2007 study by researcher Market Dynamics, 62% of all IT projects miss their deadlines, 49% go over budget and 41% fail to deliver the benefits that were expected. That is worrying enough for IT departments. But for consultants and software vendors, keenly aware that project failure could well result in litigation, it is a constant concern.

Swabey, Pete. Information Age (2009). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Technology

Commentary: Reflections on Field Research and Professional Practice    

Borrowing from the ethnographic genre that Van Maanen (1988) called the confessional tale, this commentary reflects on the political, ethical, and professional concerns that arise when critical intellectuals work in a government installation that maintains the nation’s nuclear stockpile. The authors suggest that the future is, as Haraway (1997) argued, ineluctably technological and that the best way to engage this cultural formation is from within, eschewing the easy politics of the science wars and articulating critical projects with the hard work of science. The modernist ideal of unconflicted ideological positions and research—stories of good guys and bad guys—is a disabling illusion. Practicing rhetoricians face a kind of "worldliness" that Hall (1989) described as a necessary counterpart to the "clean air" of theory. The authors invite their colleagues to join them in grappling with political and ethical analyses in a world of impure identity in which knowledge and power circulate promiscuously.

Herndl, Carl G. and Greg Wilson. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Technology>Ethnographies

Information Technologies as Discursive Agents: Methodological Implications for the Empirical Study of Knowledge Work    

Work activities that are mediated by information rely on the production of discourse-based objects of work. Designs, evaluations, and conditions are all objects that originate and materialize in discourse. They are created and maintained through the coordinated efforts of human and non-human agents. Genres help foster such coordination from the top down, by providing guidance to create and recreate discourse objects of recurring social value. From where, however, does coordination emerge in more ad hoc discursive activities, where the work objects are novel, unknown, or unstable? In these situations, coordination emerges from simple discursive operations, reliably mediated by information and communication technologies (ICTs) that appear to act as discursive agents. This article theorizes the discursive agency of ICTs, explores the discursive operations they mediate, and the coordination that emerges. The article also offers and models a study methodology for the empirical observation of such interactions.

Swarts, Jason. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2008). Articles>Knowledge Management>Project Management>Technology

The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine

The Flip's success stunned the industry, but it shouldn't have. It's just the latest triumph of what might be called Good Enough tech. Cheap, fast, simple tools are suddenly everywhere.

Capps, Robert. Wired (2009). Articles>Technology>Quality

A Manifesto for Slow Communication

We need context in order to live, and if the environment of electronic communication has stopped providing it, we shouldn't search online for a solution but turn back to the real world and slow down. To do this, we need to uncouple our idea of progress from speed, separate the idea of speed from effi­ciency, pause and step back enough to realize that efficiency may be good for business and governments but does not always lead to mindfulness and sustainable, rewarding relationships.

Freeman, John. Wall Street Journal, The (2009). Articles>Communication>Technology>Rhetoric

Understanding Public Policy Development as a Technological Process    

This article discusses public policy writing as a genre of technical communication and, specifically, public policy development as a technological process. It cites DeGregori’s theory of technology to demonstrate the shared invention processes of technology and public policy, the work of public policy scholars to describe the policy-development process, and the work of human—computer interaction scholars to identify cognitive models of public policy development as a technological process. The article concludes with a discussion of e-rulemaking Web sites and the role of technical communicators in creating these blended spaces.

Williams, Miriam F. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2009). Articles>Technology>Policies and Procedures>Government

Why It’s Not Naïve to be Green    

This article aims to promote awareness of the environmental impact of IT. It illustrates the impact of extensive use of IT in homes and organizations, and considers the ways in which a business could address IT efficiency and at the same time benefit from Green IT. It looks at the organizational, process, cultural and ICT efficiencies which Green IT offers. It sets out a best practice framework of five steps for a programme that will after the first stage become part of the standard processes of IT operations. The author draws attention to the responsibility of organizations to audit their information and look at information lifecycle management as a key element of greening IT.

Gabriel, Chris. Business Information Review (2008). Articles>Technology>Management>Environmental

Must-Follow Trends for Tech Writers

Changes are so massive, so fast, and coming from so many directions that it is impossible to keep up. Still, it’s important to try. For anything that applies to IT applies to tech writing. Writers must be know something about everything and be ready for it. We’re going to have to specialize and collaborate more than ever before.

2moro Docs (2009). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Technology

DVD Rot: DVD Longevity and Reliability

What is going on with DVDs? The industry states that discs should last 50 to 100 years, but on-line reports claim significant problems with both pressed and recordable discs. Can movie discs wear out and fail from "DVD rot?" Is recordable DVD a trustworthy archival media, or is there evidence that discs can wear out from extended play? And what is the situation with the compatibility of recordable media? Is there a way to guarantee reasonable compatibility, some magic combination of formats and brands, software and burners, content and players?

Dixon, Douglas. Manifest Technology (2003). Articles>Technology>Security>DVD

Dip Management

We go from one moment being very proficient with our current tool or technology to being pretty stupid with a new one. So the basic question every user ends up answering is Was the improvement labeled "B" worth the pain and humiliation labeled "A?"

Hughes, Michael A. User Assistance (2009). Articles>Technology>User Experience

Exporting Your Writing from Google Docs 

A short article that discusses how to use the bulk export feature of Google Docs to back your work up to your computer.

Nesbitt, Scott. ScottNesbitt.net (2009). Articles>Technology>Online>Word Processing