Date post: | 09-Feb-2015 |
Category: |
Technology |
Upload: | nandini-gupta |
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Technical Writing in the Times of Recession
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What has changed?
What are organizations doing?
What can writers do (with and without system support)?
To share and gather ideas to adapt and excel in our current jobs and enhance our value as technical communicators
Purpose and Outline
Our performance conditions have changed.
Fewer writers; more loadShutdowns; work days crunchedNo/low raiseVariable compensation southwardPerformance awards/bonuses remainReason to adapt, excel, and enhance remains
The publishing model is changing.
CD + Web (print is out)Round-the-year, need-based, smaller updatesEmbedded documentationMultiplicity of information types – more video request, findable videosContinuous endeavor to improve search
So what has changed in the last two years?
Saving money wherever possible
Reducing outsourcing Removing “value-add” roles Reducing the scope of change
Reaching out to the users
Prerelease, user conferences, social networkingHelp as part of the ecosystem http://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp
Improved search experienceCommunity publishing system
Empowering employees
Update Help, web pages independentlyBlog about productsInteract with the community
What are organizations doing?
Understand the business context.
Shift focus from tools to business, identifynew user bases, workflows.Take initiatives to:
Integrate with the product teamCollaborate with other arms of the organization
Break into outsourced areas.
Proofreading, content editing, Legal review, training creation
Evolve into a community manager.
Go frugal. Write less. Free up time to play Community Manager.
What are our opportunities?
Write differently.
Scannable styleMake topics findable (title, opening lines,keywords, links) Know (guess) users’ search terms, use
them at least once prominently
Direct traffic to Help.
Link to Help from blogs and forums (use anchor text)
Update frequently to stay at the top of search results.
Optimize core Help for search
System SupportIntelligent search boxes, smarter algorithm
Custom search engines
Tie-ups for analytics (web traffic/search data)
Internal search analysis and research groups(surveys/feedback gathering)
Source
Web (sites, forums, blogs)Publications (system support required)Internal sources
Identify gurus, know where and when they publish.
Fill content gaps.
Use search data.Involve the community.
Integrate with Help or link.
Check attribution standards.http://help.adobe.com/en_US/RoboHelp/8.0/RoboHTML/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d11aff59bd8a-7ffb.html
Scout for supplementary Help
Legal IssuesCreative Commons
Product bugging
Public communication policy
Organization
Mechanism to share feedback publiclyProcess and training to establish norms Acceptance/rejection criteria Dealing with inflammatory commentsRewards and incentives (gifts, stars, badges)Community publishing system (nice to have)Integration with forums
Writer
Enable (discussions, give administrative support)Inform (new processes, tools, products)Escalate (technical support)Acknowledge (‘Thank you’ mail, points, blog,integrate with Help)Energize (share feedback, accept suggestions, woo 9% (write, acknowledge quality)Share (metrics)
Create and manage user communities
Neilson’s 90-9-1
Click icon to add picture
What are the ways in which your organization is opening up?
Is your Help on the web? Is it enabled for commenting?
Do you allow users to directly edit Help contents?
If your Help is inside the firewall, what are you doing to reach out to your users?
Which writers are not excited about being community managers?
What are your concerns about quality and legal issues?
Know what others are doing
Facilitation
Arbitration
Prudence
Web Savviness
Collaborative, web-friendly writing style
Ability to deliver “good enough” quality
So what are the new and differentiating skills?
http://www.slideshare.net/bogov/trends-in-technical-communication-presentation
Going forward …
SaaS application documentation
Virtual/real conferences
Product evangelism
Experience design
Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation by Anne Gentle
The Art of Community by Jono Bacon
Climbing Levels of Collaboration by Anne Gentle
Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute by Jakob Nielsen
Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushikhttp://www.kaushik.net/avinash/
Reading
Nandini GuptaSenior Technical Writer
Adobe India
Thank You!
Image credit:Slide 4: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.htmlSlide 6: Adobe Systems, OmnitureSlide 8: http://justwriteclick.com/