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

Companies Turn to Grades, and Employees Go to Court  

An increasingly popular technique for evaluating employees is prompting lawsuits charging discrimination at three big companies. At issue is the ranking of managers, professionals and sometimes lower-level employees from best to worst, or grading them on a bell curve, and then using that ranking to help determine pay and sometimes whether to fire someone.

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

Helping Businesses Evaluate Their Internet Presence  

To ensure that their Web sites are conveying the intended image, a growing list of businesses, including Avis Rent A Car System, McDonald's, Staples and Holiday Inn, are turning to companies that test usability and brand opinion for help. These companies conduct surveys and focus groups and even use high-technology eye-tracking devices to uncover how customers use a Web site and how their experiences affect feelings about the parent company.

Bannan, Karen. New York Times, The (2002). Design>Usability>Assessment>Eye Tracking

PowerPoint Makes You Dumb

PowerPoint is the world's most popular tool for presenting information. There are 400 million copies in circulation, and almost no corporate decision takes place without it. But what if PowerPoint is actually making us stupider?

Thompson, Clive. New York Times, The (2003). Articles>Presentations>Software>Microsoft PowerPoint

Send Jobs to India? Some Find It's Not Always Best

Even as the prospect of high-skilled American jobs moving to low-wage countries like India ignites hot political debate, some entrepreneurs are finding that India's vaunted high-technology work force is not always as effective as advertised.

Porter, Eduardo. New York Times, The (2004). Careers>TC>Outsourcing>Offshoring

Technology's Untanglers: They Make It Really Work

Sometimes there is a huge disconnect between the people who make a product and the people who use it. The creator of a Web site may assume too much knowledge on the part of users, leading to confusion. Software designers may not anticipate user behavior that can unintentionally destroy an entire database. Manufacturers can make equipment that inadvertently increases the likelihood of repetitive stress injuries. Enter the usability professional, whose work has recently developed into a solid career track, driven mostly by advancements in technology.

Whitaker, Barbara. New York Times, The (2007). Articles>Usability

Who Wins and Who Loses as Jobs Move Overseas?

The outsourcing of jobs to China and India is not new, but lately it has earned a chilling new adjective: professional. Advances in communications technology have enabled white-collar jobs to be shipped from the United States and Europe as never before, and the outcry from workers who once considered themselves invulnerable is creating a potent political force.

Kinetz, Erika. New York Times, The (2003). Careers>TC>Outsourcing>Offshoring

Writing Science for Children in an Age of Discovery

Writing a children's book is never easy. But the challenges are multiplied for children's books about science. It is all too common for the paramount importance of accuracy to conflict with the need to make a book enticing, or at least accessible.

Nagourney, Eric. New York Times, The (2003). Articles>Scientific Communication>Accessibility>Children

Tech Terms to Avoid

Why tech writers use so much jargon, I don't know. Maybe it's self-aggrandizement; they want to lord their knowledge over everybody else. Maybe it's laziness; they can't be bothered to fish for a plain-English word. Maybe it's just habit; they spend all day talking shop with other nerds, so they slip into technospeak when they write for larger audiences. In any case, I'm making available to all, for the first time, my list of pretentious pet-peeve words to avoid.

Pogue, David. New York Times, The (2008). Articles>Technology>Writing

A Tale of Installation Frustration

The technology business is filled with frustration. Trying to hook something up, troubleshoot something, make it do something–on a deadline–is a weekly occurrence for me. But last week, I just about blew my stack.

Pogue, David. New York Times, The (2006). Articles>Technology>Usability>User Experience

How to Publish Without Perishing

One could imagine the book, venerable as it is, just vanishing into the ether. It melts into all the other information species searchable through Google’s most democratic of engines.

Gleick, James. New York Times, The (2008). Articles>Publishing>Online

Twitter Is What You Make It

There’s nothing quite like Twitter. It’s a Web site where you can broadcast very short messages — 140 characters, max — to anyone who’s signed up to receive them. It’s like a cross between a blog and a chat room.

Pogue, David. New York Times, The (2009). Articles>Web Design>Community Building>Social Networking

Why 2007 I.P.C.C. Report Lacked ‘Embers’

Several authors of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the projected effects of global warming now say they regret not pushing harder to include an updated diagram of climate risks in the report. The diagram, known as “burning embers,” is an updated version of one that was a central feature of the panel’s preceding climate report in 2001.

Revkin, Andrew C. New York Times, The (2009). Articles>Scientific Communication>Graphic Design>Visual Rhetoric

Let Them Eat Tweets - Why Twitter Is a Trap  

Twitter can be entertaining, and useful — and, really, who doesn’t like the illusion, from time to time, of lots of company? I have only lately begun to wonder whether I’d use Twitter if I were fully at liberty to do what I liked.

Heffernan, Virginia. New York Times, The (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Online>Social Networking

How Did This Happen?

Even a newspaper like The Times, with layers of editing to ensure accuracy, can go off the rails when communication is poor, individuals do not bear down hard enough, and they make assumptions about what others have done.

Hoyt, Clark. New York Times, The (2009). Articles>Editing>Collaboration>Case Studies

Care to Write Army Doctrine? With ID, Log On

In July, in a sharp break from tradition, the Army began encouraging its personnel — from the privates to the generals — to go online and collaboratively rewrite seven of the field manuals that give instructions on all aspects of Army life. The program uses the same software behind the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and could potentially lead to hundreds of Army guides being “wikified.” The goal, say the officers behind the effort, is to tap more experience and advice from battle-tested soldiers rather than relying on the specialists within the Army’s array of colleges and research centers who have traditionally written the manuals.

Cohen, Noam. New York Times, The (2009). Articles>Content Management>Documentation>Wikis

Plain English Is the Best Policy

The health care reform bill now under consideration in the House of Representatives includes a proposal that certain disclosures in insurance policies be made in “plain language.” Another piece of legislation now being considered by both houses of Congress would likewise require uniform and simplified coverage information, much like what’s required on nutritional labels. These are excellent proposals, but they do not go far enough. Plain-language disclosures of some policy information and consumer-friendly labels are no substitutes for making an entire policy readable.

Cogan, John Aloysius. New York Times, The (2009). Articles>Writing>Policies and Procedures>Minimalism