How to Organize Educational Meetings for Community and Professional Organizations

Successful meetings are the end result of a∆ careful planning process. To successfully organize an educational meeting for a community or professional organization, you need to follow a series of steps.

Carliner, Saul. Tieline (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>STC

How to Pitch an Idea

Coming up with good ideas is hard enough, but convincing others to do something with them is even harder. In many fields the task of bringing an idea to someone with the power to do something with it is called a pitch: software feature ideas, implementation strategies, movie screenplays, organizational changes, and business plans, are all pitched from one person to another.

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

How to Plan Manpower on a Web Team

Just how many people does it take to properly manage a website? It depends on the website. Shane Diffily explains how to figure it out.

Diffily, Shane. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>Project Management>Collaboration

How to Revive a Zombie Content Management System

Without care and attention, a CMS can slide into a state of living death. Such systems can be revived by implementing a number of practical (and non-technical) activities.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2002). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration

How to Run a Brainstorming Meeting

The most important thing about a brainstorming session is what happens after it ends. No matter how poorly you run a brainstorming meeting, some decent ideas will surface. But depending on what happens after the session, those ideas may or may not impact anything. So while you can read books and take courses on better brainstorming techniques, the most important thing is figuring out how the brainstorming session fits into the larger decisionmaking process you or your team has.

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

How to Run a Design Critique

In the early and middle phases of a project, teams need a way to understand and explore the current direction of the design. The challenge is to create the openness needed for good ideas to surface, while simultaneously cultivating the feedback and criticism necessary to resolve open issues. Unlike a brainstorming meeting, where the exclusive goal is to come up with new ideas, a critique meeting is focused on evaluating a set of existing ideas, and possibly identify future directions or changes. Instead of hoping that hallway and email discussions will lead the team in a good direction, it’s generally worth investing time to set up critique meetings to drive the design forward.

Berkun, Scott. ScottBerkun.com (2003). Design>Collaboration

How to Run a Design Critique

There are many different ways to drive the design process. Critique meetings are one way to make sure teammates are involved, while maintaining a high level of design dialogue and quality idea discussion.

Berkun, Scott. UIWeb (2003). Design>Collaboration

How to Select, Nourish, and Conclude a Mentoring Relationship  

A mentor helps you master the unspoken rules of corporate America. If you are energetic and demonstrate initiative, a mentor welcomes the opportunity to assist your growth. To accomplish your mentoring goals, define what you want to achieve and then select a mentor. A successful mentoring relationship requires nourishing to maintain—you must value your mentor's time and demonstrate appreciation. When you no longer require your mentor's guidance, you can end the mentoring phase of the relationship with honesty and appreciation.

Justice, Kendrea L. STC Proceedings (1993). Presentations>Collaboration>Mentoring

How to Take Over a Document 'In Medias Res'  

In this paper I describe my experience in taking over the management of an ongoing, complex, constantly changing, multiauthored document. I offer the following rules: 1. Learn all you can about the document before you make any changes. 2. Clean up the old document. 3. Work within the already existing system. 4. Keep records. 5. Change as little as possible.

Burgan, Murrie W. STC Proceedings (1993). Presentations>Collaboration>Writing

How to Win Information and Influence Technical Experts  

Working with technical experts can be difficult, but it is an essential part of every technical writer’s job. Establishing an effective relationship with the technical experts assigned to your project and maintaining that relationship throughout the project and beyond requires some special techniques: getting off to a good start, winning their confidence, winning their respect, making them understand your situation, making the experience pleasant, helping them look good and establishing an efficient working relationship.

Winsberg, Freya Y. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Collaboration

Humanising Technology: the Studio Lab and Innovation

The central thesis of the report is that in the emerging digitally networked society, the creative arts and cultural institutions are mutating by forming a constellation of productive relationships with the science and technology research system, industry, humanistic and social science scholarship, and with emerging new structures of civil society. This apparently rising density of communication suggests the need to rethink some aspects of the relationship between cultural support policy, innovation and research policy, and the still nascent but interconnected set of concerns about the requirements for widespread creative participation in a 'techno-sphere' increasingly shaped by fast-changing digital media technologies.

Century, Michael. AHDS Performing Arts (2006). Articles>Collaboration>Multimedia

"I Sent You the File as Plain Text!" And Other Lies

Procedures for how to send a file as RTF or plain text in the body of an email.

Stieren, Carl. Simware (1998). Articles>Collaboration>Online>Email

Icon Design Through Collaboration  

A Motorola technical communications team and a University of Illinois writing class collaborated to research and develop a set of icons to use in manuals and in an online information retrieval system. This paper describes this joint venture, reporting on icon design criteria (list of criteria and how they were derived); design testing; design proposals and rationale; and the results.

Harr, Robert G. STC Proceedings (1994). Design>Collaboration>Graphic Design

Identity and International Online Communication  

St.Amant discusses the tendency of online communication to obscure a person's identity and suggests ways people can ensure clear communication with individuals of other cultures.

St. Amant, Kirk R. Intercom (2001). Articles>Collaboration>International>Online

If You Want Something Done Right, Don't Do It Yourself

When you get fed up and do decide to blaze your own trail, don't forget to take some friends along with you. You never know when you're going to run into a wild past participle that you need help taming.

Allen, Jennifer. Boston Broadside (1992). Articles>TC>Collaboration>Workplace

Implementing a Pattern Library in the Real World: A Yahoo! Case Study

The Yahoo! platform design team shares their process for defining and designing a pattern and standards library, the process for defining the requirements of the repository and the process for defining the lifecycle of a pattern.

Malone, Erin, Matt Leacock and Chanel Wheeler. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Design>Web Design>Collaboration

Implementing Excellence  

Have you been exposed to one or more quality initiatives? Did this exposure leave you with strong but mixed emotional reactions? In a complex environment of organizational risk and change, how do we as communicators do the right thing the right way? Changes are so rapid that before one new vision of what’s right is fully implemented, it seems that another, even better vision comes in to take its place. By using a Japanese model for customer satisfaction, the product information quality initiatives at my company were implemented in three broad areas: quality assurance and control, quality performance and improvement, and quality excitement and planning.

Goodier, Katherine S. STC Proceedings (1993). Presentations>Collaboration>Assessment>Emotions

Impressions from German/American Projects

Differences in culture add problems, as we learned during several months of work with four mixed German/American project teams.

Thiele, Ulrich. TC-FORUM (2000). Articles>Collaboration>International

Improving Technical Reviews

Improving technical reviews, when subject matter experts, or SMEs, review content for technical accuracy, is a challenge every technical communicator faces sometime during their career. Every year, journal articles are published, presentations are made, and discussions are initiated on this very topic. Most of them conclude that SMEs are difficult. It's your job to bribe, cajole, or coerce a better review out of your SME. I don't agree.

Idoura, Alexia. Carolina Communique (2004). Articles>TC>Collaboration>SMEs

Improving The Documentation Process Through Structured Walkthroughs  

Documentation walkthroughs simplify the technical review process for both writer and reviewer. Walkthroughs are focused, interdisciplinary meetings at which technical reviewers evaluate the technical accuracy of documentation specifications. Documentation producers can use documentation specifications and walkthroughs to keep technical reviewers focused on technical accuracy rather than editorial issues. This, in turn, leads to fewer technical errors in the first draft and earlier reviewer involvement.

Chatfield, Carl S. STC Proceedings (1994). Presentations>Editing>Collaboration

Improving the Writer-Developer Relationship  

Many technical communicators work in environments where their contributions and value-add to business are not well understood. This perpetuates a lack of respect for the technical communication profession on the part of the technologists with whom we work. By improving our overall work processes and practices, we can change the perceptions of those around us for the better, improving our relationships and increasing the quality of our contributions. We can also begin to see technical communication as a practiced profession equal in importance to the professions of the technologists with whom we work.

Colvin, Richard D. and Virginia Beecher. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Workplace>Collaboration

Improving Your Interpersonal Skills

To succeed in the corporate world, then, technical types have to learn to live with -- even serve -- nontechies. This article gives tips to help you get along with -- and maybe even learn to like -- people, whether the same as us or different.

Bly, Robert W. Bly.com. Articles>Collaboration>TC

Improving Your Work Teams by Identifying Individual Styles  

Effective teams develop a synergy that cannot be estimated or measured, but is an end result of successful projects. This synergy can be contributed to effective communications and insightful task and resource assignment. By identifying team membership styles, and applying these styles to individuals in a team, all team members can contribute to the increased synergy and ultimate success of a project. Tools to achieve this effect, as well as practical examples to demonstrate it, motivate participants to reuse style identification methods.

Fay, Brenda and Dan Fay. STC Proceedings (1996). Careers>Collaboration

Increasing Chapter Membership Through Public Relations  

The Orange County Chapter of STC (OCSTC) set a goal of increasing membership by 20% in one chapter year, with increased public exposure and improved member services as the primary goal. PR Committee volunteers planned and carried out eight programs to increase corporate awareness and media coverage, improve intrachapter communications, and extend community relations. Chapter membership grew by 31% during that year and membership retention was above the International average. In addition to international recognition, committee volunteers gained professionally useful skills through their efforts.

Giles, Sandra J. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building

The Influence of E-Mail as an Interoffice Communication Tool in Small Organizations    

E-mail has significantly impacted the way we communicate in business, possibly going so far as to affect the social structure of organizations. One under-explored effect of e-mail is how it impacts communication in smaller organizations. Given the ability of regular face-to-face interaction, is e-mail necessary to boost communication? A report of employee attitudes in one small business did provide an opportunity to observe the impact of e-mail on communications and employee attitudes. As a result, it is suspected that interoffice e-mail may serve to link formal and informal communication channels, particularly in terms of including managers to the informal communications network.

Adrian, C. Mitchell. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Workplace>Collaboration>Email