Calculating the Financial Impact of DITA for Translation

Success in a global marketplace requires translating content into multiple languages. Moving to a topic-based XML architecture, such as the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), can help you control the translation process and save money.

Swope, Amber. Writing Assistance (2007). Articles>Content Management>Translation>DITA

Calculating the Value-Added: What Hiring Managers Need to Know About Academic Technical Communication Programs  

Hiring managers need to understand academic programs in technical communication in order to evaluate potential new hires, especially for entry-level positions in challenging, high-tech, international environments. Changes in the profession, in the workplace, and in higher education have led to the proliferation of academic programs. These may offer advantages over non-academic training, in terms of cost, comprehensiveness, content, and control. Academic programs are also different among themselves, based on credentials, institutions, instructors, and program homes. By developing reasonable, informed expectations for what academic programs teach, managers who hire program graduates can experience the payoffs of lower-risk, more cost-effective long-term hires.

Rehling, Louise. STC Proceedings (1996). Careers>Interviewing>Management

A Call to Action

Employee engagement is certainly one of the hottest of the hot communication topics right now. It can be easily misunderstood as a new communication fad, given the attention it’s being given these days. But the truth is that engagement—winning the hearts and minds of employees—has always been the ultimate goal of effective employee communicators.

D'Aprix, Roger. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Careers>Management>Public Relations

Can Academic Partnerships in Technical Communication Work?: Lessons from Minnesota  

Interuniversity partnerships are widely encouraged as a way for public universities to pool increasingly scarce resources, to minimize duplication of academic programs, and to cooperate rather than compete. Joint programs in technical communication have not been widely studied, but they seem especially logical for several reasons.

Black, Suzanne. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Management>Collaboration

Capital Equipment Workshop  

This workshop exposes attendees to the complexities of capital equipment budgeting and purchase, specifically in the areas of depreciation, useful life of a product, and accounting and company policy. By role-playing in a simulated business environment, attendees 'learn the ropes' and sharpen their skills.

Caernarven-Smith, Patricia. STC Proceedings (1994). Careers>Management

Capturing Feedback: Building a Tighter Net  

Describes how to use Microsoft FrontPage and Access to build a system for organizing and retrieving feedback from reviewers. The article is intended for those with some experience with Web and database design.

Shoesmith, Kevin. Intercom (2001). Design>Content Management>Web Design>Microsoft Access

The Care and Feeding of Freelancers

Freelancers can be bright, savvy, ornery, creative -- a thousand descriptions apply, but 'conformist' usually isn't one of them. Here are some tips for hiring and working with freelancers, and for keeping your employees happy at the same time.

Adams, Eric J. Creative Pro (2004). Careers>Freelance>Management

The Care and Feeding of Teams: Strategies for Team Leaders  

Teams, like individuals, go through various developmental stages. Understanding these stages enables a team leader to know if the team is developing normally. Although the team leader’s role and level of involvement vary from stage to stage, there are strategies that the leader can use to spur the team’s growth at each stage.

Hansen, Lauren Y. and Susan M. J. Lester. STC Proceedings (1999). Careers>Management>Collaboration

Careen-Stable

As an agile coach, I get the opportunity to facilitate many teams’ first iteration planning meeting. Now these meetings do start out like typical meetings, with everyone sitting around a table and one person talking. But as the meeting progresses and discussions begin around the work, it can begin to look like chaos to an outsider. What I didn’t realize however, until recently, was that it can also look like chaos to some of the insiders as well!

Sliger, Michele. On Becoming Agile (2006). Careers>Management>Agile

Cargo Cult Websites

A cargo cult website is a site that has all the bells and whistles of a dynamic community facing website but might as well be hand coded HTML for all the difference it really makes. The sites that imitate other sites and wonder why they too are not earning billions. A fine example of Cargo Cult CMS is Drupal. It is an overweight and underpowered system that tries to incorporate every kind of template system and every kind of website type in order to summon the gods of cool websites, community or success.

Lordmatt.co.uk (2007). Articles>Content Management>Community Building>Drupal

Case in Point: Cisco’s Model For Change Management

A few months ago, a company-wide team at Cisco Systems Inc. was challenged to come up with the best model for change management. Several team members had experience in change management through various disciplines, such as process management, HR consulting, communication, Six Sigma and IT. In the first meeting, the team recognized many factors that would affect how they moved forward: hundreds (maybe thousands) of models already existed, thousands of consultants had their favorite models and were eager to help, and employees were familiar with models from other companies.

Horn, Karen. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Management>Case Studies

A Case of Exhaustive Documentation: Re-centering System-oriented Organizations Around User Need    

Braun Corporation's home-grown documentation processes served the organization well for its first 50 years as it grew from a local to a nationally-competitive producer of mobility and accessibility products. Now poised to become a global leader in its field, this corporation found its efforts hampered by ineffective and outdated documentation practices, which were hurting the company's competitive advantage. This article describes Braun Corporation's curious mixture of global reach and local isolation. By bringing in a technical communicator with expertise in user-centered design, Braun has begun reforming its formerly exhaustive documentation and communication practices. While technical communicators have incorporated a variety of strategies to develop user-centered and task-based documentation, less attention has been placed on changing the cultures of these organizations. The case presented here represents a shift from establishing documentation procedures to critically assessing and reforming existing procedures for the global workplace, describing the shift from ineffective and exhaustive processes to effective processes with defined goals and measurable outcomes. The article concludes with an inventory for determining whether other organizations are over-documenting processes and products, and offers suggestions for creating better documentation procedures.

Salvo, Michael J., Meredith W. Zoetewey and Kate Agena. Technical Communication Online (2007). Articles>Documentation>Management>User Centered Design

A Case Study in Developing Dynamic Content at Ontario Systems

Charles Cantrell, an Information Engineer, describes Ontario Systems' process for delivering dynamically assembled and populated documentation for Artiva, its 'highly customizable' accounts receivable management application.

Cantrell, Charles. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Documentation>Content Management

A Case Study in Modular Documentation  

Modular documentation is a variation on single-sourcing methodology developed by Interim Technology Consulting in response to a client’s needs. Our client needed documentation on multiple formats that could be easily modified for multiple customers of their customized software package. The process of developing the modular methodology required considerations such as how to define, structure, and access the information modules in a way that worked for the current project and also provided a foundation for future projects. Interim Technology also wanted a methodology we could use for other clients.

Johnson, Melanie M. STC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Case Study: Implementing a Content Management System  

This paper presents a case study of implementing a content management system in a federal government setting. This case study may aid technical communicators who are interested in leveraging content management technology and who work for complex organizations or organizations with intricate communications requirements. Included in this paper is a detailed description of the background, approach, and early lessons learned for this implementation. The implementation was still in process at the due date of this paper. Additional lessons learned will be in the presentation's slide set and available from the Society for Technical Communication (STC) website at www.stc.org.

Pettit Jones, Colleen, Jane Mitchko and Marc Overcash. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Content Management>Case Studies>Government

CEOs and Usability

As a usability professional, there are many reasons why you might speak with your CEO or other senior leaders. For example, you might need funding for a new laboratory or testing equipment. You might also need to justify current or future expenses, such as salaries, end user remuneration, or your travel budget. Most conversations are financial in nature.

Rhodes, John S. and Daniel Szuc. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Usability>Management

The Challenge of Line Manager Communication

There is a great deal of research around these days that makes the connection between employee engagement and good line manager communication. After all, as the saying goes, people don’t leave bad companies, they leave bad managers. The reality is there are many elements that make a bad manager. As communication professionals, we are not there to solve all the problems of socially challenged managers, but we do need to help them fulfill their role in effectively communicating to their people.

Cropley, Adrian. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Business Communication>Management>Workplace

Challenging the Transformational Agenda: Leadership Theory in Transition?    

There are many terrific leaders at large. But society and business have suffered from poor leadership, bad leadership, narcissistic leadership, and above all, too-powerful leadership. Viewing followers as recalcitrant infants in need of tough parental attention really will not do. Too much leadership discourse has evaded this kind of problem: Fairhurst (2007) offers a challenging alternative to a route that frequently leads to a dead end. The myths of powerful, transformational, and charismatic leadership offer short-term comfort. It would be consoling to believe that Superman has stepped from the cinema screen and into the boardrooms of our organizations, whatever his attire. But such comfort exacts too high a price.

Tourish, Dennis. Management Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Management>Theory

Challenging Your Assumptions: Entrepreneurial Groups Offer Idea Incubators

I recently had a conversation with a colleague about business development. While that's neither revolutionary nor even terribly uncommon, what was different was that we weren't commiserating about business cycles or the fact that when we're busy we often neglect the very activities that bring in new projects. Instead, we were talking about strategies for moving our businesses in new directions. When was the last time you questioned your business strategy or seriously considered adding a new business line or branching out into a new service area?

Steigman, Daria. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Management

Chapter Public Relations: Learn from the Winners  

After nearly six years as a technical editor, I wanted a larger, more visible role in the environmental engineering company where I worked. Learning new skills in marketing and public relations through the Mid-South Chapter put me in the position to do that when my company reorganized its marketing functions this year. In this paper, I focus on the management skills I learned managing the public relations committee for our chapter.

Carbaugh King, Margaret. STC Proceedings (1997). Careers>Management>Marketing

Characteristics of Web Site Content

Web site content must be recrudescent, repositorial, refluent, and rectilinear. What? Here's an innovative treatment of the essential attributes of online text. Find out why great web site content generally has these 14 characteristics that start with a "R".

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2005). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>Usability

Cherryleaf Survey: Use of Single-Sourcing Solutions

During March and April 2003, Cherryleaf carried out an online survey into the current trends in technical communication. One of the questions we asked was: Do the people directly involved with user assistance development at your organization use a single sourcing authoring solution? Our findings are summarised in the article

Cherryleaf (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Reports

Choices and Challenges: Considerations for Designing Electronic Performance Support Systems    

Introduces the breadth of decision-making required in EPSS design. Explores choices and challenges facing designers in the design process, performance cycle, technology constraints, use of storytelling techniques, evaluation, and success factors.

Carliner, Saul. Technical Communication Online (2002). Articles>Content Management>Web Design>EPSS