Communication in International Virtual Offices  

Advances in communication technologies mean that colleagues from different parts of the world can work together in the same online space. In some cases, that space is an e-mail exchange, text messaging, or a shared corporate intranet site; in other cases, it is an electronic bulletin board or chat room related to a project. These shared online work spaces—or international virtual offices (IVOs)—provide a level of interaction that can reduce production costs and shorten production cycles.

St. Amant, Kirk R. Intercom (2003). Careers>Telecommuting>Collaboration>Workplace

Communication Patterns Between Organizations: Implications for the Classroom  

Because many corporations now outsource significant portions of their business to external companies, it is important to study and understand the role of writing and, more generally, differing communication structures between organizations. In my experience, this is not a topic that is discussed in most technical communication classrooms.

McCord, Michael. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Communication>Collaboration

Companies Turn to Grades, and Employees Go to Court  

An increasingly popular technique for evaluating employees is prompting lawsuits charging discrimination at three big companies. At issue is the ranking of managers, professionals and sometimes lower-level employees from best to worst, or grading them on a bell curve, and then using that ranking to help determine pay and sometimes whether to fire someone.

Abelson, Reed. New York Times, The (2001). Careers>Collaboration>Assessment

Competitive Advantage through Employee Engagement

Engagement. Is it the latest corporate buzzword? Not for serious business leaders who understand the correlation between engaged employees and improved financial performance. They see engagement as a source of competitive advantage. All things equal, they believe, an organization that has engaged employees will outperform one that doesn’t.

Shaffer, Jim. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Careers>Management>Collaboration>Workplace

Compound Mediation in Software Development: Using Genre Ecologies to Study Textual Artifacts

Traditionally, technical communicators have seen the texts that they produce -- manuals, references, instructions -- as 'bridging' or mediating between a worker and her tool. But field studies of workers indicate that the mediational relationship is much more complicated: Workers often draw simultaneously upon many different textual artifacts to mediate their work, including not only the official genres produced by technical communicators manuals but also ad hoc notes, comments, and improvisational drawings produced by the workers themselves. In this chapter, I theorize these instances of compound mediatiation by drawing on activity theory and genre theory. I describe an analytical framework, that of genre ecologies, that can be used to systematically investigate compound mediation within and across groups of workers. Unlike other analytical frameworks that have been used in studies of technology (such as distributed cognition's functional systems and contextual design's work models), the genre ecology framework highlights the interpretive and cultural-historical aspects of compound mediation that are so important in understanding the use of textual artifacts. The analytical framework is illustrated by an observational study of how 22 software developers in a global corporation used various textual artifacts to mediate their software development work.

Spinuzzi, Clay. WAC Clearinghouse (2002). Design>Collaboration>Software

Computer Supported Collaborative Work

The rapid evolution of information and the new potentials for communication between people have been of great importance to the success of most organizations. Key aspects were the increased availability of computer networks and the trend towards team work. One of the main emphasis of the chair of Applied Informatics-Distributed Systems is on computer support for team work. Activities in that domain are known by the notions of groupware or computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). Ellis defines groupware as 'computer-based systems that support groups of people engaged in a common task (or goal) and that provide an interface to a shared environment.' While groupware refers to real computer-based systems, means the notion CSCW the study of tools and techniques of groupware as well as their psychological, social and organizational effects. According to Wilson is 'CSCW a generic term which combines the understanding of the way people work in groups with the enabling technologies of computer networking, and associated hardware, software, services and techniques.'

CSCW. Organizations>Collaboration>Online

Computer Supported Collaborative Work Bibliography

This is a gateway to the bibliographic database on CSCW and related topics which is maintained at the Applied Informatics and Distributed Systems Group at Technische Universität München. The database contains basic bibliographic data, links to online versions of the references, and sometimes even abstracts or annotations.

CSCW. Resources>Bibliographies>Collaboration

Computer-Mediated Communication Platforms

Overview and reviews of resources, software, training environments, collaboration/conferencing software, and tools.

Montecino, Virginia. George Mason University (2003). Resources>Directories>Collaboration>Online

Conducting Effective Team Technical Reviews

Mention team technical reviews to a group of tech writers and chances are good that you will either get a loud, collective groan, or the group will vie to tell the best review horror story. On the one hand, technical reviews are a vital part of our jobs because they help us to produce high quality product documents. On the other hand, technical reviews gone wrong are the bane of our existence. The good news is that we have the power to conduct consistently effective technical reviews. This article summarizes why we do reviews and what often goes wrong in reviews, and then summarizes steps to take before, during, and after technical reviews that can help you conduct effective team technical reviews. Although your process and team may differ from what's described here, you can apply the information in part or in whole to improve your current review process.

Brown, M. Katherine 'Kit'. TECHWR-L (2008). Articles>Project Management>Collaboration>Assessment

Conducting Successful Interviews With Project Stakeholders

A simple, semi-structured, one-on-one interview can provide a very rich source of insights. Interviews work very well for gaining insights from both internal and external stakeholders, as well as from actual users of a system under consideration. Though, in this column, I'll focus on stakeholder interviews rather than user interviews.

Baty, Steve. UXmatters (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Interviewing

Confidentiality and Privilege in Mediation: A Dutch Perspective  

It is the author's bold submission, that Dutch case law, as developed by the Netherlands Supreme Court, might be of some general interest, as it is based on general principles, amongst others found in case law by the European Court for Human Rights. As Dutch is not Europe's most accessible language, some observations in English might be stimulating for those who are interested in this matter.

Bosnak, John. Mediate.com (2002). Articles>Collaboration>Regional>Netherlands

Conflict and Communication: The Good Will Hunting Technique

In the self-help section of bookstores, there is abundant advice for communication in everyday situations--with bosses, parents, children, lovers and even animals. Worthwhile advice is to be found, but there also exists a prominent strain of advice that offers solutions that actually worsen the problem.

Cesaratto, Todd. Communication Currents (2007). Articles>Communication>Collaboration

Conflict Styles and Technical Communicators  

More than most people, technical communicators are aware that if communication is not effective, conflicts can arise. Find out more about the Thomas-Kilmann conflict mode instrument (TKI) and how to identify your predominant conflict style.

Glick-Smith, Judith L. Intercom (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Methods

Connectfulness

In the same way that the word 'truthiness' is not a real word but is gaining usage in our culture, so the word 'connectfulness' offers us in the professional arena a way to express an important aspect of our work. Just as truthiness says more than accuracy and is friendlier than truthfulness, so connectfulness says more than networked and is friendlier and more inclusive than connectedness.

Albing, Bill. Carolina Communique (2006). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration

Connecting Cultures, Changing Organizations: The User Experience Practitioner As Change Agent

Every time we reach across discipline boundaries to keep a product team focused on users, drive changes to products or services based on user data we've collected, or design interactions with a clear focus on the target user, we are functioning as agents of change within our organizations.

Sherman, Paul J. UXmatters (2007). Articles>User Experience>Collaboration

Conquering the Cubicle Syndrome

Cubicles aren't really physical walls--they're a state of mind. In effect, it's the belief that you've been compartmentalized and isolated that defines the cubicle. The four-sided, felt-lined livestock pens loved by evil office managers everywhere hides the truth: cubicles are all about being isolated and treated as part of the building infrastructure, whatever the physical location of your chair.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. TECHWR-L (1999). Careers>Workplace>Collaboration

Content Re-Use with the Tools at Hand  

Frequent updates for a swarm of modular plug-ins were interrupting work on larger, higher-value projects. Worse, development was happening in a time zone 12 hours away, making communication a major bottleneck. Faced with fixed resources and growing commitments, our writing group extended existing tools to automate information gathering and rough draft creation, thereby halving the writer time each module required. This paper describes the user interface, tool extensions, and reusable information approach we used to solve the problem.

Carpenter, Cory, Samantha Lizak and Jeffrey Young. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration

Contracts 101

Contracts are the oil that keeps business running smoothly. If you are running your own web design business, you should think of a contract as a business tool that can help you communicate clearly with your clients.

Fine, Scott. Wise-Women (2004). Articles>Collaboration>Contracts

CoverWeb? Adding Multiple Authorship to Multi-Linearity  

This multi-vocality and multiple authorship allows an enactment of some of the collaboratory promise of hypertext while web publishing allows decentralized publication. Finally, the CoverWeb allows Kairos to deliver texts appropriate to many tiers of readers. This issue's CoverWeb on educational MOOs includes basic introductions to MOOing linked to discussions of the pedagogical possibilities of virtual spaces linked to problems of administering MOOspaces. We have tried to cover a spectrum of possible interests as well as familiarity to MOOs in education and this layering simply wouldn't be possible in print.

Salvo, Michael J. Kairos (1996). Articles>Collaboration>Online

CPTec Forum

Discussion of a variety of TC software platforms.

CPTec GmbH. (German) Resources>Collaboration>Information Design

Creating an Editing Policy  

As an editor, you realize how important it is to edit information consistently. What you might not realize how important it is to let the writer know how you are going to edit, what you are going to edit, and what you expect from the writer. An editing policy lets you communicate these things to the writer. When you and the writer know what to expect from each other, you are able to work together as a team to produce a quality document.

Reed, Wendy L. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Editing>Collaboration

Creating the Out-of-the-Box Experience: A Case Study  

While producing a new deliverable to improve the out-of-the-box experience for a major software product, the team of writers, graphic designers, human factors engineers, and marketers responsible for the deliverable faced many challenges and overcame many obstacles. Anyone involved in the production of such a deliverable will learn from a discussion of the problems we faced and the approaches we took to solving them. This discussion will be particularly relevant for anyone creating such a deliverable for the first time.

Hogan, Tim. STC Proceedings (2001). Articles>TC>User Experience>Collaboration

Creating the Perfect Design Brief

Makes the case that well-crafted design briefs can help change the perception of design from a service to a core business resource.

Phillips, Peter L. Graphics.com (2005). Design>Collaboration