Building a Print/Digit Interface  

The new Computers and Composition segment, 'Print/Digital Dialogue,' is designed to enable communication between print and digital forms of professional conversation. For some time, email discussions have been peppered with references to other digital resources as well as print resources. Rarely do professional print journals refer readers to digital resources, even with scholars such as Janice Walker creating citation guides for references to digital scholarship in print. Print is important -- this effort to put digital and print resources into conversation should not be seen as a threat to on-line discussion but as an opportunity to expand the professional community of Techno-rhetoricians. We are members of a hybrid community, existing both on-line and off, and need bridges between on- and off- line scholarship. It is a translation from one established realm into another, perhaps less developed one.

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

Building and Managing Virtual Teams

Chris Nagele’s run Wildbit, creators of hosted Subversion app Beanstalk, for 8 years virtually. He lives in Philadelphia and his team is all over the world. So, he knows a few things about virtual teams and shares them in this article.

Nagele, Chris. Vitamin (2008). Articles>Management>Collaboration>Online

Building the Treasure House: Creating Knowledge Bases on the World-Wide Web  

Web knowledge bases offer an excellent platform for delivering technical documentation and customer support information. They also represent an area of great opportunity for technical communicators to expand their skills, satisfy their customers, and create value for their employers or clients. This session explores the components of a web knowledge base and the tasks involved in planning and building one.

Massa, Jack A. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Documentation>Online>Web Design

Building Your Personal Brand Online

It probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that we are operating in a distrustful world, and that both companies and individual executives are subject to suspicion. In 2005, a worldwide Gallup poll found that 40 percent of people believe that company leaders are “largely dishonest,” and a 2006 Watson Wyatt study says that only 56 percent of company employees believe their top management acts with honesty and integrity. These are worrisome figures, given that senior executives worry a great deal about their companies’ reputations but may spend little time on their own.

Fierman, Stephanie. Communication World Bulletin (2008). Articles>Business Communication>Ethics>Online

Business Development Through Online Networking

Recently, business networking has been perceived negatively due to its widespread use in the network marketing industry and the proliferation of “lead generation clubs” that focus on impersonal lead referrals rather than on building relationships. The surge in popularity of social networking sites on the Internet, however, has sparked a renewed interest in meaningful discussion and research on the value and importance of “networking,” particularly to mainstream businesses.

Teten, David and Scott Allen. Communication World Bulletin (2004). Articles>Business Communication>Online

Business Model Issues in the Development of Digital Cultural Content

This paper examines business model aspects of digitizing cultural content. It is based in large part on a Study conducted by the author and his colleagues for the Department of Canadian Heritage. Based on data collected from several cultural institutions regarding their efforts to digitize content, the study found that implications for the cost side have been significant, leading to explorations of facilities and content sharing programs, formalized budgeting, the need for better copyright expertise and improved mid to long term planning. On the revenue (funding) side, a clear need for more rigorous assessments of user demand emerged. In addition, the possibility of revisiting organizational mandates was identified, as well as various revenue-generating opportunities including sponsorship, user-fees and private/public sector partnerships.

Wall, Gerry. First Monday (2003). Articles>Publishing>Online

By the Water Cooler in Cyberspace, the Talk Turns Ugly

Thousands of message boards for individual companies have emerged over the last few years, creating a window on what some employees feel but never say publicly. Often the view through this window is rather ugly.

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

"By the Way, We Also Want Online Help"  

This presentation describes a strategy to meet a last-minute enterprise demand for online help for a software application program. We established design standards for writing online help, developed a process for gaining consensus from the project team on the content of the online help, and wrote the online help. We accomplished this in less than four months-a task that originally seemed impossible.

Davis, Herbert S. and Meryl Natchez. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

CD-ROM: From Print to Prototype  

A panel of industry experts provides an overview of the CD-ROM publishing process--and its business issues--for technical communicators who are responsible for John Gale implementing CD-ROM publishing in their organizations. The panelists will discuss how to gain the benefits of reduced manufacturing warehousing and distribution costs, without degrading documentation quality.

Rosenbaum, Stephanie L., John Gale and Pamela Sansbury. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>CD ROM>Online

CD-ROM: From Print to Prototype  

There are many significant benefits to releasing documentation on CD ROM rather than on hardcopy including cost savings, storage capacity, and the ability to implement search and retrieval functionality. To determine whether or not you should go to CD ROM, it is advisable to survey your users and to get approval from the folks in "corporate." Once you decide to pursue CD ROM, you need to determine the platform requirements and feature set of the search and retrieval software. You will then be able to choose from a variety of products, and ask the selected vendor to produce a prototype for you.

Florsheim, Stewart J. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>CD ROM>Online

The Challenges of Remote Collaboration

Open source development works because of remote collaboration; developers working together despite physical distance. With mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships, in-house developers are struggling with the same issues open source developers have addressed. Mark Murphy explains some of the challenges of remote collaboration.

Murphy, Mark. O'Reilly and Associates (2003). Articles>Collaboration>Online

Character Design Standards

The purpose of the Character Design Standards is to state the general rules for character shapes in Latin based languages in digital fonts. Primarily defining the guidelines designers use for character alignments, both vertical and horizontal and how these relate to other similar characters or character groups.

Microsoft (1999). Design>Typography>Fonts>Online

Cherryleaf Survey: Uptake of New Help Trends

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 online user assistance documents produced by your organization contain the following advanced capabilities?

Cherryleaf (2003). Articles>Documentation>Help>Online

Choices, Challenges, and Constraints: Documentation and Newsletters Over the World Wide Web  

Providing timely information to diverse users on different platforms can challenge any document delivery system; however, the World Wide Web provides an effective solution for some applications. While the Web presents some extra problems and challenges that other media do not, the results justify the resources required. This paper describes and evaluates an implementation of Computing and Information Services documentation on the World Wide Web.

Ray, Eric J. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Online

Choose Your Presentation Tools Carefully

These days, there are more ways to communicate a message than there have ever been – in the history of civilization. That's not an overstatement, it's an inescapable fact, one with which executives, educators, meeting planners, presenters and professionals of every stripe must grapple every day, whether they want to or not. After all, there was a time not so long ago when choosing the best way to inform, persuade or educate employees, prospects or customers was no more complicated than selecting from a modest appetizer menu: although some discernment was necessary, the options were hardly paralyzing. If you were holding a critical meeting, delivering a sales pitch or launching a training initiative, you'd gather the troops in a central locale for presentations by executives or instructors toting flip charts, transparencies or 35mm slides – or send a battalion of presenters into the field. If the objective was to communicate without forcing people to come to you, or you to go to them, you might select from a handy but hardly overwhelming number of choices that included videotape, CD-ROM or a workbook. But like the restaurant regular who arrives one day to find that his single-page menu has mushroomed into a constellation of new and beguiling food choices, today's presenters find themselves with far more options for interfacing with audiences, whether it be face to face or across time zones.

Zielinski, Dave. Presentations (2002). Articles>Presentations>Online

Choosing and Using Help Topics

This paper describes some common types of help topic and when to use each. Different applications require different mixes of help topics. Choose the topic types that are appropriate for the application you are documenting.

Hollis Weber, Jean. Technical Editors Eyrie (1999). Articles>Documentation>Online>Help

Clicking for a Job: Using Job Search Web Sites in a Technical Communication Job Search  

Technical communicators should use job search Web sites and other Internet resources (i.e., listservs and email networking) as part of their overall job search strategy. In using job search Web sites, technical communicators should choose carefully from four main categories of such sites: general job search sites, field-specific sites, professional organization sites, and specific employer sites. Each of these categories requires specific consideration. Job seekers should take into account the specific characteristics and purposes of the site and its users. To get the most effective results, technical communicators should also take special care when choosing keywords for job searches.

Bloch, Janel M. STC Proceedings (2003). Careers>Interviewing>Online

Collaboration via Desktop Videoconferencing: Designing Interactive Environments  

Recent studies suggest that classroom collaboration is not always successful. We designed a course that motivates students to provide adequate help for writers. In this course college students studying to become technical communicators mentored high school students in language arts and content area courses. In order to overcome barriers of schedules, distances, and resources, we created a multimedia system that combined face-to-face communication and networking in one configuration. We collaborated with University of Minnesota groups, local high school personnel, US WEST Communications, Inc., and Compression Labs, Inc. in the development of the system.

Duin, Ann Hill, Linda A. Jorn and Lisa Mason. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Education>Online>Videoconferencing

Collaboration Via Desktop Videoconferencing: Implications for Technical Communication  

From our case studies of technical communication college students collaborating via desktop videoconferencing (DTV) with high school students, we learned that DTV requires that collaborators manage a great deal more than text on a computer screen. Collaborators reliant on viewing computers as conveyors of text alone must learn new strategies for connecting interpersonally with people viewed on screen. Collaborators must macro-manage technology while they micro-manage dialogue about writing.

Duin, Ann Hill, Linda A. Jorn and Lisa Mason. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Collaboration>TC>Online

Collaborative Learning and Cultural Reproduction in Cyberspace  

Traditional notions of publication are clearly undergoing a massive change in the electronic age. New technologies, and internetworked communications in particular, have blurred the boundaries between the public and the private, the professional and the nonprofessional, the 'published' and the 'unpublished.' Many of us, as teachers in the humanities (admittedly amidst concerns about intellectual property, shifting configurations of literacy, and our own roles in a new paradigm) have embraced the promise of at least one form of electronic publication: publishing our students. It feels a bit awkward to objectify students in that phrase

Payne, Darin. Journal of Electronic Publishing (2001). Academic>Publishing>Online

Combining Paper and Electronic Communication

A few ideas for ad hoc workforce communication that must be conveyed on paper as well as electronically.

McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2005). Articles>Business Communication>Online

Communicating About Scientific Research Over the Internet: A Case Study  

University communicators specializing in science and technology are making increasing use of Internet resources to supplement traditional methods of producing and publishing their work. These resources include electronic mail; the text-only interface called Gopher; and, most recently, the World Wide Web. This paper describes some of the specific ways that communicators are using these Internet tools. It also includes a list of advantages and disadvantages that we have discovered in our work at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and seen at other technological institutions. These 'lessons learned' may benefit our counterparts who wish to begin or enhance their organizational 'presence' on the Information Superhighway.

Davis, Nancy E., Mark Hodges and Leigh F. McElvaney. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Scientific Communication>Research>Online

Communicating Effectively in Intercultural Virtual Teams

Organizations with virtual teams have invested vast resources in recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce, offering cultural diversity training and providing the technology that makes the functioning of these teams possible. To ignore the opportunities and the potential pitfalls of these teams would minimize this investment.

Oetzel, John and Martina H. Myers. Communication World Bulletin (2005). Articles>Collaboration>Online

Communicating Emotions Effectively in Online Learning Environments  

This paper presents an analysis of the various textual and visual ways that emotions are typically communicated in online learning environments. It also looks at the importance (and limitations) of both verbal and nonverbal online communication from the perspective of Daniel Goleman’s concept of “emotional intelligence.” Descriptions of three case studies demonstrate situations that involve emotionally-based student-instructor interactions that could have become problematic without the instructor’s awareness of the actual emotional issues involved. The paper concludes with a set of recommended guidelines for instructors addressing emotions in online learning situations.

Shirk, Henrietta Nickels. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Education>Online>Emotions