Must-Follow Twitter Feeds for Tech Writers

The purpose of my blog is to provide tech writers with information about changes and how said changes may impact documentation. That is also the purpose of my Twitter feed. I gather up as much information as I can and pass it on. I've found some excellent feeds to follow related to the various topics of which tech writers need to be aware.

2moro Docs (2009). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Social Networking

Legal Requirements in the New Age

Consider a plan that identifies who in your company will address phone or other inquiries if something goes viral (read the article and you’ll see what I mean).

2moro Docs (2009). Articles>Project Management>Social Networking>Crisis Communication

Understanding the Experience of Social Network Sites

Although social networking sites have become the commonplace over the past eight years since the introduction of Friendster in 2002, designers have not yet explored two important notions: 1) What kind of social experience do social networking sites foster?; and 2) Do social networking sites encourage community?

Zollers, Alla. Johnny Holland (2009). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>User Experience

Online Customer Communities    

This article describes how the author investigated the business case for the operation of online customer communities, and evaluated their impact. This was achieved through analysis of opinions from members in company-sponsored and member-initiated online customer communities. The research aimed to understand the relationship between customer and company in online communities, explore the motivations of customers to participate in online customer communities, and the benefits of these communities to companies. The main findings of the research revealed that online customer communities are beneficial to both company and customer. The evaluation concludes with a set of recommendations to companies on how online customer communities might be effectively created and managed.

Paterson, Lorraine. Business Information Review (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Social Networking>User Centered Design

Engaging with Social Media in the Business and Intellectual Property Centre (BIPC) at the British Library    

In this article, Neil Infield shares with us the way in which the BIPC has successfully used social media to reach its diverse audience of inventors, entrepreneurs and small business owner.

Infield, Neil. Business Information Review (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Social Networking>Case Studies

Community Informatics, Local Community and Conflict: Investigating Under-Researched Elements of a Developing Field of Study    

Conflict within local communities is an under-researched theme in Community Informatics (CI). This article therefore aims to contribute to the development of CI as a field of study by analysing forms of internal conflict within Moseley Egroup – a CI initiative developed in Moseley, Birmingham (UK). Ultimately it is argued that conflict is an inherent part of local community and is important to CI for a number of reasons. Conflict impacts on the appropriation and social shaping of internet technology by local communities, and has broader implications on the extent to which CI regenerates localities and empowers citizens. In this sense conflict is identified as a productive force, shaping and reshaping both local community and internet projects mobilized in its name. Conflict also draws attention to the contested and mutable relationship that exists in CI between the online spaces that are created and the localities they are set up to serve. It is concluded that conflict and forms of social struggle within communities should form a central part of the developing CI research agenda.

Goodwin, Ian. Convergence (2008). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

The Labour of User Co-Creators: Emergent Social Network Markets?    

Co-creative relations among professional media producers and consumers indicate a profound shift in which our frameworks and categories of analysis (such as the traditional labour theory of value) that worked well in the context of an industrial media economy are perhaps less helpful than before. Can this phenomenon just be explained as the exploitative extraction of surplus value from the work of users, or is something else, potentially more profound and challenging, playing out here? Does consumer co-creation contribute to the precarious conditions of professional creative workers? This article draws from ethnographic research undertaken from 2000 to 2005 with Auran games (a game development company based in Brisbane, Australia) to engage with debates about the status of user co-creation as labour. The article argues that as a hybrid and emergent social network market these relationships introduce a form of creative destruction to labour relations in the context of the creative industries.

Banks, John and Sal Humphreys. Convergence (2008). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>Ethnographies

New Media, Networking and Phatic Culture    

This article will demonstrate how the notion of ‘phatic communion’ has become an increasingly significant part of digital media culture alongside the rise of online networking practices. Through a consideration of the new media objects of blogs, social networking profiles and microblogs, along with their associated practices, I will argue, that the social contexts of ‘individualization’ and ‘network sociality’, alongside the technological developments associated with pervasive communication and ‘connected presence’ has led to an online media culture increasingly dominated by phatic communications. That is, communications which have purely social (networking) and not informational or dialogic intents. I conclude with a discussion of the potential nihilistic consequences of such a culture.

Miller, Vincent. Convergence (2009). Articles>Web Design>Multimedia>Social Networking

Online Database of Social Media Policies

Links to 100 organizational policies about the appropriate (and acceptable) use of social media by their employees.

Social Media Governance (2009). Resources>Business Communication>Policies and Procedures>Social Networking

Tragedy of the Commons

You still have to be willing to moderate comments when you are a blogger or a wiki administrator. And you have to be willing to work hard to build a community that uses the technology in a productive way.

Gentle, Anne. Just Write Click (2009). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

Streams, Walls, and Feeds: Distributing Content Through Social Networks and RSS

Users like the simplicity of messages that pass into oblivion over time, but were frequently frustrated by unscannable writing, overly frequent postings, and their inability to locate companies on social networks.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2009). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>Usability

Death by Twitter

I'm starting to wonder how many other people feel like they are being Twittered to death? Not just from the hundreds of tools out there to Tweet, search Tweets, or receive them, rather just the constant overload of articles, how-to's, and incorporation of Twitter into just about every topic across the board.

Lloyd, John. Velocity Made Good (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Social Networking

The Cautionary Tales of Social Media

Why is social media so important? Traditional media tells the same big story TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. Social Media is about lots of little stories told IN SMALL GROUPS AT THE SAME TIME.

Goldstein, Seth Justin. SlideShare (2009). Presentations>Business Communication>Social Networking

Discovering Magic

Wouldn’t it be a little magical if, when you signed up for a new site, it said something like, “We notice you have a profile photo on Flickr and Twitter, would you like to use one of those or upload a new one?” Glenn Jones created a JavaScript library called Ident Engine that can help you do just that.

Jones, Glenn. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>Collaboration

How Google Wave Can Drown Technical Writers

The impending launch of Google Wave is something for every technical writer to watch. Because if they have been doing their job the same way from day one, then Google Wave's undertow is going to pull them down into the surf. However, if they are embracing online collaborations tools, instant messaging, and related technologies then they are going to think Google Wave is game changer for technical communications because it offers a new range of communications and collaborations options.

Kelly, William T. TypePad.com (2009). Articles>Writing>Technical Writing>Social Networking

Social Media Policies: An Introduction

Despite what some people say, rules still apply when it comes to social media. Policies provide structure—for you and for your colleagues/employees.

Fleet, Dave. SlideShare (2009). Presentations>Workplace>Policies and Procedures>Social Networking

Beyond Microblogging: Conversation and Collaboration via Twitter  

The microblogging service Twitter is in the process of being appropriated for conversational interaction and is starting to be used for collaboration, as well. In order to determine how well Twitter supports user-to- user exchanges, what people are using Twitter for, and what usage or design modifications would make it (more) usable as a tool for collaboration, this study analyzes a corpus of naturally-occurring public Twit- ter messages (tweets), focusing on the functions and uses of the @ sign and the coherence of exchanges. The findings reveal a surprising degree of conversa- tionality, facilitated especially by the use of @ as a marker of addressivity, and shed light on the limita- tions of Twitter's current design for collaborative use.

Honeycutt, Courtenay and Susan C. Herring. Semantic WebProceedings of the Forty-Second Hawai’i International Conference on System Sciences (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Social Networking>Ethnographies

Twitter and Conversation Analysis: Who's Here?

I believe that phone conversations for customer support have been studied quite a bit -- looking for phrases that sound like triggers for anger, avoiding long pauses, and when one party overtakes a phone conversation, it's relatively easy to detect when that's happening. But with Twitter, you could have long pauses intentionally as asynchronous, IM-like conversations happen when someone gets up from their desk and returns after a business meeting, for example. Neither party is angry about that long pause, it's just an understood agreement in the Twitter medium that you may or may not be immediately responsive. How does that time factor change the 'agreement' for a support exchange?

Gentle, Anne. Just Write Click (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Social Networking>Help

Why People Twitter - In One Word

The other day I sat down to write something about Twitter. I struggled with my thoughts, threw some words down, and came up with a question: 'Why are you twittering?' The responses were significant. The most popular reasons I received: People and Information.

Harres, Victoria. Social Media Today (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Social Networking

Social Media Accounts for 18% of Information Search Market

Google is no longer the only hub for content discovery. The statusphere is introducing new channels that now serve as our attention dashboards and it's the collection of streams of consciousness from those we choose to follow. Collecta, Twitter Search, Facebook News Feeds, FriendFeed, etc., serve as the gateways to insight and enlightenment.

Solis, Brian. Social Media Today (2009). Articles>Web Design>Search>Social Networking

The Law of Social Media: Who Owns User Generated Content? (Part II)

Who owns user-generated content (UGC) posted to social media sites? This is but one of the many vexing issues presented by the emerging law of social media, albeit one of great interest to users, corporate subscribers and social networking providers alike. After all, if possession is 9/10 of the law, then the natural, lay reaction to the question of who owns social media UGC is “the Web site, of course.” That’s not exactly correct, however.

Manishin, Glenn. SiliconANGLE (2009). Articles>Web Design>Intellectual Property>Social Networking

The The Law of Social Media (Part I)

Who owns user generated content (UGC) posted to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter,MySpace and the like? How has or will the law evolve to deal with the different, and sometimes unique, modes of personal interaction (with others and with information) made possible by social networking technologies? These are just a few of the legal issues presented by the emergence of social media, one of the fastest growing — and most addictive — forms of Internet-based communication in the relatively brief history of the medium.

Manishin, Glenn. SiliconANGLE (2009). Articles>Web Design>Intellectual Property>Social Networking

A Web 2.0 Tour for the Enterprise

Thanks to the hype generated by Business Week, The New York Times, Fortune, and Newsweek (among others), Web 2.0 has captured the imagination of consumers and businesses alike. But knowing how to leverage Web 2.0 concepts to fuel collaboration and innovation among employees, partners, and customers is another story.

Singh, Shiv. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking

Long-Tail User Experience: How to Cultivate (or Dissolve) a Community

Websites are social creatures. Or rather, their users are. In turn, the websites you visit are tempered by the users that interact with them. Your experience with a website, say facebook.com, is directly linked to the people with which you interact on that website. But this introduces an interesting challenge for a user experience designer: do you design for the intial experience or the resulting experience?

Maier, Andrew. UX Booth (2009). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

How to Incorporate Twitter into Your Presentation

I’m growing tired of presentations that are little more than lectures, so I’m going to experiment with more user-led techniques like this. Unfortunately, available wi fi at chapter meetings or conferences with participants who have computers or mobile data devices is pretty rare. But if you do have the opportunity, definitely try incorporating Twitter, even if only for Q&A at the end of your presentation.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Presentations>Collaboration>Social Networking