A Contemporary Work Alternative: When Contracting is No Longer Something that You Do Between “Real” Jobs  

In the 90’s, contingency staffing (also called temporary staffing) has become a way of life for businesses that have had to streamline operations and reduce fixed costs in order to compete. Consequently, contract employment and independent contracting have become a way of life for many technical communicators who can’t — or prefer not to — find a full-time job.

Cheirrett, Peg A. STC Proceedings (1995). Careers>Freelance>Consulting

Content Management for Single Sourcing  

Content management is becoming a critical component of single sourcing. It provides a method for managing our single source materials and ensuring that information can be easily retrieved for reuse. This session explains what a content management system will do for you and how to use it effectively.

Rockley, Ann. STC Proceedings (2001). Presentations>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Content Management from the Trenches  

Moving your company to a content management system requires intense commitment and planning by everyone: management, writers, and vendors. Allow at least a year to define and develop the necessary tools, and provide training and support for the writers on an ongoing basis. As a writer, documentation department, or vendor, you should participate in the planning, development, and implementation. To ensure success, conduct rigorous testing, do a pilot project, and encourage teams to share information freely.

Pierce, Kathleen and Erin Martin. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Content Management

Content Re-Use with the Tools at Hand  

Frequent updates for a swarm of modular plug-ins were interrupting work on larger, higher-value projects. Worse, development was happening in a time zone 12 hours away, making communication a major bottleneck. Faced with fixed resources and growing commitments, our writing group extended existing tools to automate information gathering and rough draft creation, thereby halving the writer time each module required. This paper describes the user interface, tool extensions, and reusable information approach we used to solve the problem.

Carpenter, Cory, Samantha Lizak and Jeffrey Young. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Content Management>Collaboration

Contextual Inquiry: Listening and Questioning to Improve Information Design  

Contextual Inquiry is a field research technique that focuses on interviewing users in their own context as they do actual work. As a basis for effective design, Contextual Inquiry can contribute to the requirements and structure of systems and information. This half-day workshop presents a practical introduction to Contextual Inquiry as a step in designing information that supports and extends users' work.

Beabes, Minette A., Mary E. Raven, and Karen Holtzblatt. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Information Design>Methods>Contextual Inquiry

Contracting and Consulting for Policies and Procedures Engagements  

As the number of persons employed by some U.S. organizations declined since the late 1980s, so have employment opportunities for Policies & Procedures (P&P) practitioners. During this period, the number of contractors and consultants has increased to meet the needs of newly changed organizations. A useful way for P&P practitioners to learn how they can provide contracting and consulting services is to understand three roles in leveraging such services: an extra pair of hands, expert, and collaborator.

Urgo, Raymond E. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Business Communication>Policies and Procedures>Technical Writing

Contracts that Don’t Bite: Contracting for Technical Writing Services in the Real World  

The presenters examine all aspects of contracting from the viewpoint of both the contractor and the employer/client. The focus will be on the contract itself which provides a clear starting point for maneuvering through the critical issues, including what constitutes a legal contract and topics a contract should cover. The ensuing discussion will cover the different ways that writers work and are paid, managing the inevitable changes to a project, and a closer look at the pros and cons of working on an hourly or term contract compared to fixed price contracts, or contracts with an upset limit.

Forsyth, Diane and Duncan A. Kent. STC Proceedings (1995). Careers>Freelance>Consulting

Control Charts, Quality Assurance, and Information Development  

The purpose of this paper is to explore a method that allows information developers to measure the quality assurance being invested in the products they create. A successful project achieves a balance between the time it takes to produce information, the associated cost, and the quality of the end product.

Murphy, Stephen W. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Information Design>Assessment

Control Your Destiny  

This paper describes the differences between an employee, an independent contractor, and a consultant and why it is important to understand these distinctions. It also mentions why it is important that independent contractors set effective goals and describes the difference between static goals and dynamic goals. An approach for taking up assignments as an independent contractor is provided. This approach describes activities that need to be done prior to starting an assignment, while working on the assignment, and after the assignment is completed.

Alexander, Susan M. STC Proceedings (2003). Careers>Freelance

Controlling Quality, Controlling Costs  

By developing a strategic plan, finding out if we are producing the right learning products in the most efficient way, and changing to a minimalist document design, we can meet the challenges of the present business environment. Since many of us are now expected to produce more with less while maintaining or improving the quality of the products we produce, we need to manage our function better. By following the suggestions in this paper, you will be able to: communicate the importance of your function; get control of your function; demonstrate how you add value to your companies' products.

Mattingly, William A. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Management>Quality>Assessment

Converting and Delivering 750,000 Pages on CD-ROM  

The SIS Conversion Team and Electronic Media Development Team support the Service Information System development by providing data on CD-ROM for Caterpillar customers. This unique project covers eighteen different publication types, requires conversion of 750,000 pages and more than a million gray scale and line art images. The targetted data includes Parts Manuals and a variety of technical documents that were written to cover all Caterpillar machines and engines built since 1977. The conversion to electronic images and SGML-tagged text, and subsequent EMD processing and distribution via CD-ROM required extensive development efforts and a significant investment in leading edge technologies.

Bennington, Roger. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Documentation>CD ROM

Converting Documentation to Multimedia  

Multimedia has proven its ability to sell products and educate users. But can it also perform tasks traditionally done with conventional paper documents? Yes. This demonstration shows how several hardware and software documents were converted to multimedia and provides a plan for converting your documents. You learn whether to display, speak, or just eliminate existing text. You see how to replace action words, descriptions of motion, and arrows with animation. YOU see how sound can guide rather than distract the user. You also learn to use interactivity to give control to the user. Along the way you see the compromises needed to keep the project on schedule, within budget, and down to size.

Horton, Katherine W. and William K. Horton III. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia

Converting FrameMaker to HTML  

Many FrameMaker users need to publish their documents on the World Wide Web. The best approach is to use a converter, which preserves the format and organization of the original FrameMaker document. Good converters can handle long, complex documents that contain elements such as table of contents, index, line drawings, bitmap graphics, tables, footnotes, and equations. We discuss the benefits of having a single source document for paper and Web, the techniques for creating documents that can be converted easily, and the powerful conversion tools available today.

Jackson, Ken and Sonya E. Keene. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Web Design>Software>Adobe FrameMaker

Converting from Paper to Online  

This demonstration describes the process and pitfalls encountered during the conversion of paper documents to online, CD-ROM documents that occurred at Cisco Systems, Inc.

Altemus, Desiree L. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Converting to Information Mapping: A Case Study  

Cisco Systems, Inc., uses electronic media as the primary delivery means for customer documentation and training. Information Mapping® techniques are being developed as a methodology for creating and linking modules of customer information. After selecting the Information Mapping methodology, we found it necessary to customize it for our needs. To implement Information Mapping methodology, we defined a system architecture consisting of three main subsystems: a document management subsystem, an authoring environment, and a publishing or delivery subsystem, In parallel with the customization and development of a system architecture, several writers began to implement the Information Mapping techniques to provide content to be put into the system being developed.

Garrett, Aviva, Haggai Mark and Jan Johnston-Tyler. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>Documentation>Writing>Technical Writing

Cooperative Effort in Producing Paper and Hypertext Documentation  

Using hypertext and paper creates a successful trip for the user of an interactive, mainframe software system. Building integrated, complementary documentation requires thoughtful planning, careful organization, and skillful implementation. The resulting product needs the cooperation of the entire team.

Bibus, Connie M. 'C.J.', Patricia J. Bishop, Mary Ann Clark and Deirdre A. Murr. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Documentation>Hypertext

Copyright and the Internet  

As original content takes on new forms in the rapidly developing and ever-changing digital publishing environment, copyright issues become increasingly important. Publishers that work with those authors who choose to link the information from their printed books to web pages can ensure that copyright violations do not occur.

Lemiski, Karen J. STC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>Intellectual Property>Copyright>Online

Corporate Intranets: Your Job is Never Over  

A corporate intranet is an effective tool for bi-directional information sharing. At last year’s STC conference we discussed how to build a successful intranet. Once you’ve built your intranet, your job is by no means over. Now you must maintain it and ensure that it becomes a part of your company’s corporate culture. To ensure this you must give attention to 1) the information, 2)-site design, 3) marketing and 4) support. We’ll discuss and demonstrate things you can do in these 4 areas to ensure that users continue to have successful experiences with your corporate Intranet.

Gordon, Michele and Brett Fielo. STC Proceedings (1999). Design>Web Design>Intranets

COTS: The New Challenge of Information Integration  

Systems engineering is moving away from specially-designed and built systems to integration of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software. COTS brings new challenges to technical communicators. In the past, we found all our information in-house, now it comes from many sources. We must change our process from pure development to information integration, and we must be part of the COTS selection process.

Lenk, Donald S. Jr. STC Proceedings (1998). Presentations>Information Design>Software

CPI Navigator: Building an Electronic Library on CD-ROM  

This demonstration will discuss the development, maintenance, and future of the CPI Navigator application. The development of this Visual Basic application and the conversion of thousands of hardcopy documents developed on a mainframe-based processor to online help was a 3-year long process that included using databases, Word macros, and several Help prototypes.

Bottka, Hary-Janos, Richard Wrye and Allison Johnson. STC Proceedings (1997). Design>Multimedia>CD ROM

Create Your Consultant Image!  

Managing relationships with a client is an important part of the business cycle, ensuring successful projects and setting the stage for additional business.

Woods, Joyce F. STC Proceedings (1997). Careers>Consulting

Creating a Corporate Electronic Information Delivery Solution  

Tandem Computers Incorporated developed a new electronic information delivery system and changed internal publishing processes to achieve greater eficiency and customer satisfaction. We were able to move over 1,000 manuals and 11,000 pieces of support documentation along with education material from two different CD-ROM delivery products to one corporate viewer that supports publishing on both CD-ROM and the World Wide Web. The project included creating a new viewer using industry-standard components, creating new publishing tools, and establishing new corporate relationships and processes.

Fingold, Sharon. STC Proceedings (1997). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing