Multilingual Knowledge Management Empowers Global eBusiness  

With the penetration of Internet technologies into global business operations, employees at every level are collaborating across multiple geographies.

Sargent, Benjamin B. ZDNet (2001). Articles>Knowledge Management>Collaboration>Online

My Time in Hell, or Why I Fired a Client  

Some team members wanted the guide to be extremely prescriptive of format and content. Others insisted that it offer only minimal guidelines. A compromise was unacceptable to either side.

Hayhoe, George F. STC Orange County (1998). Careers>Consulting>Collaboration

The Nature of the Interchange Between Editors and Authors

Editors, if allowed to interact with authors on a level above the comma, could often help authors negotiate new meaning as authors struggle to translate their ideas into writing.

Document Design (2001). Articles>Collaboration>Editing

The Need for Technical Communication in IT Departments

Although many would not believe such to be true, there is a vast amount of communication that must be done in the IT world. This is even truer when the IT organization is involved with a regulated industry (e.g., pharmaceutical). In general, procedures and practices that went into the development, installation, and use/maintenance of a system require documentation and the communication of outages to the user community are also important. Among the more specific areas are help documentation, user instructions, code comments, installation instructions, and maintenance procedures/schedules. When a problem arises, it is often necessary for the IT professional to explain exactly what happened and provide the resolution in a coherent, layman-termed method, whether it be verbal or written (or both). Unfortunately, not all IT professionals are capable of doing this.

Mardekian, Beth. MetroVoice (2004). Articles>TC>Technology>Collaboration

Negotiation Techniques

Most of us are involved in negotiating in some form or other on a daily basis. Here is a look at the process of negotiation and tips you can use to improve your technique as you progress through the process.

Harris, Kerri. Writing Assistance (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Collaboration>Workplace

Net Collaboration on the Cheap

Web conferencing without corporate support -- how to take advantage of ways the 'net can facilitate meetings in real life.

Shoemaker, Nancy. Carolina Communique (2008). Articles>Collaboration>Online

Network Your Way to a Seat at the Table

Many IABC members are hungry to get a seat at the corporate boardroom table. They want to be influencers. If you want to pull up a chair with the "C" level folks, networking is key. Networking is not asking, "Do you have work for me?" Networking is building long-term, mutually beneficial relationships.

Susman, Karen. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building

Networking Opportunities

If you have all the work you can handle, your idea of networking might be showing up late to STC meetings, sitting in the back, and leaving before the speaker finishes talking. But, for the rest of us, networking requires a bigger investment of time and energy and a wider circle of contacts. As networking expert Kathy Condon points out, networking begins in our comfort zones-our neighborhoods, our offices, our STC groups. But to be effective, we have to search for other opportunities to meet people-groups and individuals beyond our usual contacts. Condon suggests attending meetings of professional and special interest organizations. Below, we've listed some groups to get you started. We include a Web address for each organization and a quote from their site.

Riley, Erin. STC Williamette Valley (2002). Careers>Collaboration>TC

Networking that Works

Established business owners and new entrepreneurs often have a difference of opinion about networking. The old-timers usually say that networking is one of their most important sources of business, while the newcomers frequently claim to put a lot of effort into networking without seeing much return. What's going on here?

Hayden, C.J. Creative Latitude (2005). Careers>Collaboration>Community Building

Networking With Our Peers  

Technical communication is a broad field—its practitioners perform many different tasks in many different industries. Technical communicators may write technical documents, design multimedia presentations, create Web pages, or illustrate mechanical designs. And they may perform these tasks in industries such as aerospace, biotech, computer software, or agribusiness. To effectively network with your peers, you need to find your communities of practice.

Grice, Roger A. Intercom (2004). Articles>Collaboration>Professionalism

Networking Your Way to Success

You don't have to spend hours making cold calls or squander money on invisible advertisements in order to find new clients. In fact, savvy businesspeople--technical writers included--know the best way to expand your client base is by leveraging the resources you already have. You might ask, "What resources?" Well, pull out your personal address book. This database of contacts--friends, relatives, and co-workers--is a gold mine when prospecting for business. By knowing how and who to ask, you can soon have as much business as you can handle!

Chroust Ehmann, Lain. TECHWR-L (2008). Articles>TC>Community Building>Collaboration

Networking? or NOTworking?

Networking expands your resource base and enables you to make useful contacts in other companies, which, in turn, leads to your big break or an exciting new job. The prevailing attitude seems to be that it doesn’t really matter what industry you’re in, or at which level within a company your position is, just go out there and do it, and the results will follow. It does work, doesn’t it? Well, not really.

Hamer, Emma C. Hamer Associates. Careers>Collaboration>Community Building

NetWorks or, How to Make Professional Connections When You Live and Work in the "Sticks"

NetWorks is an association of people involved in public relations, technical/computer documentation, marketing, fund raising, planning and development, training, journalism, editing, video production and publishing. We have a common interest in sharing ideas, information and resources.

Olander, Karen Wise. Boston Broadside (1992). Articles>TC>Collaboration>STC

The Newest Online Communication Tool: Collaborative Web Pages Anybody Can Edit

A wiki is a web site that anybody can change. You may have already visited a wiki without even knowing it. Wikis are poised to become one of the most important online communication tools we’ve seen in a long time. While blogs are justifiably getting most of the attention paid to the online world these days, wikis are quietly weaving their way into both the external and internal communication world.

Holtz, Shel. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration>Wikis

Newsletter Co-Registration, and other Partnerships

When someone signs up for my newsletter, I list some other newsletters they might be interested in on my site's thank-you page. People can simply check a box next to the other newsletters they want to receive, click one button, and they're done. The publishers I partner with do the same for me, listing the Excess Voice newsletter on their sign-up thank-you pages.

Usborne, Nick. Excess Voice (2006). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration

A Newsletter Competition Where Everyone Wins  

A competition where everyone wins—is it too good to be true? Not if the STC Newsletter Competition Committee (STCNCC) has anything to say about it.

Ames, Andrea L., Cheryl Disch and Helen T. Hegelheimer. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>STC

A Newsletter Competition Where Everyone Wins  

A competition where everyone wins--is it too good to be true? Not if the Society for Technical Communication (STC) Newsletter Competition Committee (STCNCC) has anything to say about it. This year we implemented the second phase of a three-year plan to increase participation and maximize constructive feedback in the annual STC Newsletter Competition. In this discussion session, the STCNCC would like to see judges and editors meet to discuss the effectiveness of the competition and the committee’s plan to improve it. Participants are invited to consider ways to improve the competition in the future.

Ames, Andrea L. and Cheryl Disch. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Collaboration>Community Building>Newsletters

The Nine Pillars of Successful Web Teams

Every Web team has its own take on dividing up roles and responsibilities and implementing processes for design and development. Formal titles, job descriptions, and reporting structures can vary widely. But the best teams I’ve encountered have one important thing in common: their team structure and processes cover a full range of distinct competencies necessary for success.

Garrett, Jesse James. Adaptive Path (2003). Design>Collaboration>Web Design

Nipping Client Silliness in the Bud

A significant number of ALA posts talk about unreasonable requests from clients. Either they want a Sony-level website on an AOL user's look at my kitties budget, or else they want so many features added to their sites that they will become as unusuable as the original boo.com.

Miller, Robin. List Apart, A (2000). Articles>Management>Collaboration

Notes on the Documentation Development Process

Define your audience, and their needs, explicitly and carefully. The definition process may lead you to include additional material such as indexes, system requirements, and contextual notes (e.g., lists of exceptions), as well as the preplanned documentation.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Geoff-Hart.com (1996). Articles>Documentation>Collaboration

Nourishing the Bonds: Managing Information to Maximize the Skills of the Dev-Test-ID Team  

The IBM TPF group is organized into tightly-coupled teams of developers, testers, and writers. This paper explores that relationship, including our method of managing information, and how it creates an environment conducive to high-quality information products.

Mills, M. Fay and Ellen C. Smyth. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Collaboration

Now That You've Got a Double Agent, What Do You Do With 'Em?  

Having demonstrated the importance of acquiring a double agent for writing projects, we now want to explain the best ways to successfully indoctrinate a double agent. This paper will help you prepare for, orient, train, and become a mentor for a double agent to help make him or her an effective member of your writing team.

Fisher, Judith R., Karen L. Mobley and Michelle M. Wright. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Writing>Technical Editing>Collaboration

Observations on Entrepreneurship, Instructional Texts, and Personal Interaction    

This article explores the complexity in Rohan's observation that "although texts in progress create community, this function hasn't value; in the world of business works in progress must be free" [1, p. 130]. To do so, the article describes the history of the development of the paper sewing pattern, discusses the role personal communications with consumers played as the genre evolved, and offers observations on the kinds of instruction provided by sewing machine and pattern companies. The extent to which gender and authority are connected in communications between consumers and corporate authors is explored. The article concludes by observing that once a genre is sufficiently established to become a standard, two changes occur: industries adopt authority for only certain types of necessary information, and women's authorship becomes anonymous, corporate, and personal exchanges with consumers are curtailed to save the expense.

Durack, Katherine T. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Instructional Design>Gender

Obtaining Reprints--The Effects of Self-Addressed Return Labels    

This article compares the response rates for obtaining journal reprints from colleagues when the requests are made using postcards with or without a self-addressed return label. Higher response rates were obtained from the cards with the self-addressed return labels, and more women responded than did men, but these differences were not statistically significant.

Hartley, James. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2002). Articles>Research>Collaboration>Gender

On Development Methodology

Give me the smallest, smartest team possible, with the right tools and infrastructure. Work like fiends for two or three months to get infrastructure and applications started right, then grow slowly to maintain and build additional applications on the core technology.

Boynton, J.R. Diamond Lane, The. Articles>Project Management>Collaboration