Category Archives: Social Media
Using Social Media the RIGHT Way
Last night, my husband and I were out eating dinner before a concert we were attending. My husband was on his phone (as always). I’m giving him the stink-eye, he looks up at me, then back down at his phone – completely ignoring my blatant irritation at his phone use. In a fit of rage, I reach across the table and grab the phone away, hiding it beside me, much as a mother might have to do with an unruly child.
This story is fairly typical of many of my interactions with, not only my husband, but many of my friends and family as well. I am one who avidly utilizes the
internet and my phone, but I have learned that there is a time and place for it. Sitting at dinner with your spouse or friend is not the time for it. When someone is trying to carry on a conversation with you, that is not the time for it. It has become an endless frustration that so many people seem unable to look away from their devices and connect with the real world – and I’m sure I am guilty of it as well. It can be hard to separate yourself from the nagging urge to check your texts/Facebook/email. I have experienced it as well, but much like Howard Rheingold (2012) outlines in “Net Smart” I have learned to focus my attention when necessary.
I am a huge advocate for the social abilities that technology has made possible. As someone who suffers from (at times debilitating) depression and social anxiety, the ability to “connect” while not being physically close to someone is something that has helped me tremendously. Additionally, there is such support out there (on the web) for people who suffer similar challenges, the communities that the internet and social media make possible can be endlessly beneficial. However, as Rheingold eloquently put it, “the same activity can be a lifeline for one person and a distracting compulsion to others” (2012, p. 8). This entirely sums up the differences in the evolution of use of social media between my husband and myself.
As a young adult I, like many other young adults, thought myself to be exceedingly important and felt the urge to post even the most mundane and uninteresting things to social media. As I learned to navigate these media, I began to see their propensity for good as well as their pitfalls. That was when I began to change the way I used such technologies, creating communities of trust and comfort while eliminating the more banal and unimportant posts from my profiles. This has helped me immensely in building a sense of belonging and allowing me to more easily cope with my circumstances.
My husband has a long history of becoming addicted to video-games, to the detriment of his academic and professional life at times. This is why, when he spends our dinner staring at his phone, I get afraid that it will become a compulsion he will not be able to stop. For the two of us, our technology and its social affordances creates two very different worlds.
This is why I think that Rheingold’s idea of “controlling attention” is so vital. While technology and social media can be extremely beneficial in connecting with others and creating/maintaining communities, if let run wild, they can be distractions that keep us from living our lives in the moment.
Both photos courtesy of http://blazepress.com/2015/05/27-powerful-images-that-sum-up-how-smartphones-are-ruining-our-lives/
Thinking about thinking about thinking about…
In several of the readings we’ve encountered this semester, we’ve encountered sad stories of parents neglecting children on playgrounds in favor of their smart phones, of adolescents exhausted by the demands of social media, and people who have nearly died from information overload. The theme we are seeing over and over again seems to be that technology – and social media in particular – is a one-way train to the downfall of society. And we are riding it gleefully.
I’ve found myself quite frustration by these doomsayers. Sure, technology has its downsides, but it overall has a net positive if treated properly. The same can be said for other communication technologies that were heralded in their days of harbingers of the end of civilization. For instance, for Socrates, reading itself was a threat to society. In fact, in Net Smart, Howard Rheingold identifies a cycle wherein 1) a technology arises to massively increase communication efficiency, 2) that technology causes an information crisis and panic about the future of society, and 3) humans develop methods to handle the new technology and information it presents (p. 100). This cycle occurred for writing, books, the telegraph, the telephone, etc.
The question then becomes what tools do we need to develop to adjust to the current information crisis? The doomsayers argue that the only solution is an abstinence-only, zero-tolerance policy toward these technologies–quitting them cold turkey. To Rheingold, this is not the answer. “Human agency, not just technology is key,” he argues, “teaching people how to practice more mindful mediated communication seems the most feasible remedy” (p. 56-7).
Rheingold argues that the solution already lies within our own minds: metacognition (thinking about thinking) and mindfulness (paying attention to the way you pay attention) (36). By exercising these skills, we will be able to filter out all but the most essential information and focus our attention productively to complete goals.
Metacognition, or thinking about thinking, is so powerful that, according to Rheingold, just thinking about thinking about thinking starts change the neural networks in the brain. It takes advantage of the brain’s neuroplasticity to teach the brain new tricks.
Mindfulness, or paying attention to the way you pay attention, allows us to develop control over our attentiveness such that we actively choose to perform activities relevant to our goals and intentions. It allows us to “attune to the part of [our] information environment that matters most, and tune out what is irrelevant, at least for the purpose of [our goals” (p. 42-3).
Getting started, Rheingold says, is as simple as breathing. Seriously, the first step in creating attention awareness is to pay attention to breathing (p. 45). From this humble starting point, “attention processes… can be strengthened through exercise” (p. 62). He argues that small steps, repeated at regular intervals become habit–in other words, repetition of mindful cognitive tasks start shaping the brain’s neural networks in ways we want. By the end of all this, we become capable of focusing only on information that helps us reach our goals, while filtering out all of the other “noise” that distracts us away from our intentions.
I am personally quite familiar with mindfulness. I’m still an amateur, but I have applied it to my life in a number of ways, including improving my eating and spending habits. I am more aware of my posture, and I even try to be mindful of the way I walk–I am trying to consciously correct a slight limp that I didn’t even notice I had until I started paying attention.
Mindfulness is a very powerful tool that enables you to make conscious decisions rather than moving through life on “autopilot.” However, after reading these chapters of Net Smart, I would like to pursue mindfulness further, perhaps even beginning meditation. I have a very active (i.e., disruptive) mind, and I would like to develop tools to quiet it or, even better, harness that activity to complete goals.
This is When Everything Changes: Cluetrain and the Technological Experience
If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?
The only thing that’s changed about this adage is that now we have the ability to Google the answer with the press of a few keys. Working in that atmosphere, where technology and the Internet have allowed us all to access an endless amount of information on a variety of subjects
Reading through the 95 theses from the Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business As Usual by Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger is an interesting little web page to look over. It’s full of a lot of sage advice and theses that I find to be completely obvious. Though there is power in making statements so I guess I can see the point in creating a very pointed guide for companies to read through.
Let’s break some of it down, shall we! It starts out by stating:
“A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.”
At first glance, this is all standard fare. Yes, we are now more of a global community. The Internet has allowed us to friend, follow, and tweet at anyone around with the world with WiFi and a digital social life.
More than that, we are discovering and inventing new ways to communicate and convey information. This idea is particularly important, to our greater class discussion and to the Manifesto. Outside of the limited amount of countries that actively limit the scope of the Internet for their citizens, surfing the Net is such an individual experience, mostly because no one can truly lay claim to it. We all have the ability to create blogs, websites, videos, music, and a variety of content, post it, and have it read 1,000 times before lunch. This freedom is something that is exclusive to the Web. As Americans, we live in a country where the Freedoms of Speech and Expression are protected, but as always, putting that into action inevitably causes friction with other people, groups, religious organizations, and/or the government.
The online space, as much as it is open to manipulation and abuse, is viewed as safer. We have the ability to hide behind screen names and anonymous messages, giving us the option of both utter honesty and utter depravity.
When the opening to the manifesto talks about relevant knowledge is where I drew up short. This might just be a personal opinion of mine, but what information can you not deem relevant? Yes, time period, setting, and other factors provide context. Your office job is not the place to talk about that rash you have, unless you work in a hospital or urgent care center. But that knowledge will come in handy eventually, like all knowledge.
What’s relevant to businesses is to understand that customers are people who cannot be neatly pressed into columns, lines, and graphs on a spreadsheet.
Source: (https://www.veeva.com/blog/death-by-spreadsheet-the-gremlins-paradox/)
As you have probably heard from a parent, professor, elderly person on the street, Turkle, the age of the Internet, mobile devices and social networking has brought about many detrimental changes to our society. We do not learn or retain information in the same way. We do not connect with friends and neighbors like we used to. We can’t understand how vital it is to connect with people face-to-face in order to be an actual human being.
They have done their part by creating a dialogue about this topic. It is now up to us, those of us working with technology now, and those of us who come later, reared in the cradle of mobile devices and online communities.
What’s relevant to us as content creators, digital consumers, and technical communicators, what we must all understand is that we do not live in binary opposition with technology. It is not either or. The human experience has to be allowed to evolve. Change comes when we’re placed into new situations. Technology has affected the way we relate to each other, yes. It has driven businesses to look online for customers. It has caused innumerable automobile accidents and driven progress in health care, defense, travel, and commerce.
Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger work to clarify the position of the audience as autonomous agents who do not need companies to tell them what to want anymore.
So where do you fall on the spectrum of this argument? Do you feel that the rise of texting, Facebook, Snapchat, and every other social networking site and digital communications tool has led to the simplification of meaning? How much does what you buy have to do with the method/medium you are exposed to it?
Critical Thoughts on Attention, Crap Detection and Participation in Digital Media
Attention Deficiency
As I begin to write this blog, I am already distracted by several tabs open on my browser, an audible ring of a new text message, and a calendar reminder that my favorite radio program begins in five minutes. Carr in Net Smart (Rheingold, 2012) explains these interruptions or distractions are causing us to lose “deep, sustained focus” (p. 52). These distractions or lack of attention are dissuading our intention to achieve a goal, in this case, write this blog.
Rheingold uses Sherry Turkle’s 15 years of research to amass ways to become more mindful of how we’re using digital media and participating in online activities. Although he cites research that our use of digital media is detrimental to society and weakens our capacity to think critically, he also provides solutions to increase our aptitude and critical thinking skills.
Learning how to be a Crap Detective
Reading Rheingold’s (2012) chapter about deciphering websites’ credibility supports my pet peeve of friends believing and sharing fake news stories and Facebook privacy policies. The proliferation of false news stories promotes our own inability to think about the content’s truthfulness and impact to others. I refer to Snopes.com to determine whether a story is true or not and post the link online. I have recently read several posts about Facebook releasing all our personal information and photos. This was crap four years ago and people are still sharing it. I re-shared the truth via Snopes.com and warned my friends that I would stop following their feeds if they continued to post the crap.
Eight years ago I worked for an online media startup where we used SEO to get a website to rank authentically within the first three pages of Google, but Rheingold suggests that we look beyond the first 30 search results to find more credible websites. Does this mean the crappy spam sites are doing a better job of SEO than the credible counterparts?
Other sites to determine the validity of digital content are FactCheck.org, and NewsTrust.net. Note the url extension as well this is one predictor of reliable information; however, any website can choose a .org or .net, but .edu or .gov. The latter two must be verified an educational institution or government entity.
Participation Online
There are multiple levels of participatory engagement from reading content, sharing a link, interactive gaming sites, “likes” to clicking on a hypertext link. How we participate also contributes to how we curate content. Rheingold (2012) explained, “The voluntary curation contribution of every person who ever puts a link on a Web site, blog, or tweet is what enables Google to…rank the sites in order of popularity” (p.127). And with that popularity, we provide information that becomes a powerful dictator of knowledge or stupidity.
Is the Internet a cesspool of folklore and truthiness?
Or The Internet is full of adventure and can we learn to love and live with it?
It takes time to understand the fluency of the Internet. The wool is never pulled over my eyes when it comes to the junk the Internet has to offer. However, how can you blame the Internet for tricking us? Anyone with a connection can post whatever they want to get our attention. In the book, Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, Howard Rheingold says that “the web undermines authority (by enabling anybody to publish)” (p. 89). The amount of content waiting for our attention is enormous. Whenever I see dubious posts that talk about folklore or “truthy” on the social media, I do a quick search on Google to see if the content is real or fake.
Sometimes Google search results give me a Snopes.com article. I tend to believe the Snopes website because it has been around busting urban folkore and “truthiness” for over twenty years. If you think I made that up, check out Rob Walker’s profile on the person behind the most well-known website for clearing up the internet’s (dis)information. Because of the amount of information out there these days, “we need Snopes more than ever” (Walker, 2016).
In the Futurama episode, “Attack of the Killer App,” the characters get eyePhones installed in their eye sockets, which the device mimics features found on actual iPhones. Bender, the narcissistic robot, uses his eyePhone for the purpose of getting attention through the device. He posts on the social media site, Twitcher (a parody of Twitter), about his kayaking trip around the world while sitting comfortably at a pizzeria.
Screenshots and captions from “Attack of the Killer App” from Futurama.
Bender then says, “Can you believe 50,000 idiots swallow that crap?” and he accidentally sends that message to his followers. This example is a great one to showcase that people will believe anything and somehow Bender amassed a following of people who believe he is an authoritative figure. In a sense, do we believe what people say online as true or do we need to step back and question the content we consume?
Working out that skepticism muscle
I think it’s time we start working on our skepticism muscle. I propose using this analogy: work out your skeptical muscle on the internet by critically thinking about the content you consume. You will get better exercising that skepticism muscle every time you get a chance to.
In my case, I research a lot of information and gauge the data by how well the website presents itself and if it is corroborated by other reputable sources. Rheingold says “journalists talk about ‘triangulating’ by checking three different, credible sources” (p. 79). I know whatever’s on the web should be taken with caution and I question everything before I believe it to be true. However, critical thinking should apply not only for the internet, but anything else posted elsewhere, such as the yellow and tabloid journalism peddled at checkout aisles in grocery stores.
During my earliest days using the Internet, I learned quickly how to tell what was true and fake. Rheingold says that “age can be a factor in crap-detection fluency, experience and engagement may be more important” (p. 84) I agree that it takes experience and years of reading online content to gather that kind of heuristic for detecting what is junk and what to believe. “The danger of … credulity is made possible by digital media” says Rheingold, and there is something we can do about it: “make skepticism [our] default” (p. 77).
Rheingold includes Dan Gillmor’s five “Principles of Media Consumption” (pp. 95-96) as a good guide for figuring out how to work that skepticism muscle in order to process information better and not take anything for granted.
- Be Skeptical
- Exercise Judgment
- Open Your Mind
- Keep Asking Questions
- Learn Media Techniques
Gillmor says that we need everyone to understand that “we are doing a poor job of ensuring that consumers and producers of media in a digital age are equipped for these tasks [of consuming media appropriately].” Additionally, Gillmor and I agree that in order to build these skills, “this is a job for parents and schools” and unfortunately “a teacher who teaches critical thinking in much of the United States risks being attacked as a dangerous radical.” Luckily, in my educational upbringing, I was told to question and research everything before I decide to accept it.
Can we patch the human?
Lastly, I am fascinated how people could fall for most well-known digital scam: phishing. In my last job I worked with an information security team as a technical writer. One of the security measures the team would test for was phishing and my co-workers were good at hacking the human since most of the computer systems were already hardened with security patches. How easy it it to fall for the everyday phishing email? Very easy. You’d be surprised that despite all of the security efforts made to secure systems so hackers can’t get in, people always were the weakest chain.
It boggles me how anyone can be so trusting to give away passwords!
In essence how can we train ourselves to figure out scams or fake authoritative figures via email? Can we “social engineer-proof” the average person to catch subtle hints everywhere on the Internet to be aware of? I think it is possible to help everyone to detect these types of scams instead of relying on software to filter the scams out of our email.
We need to educate people early on how to detect these kinds of things on the Internet. I would hope that these days, not only parents, educators teach online literacy. That doesn’t mean scaring kids and teens away from the internet, but teach helpful skills in consuming media like using Gillmor’s five principles. Whenever a friend or family member posts a hoax on Facebook, I check it and decide if it’s worthy to explain to them that they posted junk information. I gently prod them by posting a link to Snopes.com, like what Rheingold mentions we do to debunk online rumors (p. 81) because it’s important to stop the junk from misinforming other unfortunate souls.
To me, I liken it to telling people Comic Sans and Papyrus are terrible fonts and you need to use something like Gothic or Perpetua or Cambria. You don’t need to suffer awful junk from the digital world. We can do better.
References
Gillmor, D. (2008, December 26). Principles of a new media literacy. [Web log message]. Retrieved from https://dangillmor.com/2008/12/26/principles-of-a-new-media-literacy/
Rheingold, H. (2012). Net smart: How to thrive online. The MIT Press. Cambridge, MA
Verrone, P. (Writer). (2010). Attack of the killer app. [Television series episode]. in Cohen, D. X. (Executive producer). Futurama. New York, NY: Comedy Central.
Walker, R. (2016, October 19). How the truth set Snopes free. Webby Awards. Retrieved from http://webbyawards.com/features/how-the-truth-set-snopes-free/
Information – It’s Not All That
The abundance of available information at our fingertips, simply a Google Search away, is changing the way we do things. It changes the way we spend our time, the way we learn, the way we read, and the way we think. Sherry Turkle, in Alone Together, states that because of this, the quality of information is suffering. People get quick email answers, quick Google Search answers, quick trivia, and don’t take the time to write or read extended written works or books.
Because information is abundant and fast, because anyone with a smartphone can upload video and details about an event taking place, journalists have new competition. Turkle says that people are losing their respect for a long, in depth answers. More than that, people lose their patience for quality information. I recently was drawn to a news article by a headline. An event had taken place, and I wanted more information, so I clicked on the article and was taken to an online news website. The article was poorly written, disjointed, and riddled with misspellings, grammatical errors, and sentence fragments. It was literally painful to read and the event I was reading about took a backseat to my horror at the “news” article. How could I trust the details if there was no effort put into the publishing of this article. A simple read-through could have fixed a multitude of errors. I commented on the article, expressing my disappointment that the author couldn’t proof read his own work before publishing his article. I pointed out that the errors in the article distracted me from the content and I would not return to this particular website for news anymore. The author replied to my comment. He defended his article and said that he was on the scene when he posted it. He wrote the article on a tablet, which made typing difficult. He didn’t take time to proofread because someone else may have uploaded the article first. He prides himself on being first to get the news out.
That incident was my first revelation that the quality of information was at stake because of the demand for instant knowledge. I was reminded of this as I read Howard Rheingold’s response in Net Smart to Nicholas Carr’s assertion that we rely so heavily on internet searches, that we no longer have the capacity to “know.” It’s true. I find myself less inclined to memorize information since I can pull it up in an instant. Today, I was packing up books that I had had for years; books that I saved in case I ever needed to know about the topics. As I was packing them to donate, I thought about what would happen if the internet went down for any amount of time. The books about math, electricity, art, history, etc. are all waiting until I need to look something up, except I haven’t touched them in years. We are very dependent on the internet for our knowledge. On one hand, the internet can go with us everywhere. Therefore, we have knowledge whenever and wherever we need it. Frighteningly, we’re dependent on the internet for far more than information. What if something happens that takes down the internet for a significant amount of time. We won’t know anything. Carr is right in this point – the internet is making us stupid.
In addition to poor quality information, we have to contend with inaccurate information and purposefully deceiving information. Many colleges and universities do not recognize Wikipedia as a legitimate source because of the high risk of faulty information. It used to have an open policy which means that any person, even if they did not have a Wikipedia account, could edit, add, or change information, making that information unreliable. They have changed that policy, however, limiting and approving edits (Wikipedia Editing Policy). Therefore, since we, as readers and users, have to be able to identify when we are getting solid, or destructive information, we can’t check our brains at the door. Memorizing and “knowing” might not be as prevalent as in the past, but using reason, verifying facts, cross referencing are all becoming new skills. Perhaps the internet is teaching us to develop out critical thinking skills.
References
Rheingold, Howard. (2012). Net Smart. The MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Turkle, Sherry. (2011). Alone Together. Basic Books. New York, NY.
#92 Y2K… Wow, That Took Me Back
I found cluetrain’s 95 Theses an exhaustive list of pretty much any and all situations that could possibly be linked to how “the market” is changing because of technology. I read along the list finding myself curious and in mostly agreement with the items on the list. When I got to #92 it dawned on me that this list is outdated and I checked the publishing date. Towards the bottom of the list, it says “Companies are spending billions of dollars on Y2K. Why can’t they hear this market timebomb ticking? The stakes are even higher.” That made me think: How different would this list be if it were written seventeen years into the future? Would many of these items remain the same or would the utter onslaught of burgeoning technology render the list useless? Perhaps it wouldn’t be useless, but I think it would look a bit different.
I’d like to reflect on what technology and forms of media I was using during Y2K. I was in sixth grade and twelve years old. On New Year’s Eve 1999 I was at a hotel with my family and a lot of their friends we went camping with every summer plus all of their kids. Luckily, many of us were around the same age so it was a very fun New Year’s Eve. I don’t recall understanding exactly what Y2K was, but I knew that 2000 was going to be a big deal. I was too young to understand the fear of the doomsday preppers and people’s concern that technology wouldn’t be able to comprehend the number 2000 and the world was going to blow up. The technology I was using as a twelve year old sixth grader included a grey discman with stickers all over it, a Gateway home computer without internet, and a TV with a VCR. I had never heard of e-mail let alone could I even contemplate social networking and what technology and emerging media looks like today.
These days, my life is inundated with technology and the way it affects the market and business as a whole. As I’ve been discussing during this semester, I just started a new position and am now the marketing and communications manager for a fitness company called TRUE Studio. Being involved in so much technical communications has been very overwhelming this first week. I have taken over not only the company’s three corporate Facebook accounts, but their Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, corporate e-mails, and am learning different platforms that I am totally unfamiliar with. Hootsuite, MindBody, Constant Contact…just to name a few. It’s amazing how much technology is required to remain viable as a business.
The one concept that did resonate with me from the cluetrain reading was the fact that they pointed out that end users and consumers should be viewed as human beings and not simply part of various demographic groups. I think that’s important for a business person to consider. The desired audience should be viewed as a collective of people with individual and unique experiences and not simply a cluster of folks who may or may not react similarly to marketing and communication techniques.
Culture + Communication + Humans + Design
Technology can go only so far as to connecting us together in a virtual way. Thanks to technology, we are separated further and further away from other humans. When was the last time that you spent more time talking with a person instead of communicating through a device? Bernadette Longo says that “[p]eople value human relations. We want to feel connected to other people” (Longo, p. 156). Yet it’s funny that more and more recently, we are interacting through electronic devices instead of face-to-face.
I love the idea of using technology to communicate quickly and easily. I admit that I spend more time making plans via text message with my friends instead of calling someone up or talking to them in person. As we speak, my friends and I are discussing travel plans for next weekend. Questions arise from: “Are we staying at an Airbnb?” to “Should we rent a car or use Uber?” It used to be we’d sit together and get everything planned out. These days, it’s a group text. What will it be in the future?
I think we’ve been sold on a bad bill of communication goods because, despite the way technology has made our entire world more and more connected and easier to reach. According to Barry Thatcher, “[e]mail seems to have the distance and isolation of individualistic cultures” because it can’t even substitute for the personal interactions between people occupying the same physical space (Thatcher, p. 181). Nothing compares to it and yet somehow technology substitutes parts of that communication but not entirely everything.
In a sense, we are developing a virtual world that mimics the real one that we’ve created for physical items. Take for instance the iconography within digital environments. I have to refer to a well-known graphic artist: Susan Kare. She “helped establish the paradigm of icons as a navigational tool in graphical user interfaces.” “Her icons are metaphors” (Hurst, 2013). It’s interesting how we use metaphors for objects in a digital environment and sometimes they work really well and are accepted. However, sometimes there’s a metaphor which causes issues like the confused and misunderstood hamburger button.
On Culture
I’m really interested in how much thought goes into culture and rhetoric. Longo points out that we “technical communicators can learn about cultural contexts by studying language and the social relationships embedded in how people use it” (Longo p. 149). My favorite examples come from color symbolism.
Infographic from Visually.
Living in the western world, I believe we forget that “our cultural values and beliefs are ‘normal’ and we notice what is different about other cultures” (Longo, p. 149). I think there is nothing wrong that ideas, feelings, symbols, and communication is different in other cultures but if we were aware of these cultural contexts, we would be better technical communicators. I’m pretty thankful that I have family in South America and that helps me understand a bit better how others function in different countries. I theorize with my mom about the technology shifts and how Colombia may skip steps in technology that the United States has first experienced.
The world works differently elsewhere and I’m okay with that. We technical communicators (as well as all humans) need to recognize the environment we enter when working in a cross-cultural setting. What may be culturally acceptable will not work well elsewhere. Barry Thatcher learned that difficulty while working as a technical communication teacher in Ecuador. I even learned that difficulty trying to talk with my cousins in Colombia because of the way they prefer communication over what I preferred. Thatcher says that “digital media simply do not fit all communicative and cultural traditions the same way.” It’s true in my experience, in Thatcher’s words, I “assumed that another culture will simply use digital media the same way” as we would like (Thatcher, p. 170). For me to communicate with my cousins, I had to find another digital technology that worked for them as well as for me. After years of struggling to find a perfect communication system, we finally nailed it down to WhatsApp. Now I can communicate with them quickly and I’m not as disconnected in their daily lives either. Even the phone calls are free.
Going along with technological advances, I’m not okay that the technology have-nots may get stuck behind. I understand that Rheingold’s model of an “inclusive community relies on economic and cultural gatekeepers” (Longo, p. 151) but technology creeps everywhere. Also, I want to point out that prisoners who have not been released for decades can fall behind on technology too.
Lastly, here’s a question for the ages
What’s our ethical use of our line of work? Can we find ways to communicate ethically as technical communicators? It was interesting to find a reference to Nazi Germany and technical communication. Katz (1992) found the “ethos of expediency” in a well-written memo, I want to counter that technical communication was also considered by the Allied Powers. I wrote in my own blog that “during WWII, Winston Churchill wrote a memo which asked for simpler language when communicating within his team. He wanted short and crisp messages, include headers, and remove ‘wolly’ phrases because he felt it was merely padding. Why? He didn’t want his staff to waste time reading long reports when there is a war going on” (Renteria, 2016).
I understand that we “technical communicators attend only to the utility and expediency of our work, we risk falling into the ethical trap of rational inhumanity in the same of creating universal good,” (Longo, 155) but we don’t have to think that everything we do for the sake of quickness and efficiency will be for used for evil. We do have the right to question how our work will be used and I would hope what we create in any kind of media will be used for the greater good.
References
Hurst, N. (2013, April 24). Meet the woman who launched a billion clicks. Wired Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2013/04/susan-kare/
Longo, B. (2010). Human+Machine Culture. In Spilka, R. (2010). Digital literacy for technical communication: 21st century theory and practice. (pp. 147-168). Taylor & Francis. New York, NY.
Renteria (2016, March 20). Writing for the Web – Simplify Your Words! WriteTechie. Retrieved from https://writetechie.com/2016/03/20/writing-web-simplify-words/
Thatcher, B. (2010). Understanding Digital Literacy Across Cultures. In Spilka, R. (2010). Digital literacy for technical communication: 21st century theory and practice. (pp. 169-198). Taylor & Francis. New York, NY.
Audience and the Boundaries It Makes
As Part III of Digital Literacy for Technical Communication explains, there are a number of factor key to the field, chief among them is audience. This is nothing new. The idea of audience driven content has ruled the world for ages, well before literacy, digital or otherwise, became the rule instead of the exception.
Audience is everything.
We are taught to think about audience almost as soon as we begin formal schooling, maybe even before that. It’s built into the very systems that sell us the houses we live in, food we eat, cars we drive, and classes we attend. Technical communicators have to look at audience from the other side of the glass. It is so important to us and what we do as content managers, translators, technical writers and edits, UX designers, and professors.
The question becomes, how does that information serves us, as technical communicators, as citizens, and as audience members?
A powerful point is made in Chapter 8 of Spilka when it states,
“She [Longo] contends that the ‘idea of a universal community … is as illogical as it is compelling.’ As she puts it, ‘In order to form a community, some people have to be included and others excluded … Without boundaries, the community ceases to exist” (p. 201)
I had to stop and reread this sentence a second time because it rings with so much truth. The idea of community has been expanded as a result of ever increasing technological advances. It’s not just about where you live anymore. Social media has changed the way we relate to one another by allowing us to relate to people we can never meet. Sharing and exchanging knowledge, culture, techniques, and even basic discourse has become the new normal. We all have opinions and technology has given us the platforms to disperse those as far and as wide as it reaches.
How has mass media accounted for this difference? The Internet is where it’s at in terms of advertising. Air time has been subsumed by streaming and working in the modern age means working online.
Companies who want to sell us things, government entities who want to be elected, professors who want to teach us lessons all have to follow a simple structure: meet the people where they live.
But conducting audience analysis and creating audience-driven content means figuring out who to target. Now, this may not be intended to be exclusive, but it does certainly create an “Us vs. Them” mentality. Spreading yourself too thin means that your message is less likely to hit the mark. With the rise of the Internet and online culture, casting your dragnet without key targets means spending tens of thousands of dollars and battling Ad Blockers, Virtual Private Networks, and other measures users put into place to shield themselves.
When we are talking about pure marketing concepts, this divide cannot be so clear cut. Selling jewelry or cars or textbooks is based on a two-pronged attack: create and maintain a loyal customer base and attract new customers at the same time.
Do we do this as technical communicators? I’m not so sure. A lot of my work in the field is based on fulfilling established needs. As a government contractor, I work to fulfill the requirements established by the client. I am not involved in enticing new customers, just making the already established customer happy. This work does take place, in my case at a higher internal level. Freelancers of course do this automatically in order to keep afloat
On the other hand, on a personal level, this is what’s necessary for technical communicators, at least for me, as job seekers. Through practice, academics, networking, and general curiosity, we work to establish ourselves with steady work and paying clients, with coursework and portfolios. By nature of the field, we also have to keep an eye out for emerging trends and technologies to stay current and up to date.
So where do our boundaries lie? How do we decide what and who to keep and who to throw away? For us, this is an even bigger challenge. Our field is still in flux. There are so many professional titles, so many technical and soft skills, so many things that make up the “technical communications” spectrum. Do we even need to create boundaries then?
To my mind, they are created by companies and contract mandates. By others in our field conducting research and creating standards. By professional organizations like the Society for Technical Communication.
Source: (http://www.ableseattle.com/boundaries.html)
Where do your boundaries lie?
Citation
Blakeslee, Ann M. (2010). Addressing Audience in a Digital Age. In R. Spilka (Ed.), Digital literacy for technical communication: 21st century theory and practice. (pp.199 – 2529). New York, NY. Routledge.
Digital Communication, Ethics, and Freedom of Speech
It’s common knowledge that people are on their best “verbal” behavior in certain social situations. For example, when a person is at work, they know to be careful with how they talk, what they say, and how they present themselves to their supervisors and customers. Yet, at home people can relax, be themselves, and share their feelings, thoughts, opinions, and beliefs with their close friends and family members.
Ethical lines can somehow get blurred when using other methods of communication. Steven B. Katz and Vicki W. Rhodes, in their article, Beyond Ethical Frames of Technical Relations, as published in Rachel Spilka’s Digital Literacy For Technical Communication, gave an example of how employees of a company refer to clients as “handicapped” or “disabled” when the company would never publicly refer to clients in that way, which it considers demeaning. The employees are most likely not trying to demean the clients, rather, they use terms that are easier in a digital format. Often, email is used for it’s instant transfer of information. A person can simply cast their thoughts into the keyboard and hit “send.” Ethically, the companies publicists would frown.
Let’s consider other forms of ethical violations. Facebook users list their place of employment on their profile. When the user’s face appears, often you can see who your mutual friends are and their place of employment without even going to their page. Therefore, they are representatives of their employer in the digital world. Should that person complain about work, or use derogatory language to describe customers, that could present ethical concerns. Yet that user is simply using free speech to complain to their own “inner circle,” on their own time. Is it right or wrong? If someone has a really bad day, a customer was rude and inconsiderate and the employee takes to Facebook to unload, does the company have an obligation to address it? Do they have the right to address it? After all, their name is associated. I once read a thread of conversation about a controversial topic. One particular individual was spewing hate, being vulgar and offensive. I hovered the curser over his name and his place of employment came up. Not once have I ever visited that business. Very purposefully, I have avoided that business, simply because of what one employee posted on Facebook. Does an employer have the right to limit a user’s content if they are employed at their company?
Facebook is becoming a popular business tool, but email tends to be a significant method of communication for businesses. One reason I like to use email and other forms of digital communication is for a “paper trail.” I can look back and remember what I said, what I promised, or other important details. I also have proof that I addressed a topic, followed through, or took action. Often, if I talk on the phone about something important, I’ll follow up with an email that says, “As per our phone conversation, I wanted to recap our next steps…..” That way I could always pull the email if there is ever a “he said – she said” type of situation.
Photo Credit: Pixabay.com
The authors, however, address a much deeper form of ethics in digital technology, and that is that our digital selves do not always resemble our real selves – our digital being (p. 238). Email creates a relationship between a user and technology. Interestingly, email is a popular form of workplace communication with which the users develop “relationships” using email, even if the recipient and the sender never actually speak, or the recipient is just a couple cubicles down (p. 243). The authors ask if it’s possible to remove one’s self from the email communication, and to keep the message “neutral.” They ask if that is a fair ethical standard for a company to expect of their employees (p. 250). My answer is – not always. Consider shooting emails back and forth, discussing important details of a project, and the other person has an alternate motivation or goal. How can a person remove themselves from the content of the email when they evoke emotions. What if you’re protective of your work, putting your whole self into the projects, and someone on the other end of the email isn’t as committed as you are?
Another consideration is that person-less email can often be read as cold, impersonal, rude, or negative. My rule of thumb is to always try to have my email communication take on a friendly, positive tone (which is not always easy to do if I’m frustrated). I like to be somewhat personable, to make the recipient feel valued, important, or in the very least – not bothered. That means that I am not keeping my email impersonal and detaching myself from the communication. At some companies, would that mean I am acting unethically? I like to think that is professional and reflects well on the company, but that’s just my opinion.
______________________________________________________________
Reference
Katz, S. B. & Rhodes, V. W. (2010). Beyond ethical frames of technical relations. In R. Spilka (Ed.), Digital literacy for technical communication: 21st century theory and practice. (pp.230 – 256). New York, NY. Routledge.
The Importance of Culture
The grand focus in Chapters 6-9 in Rachel Spilka’s Digital Literacy for Technical Communication (2010) was culture and considering audiences. Culture is a very tricky subject to pin down and agree on, but I’ve always enjoyed discussing culture and what exactly that means.
As a foreign language student, I’ve had the opportunity to not only learn how to speak a second language, but I have also learned a lot about respecting other cultures and ways of life. I’m competent in German, and throughout the many years since I began learning the language, I feel as though I’ve learned just as much about German culture. It’s also been fascinating to me what is considered appropriate in one culture and offensive to others. For example, certain American hand gestures are considered fine for us–like the peace sign and thumbs up–but in other cultures they can mean something completely different. The peace sign for Japanese people is the Victory symbol. For Americans, thumbs up usually means that something is “good.” In other cultures, it means something more along the lines of “up yours.” In India and other Asian countries, eating is always done with the right hand and never with the left because the left hand is used for personal hygiene purposes. In Germany, it’s considered extremely rude to show the person the bottom of your shoe (also equated with “up yours” more or less). Additionally, tipping a server in Germany is strictly verboten whereas in America stiffing your waiter or waitress is considered very rude. While I was studying in Italy in 2010, I learned it perfectly culturally acceptable to imbibe whisky or other spirits in your morning espresso. And business or academic meetings, even ones that occur at 9 a.m., often involve sharing a very strong drink of grappa before the talking starts. One of the biggest discrepancies between Italian and American culture is the concept of time. It only took me one day to learn that Italians are much less strict when it comes to punctuality. My guide told me he would pick me up for dinner at 9 p.m., which is around the time Italians eat dinner, but didn’t show up until nearly ten. Classes started at 9 in the morning, but many of the teachers wouldn’t even show up until 9:30 or after and students would trickle in and out whenever. Siesta is also largely practiced which includes having a long, leisurely lunch midday many times with wine and a long break before heading back to the office, school, wherever. A practice I happen to have adored. American business people would not be appreciative of business partners being almost an hour late and taking a two hour lunch, but in some cultures that’s just the way things are done.
What I’m getting at is that culture, even electronic culture, should be considered and respected just like it should be if one were to travel to a foreign country or enter the home of someone from a different background. But the problem lies in that our digital culture is still being built and defined. As technology itself and the many modes of communication that we use shift and change so does the overall culture. In an allusion to not only digital culture but also to culture at its core, Bernadette Longo explains that “Communicators make choices that effect [sic] social relationships; the more aware we can be of the cultural implications of those choices, the wider the range of consequences we can see” (p. 156). I believe Longo’s implication in this statement is important for everyone to consider rather than just communication students.
It’s important to continue to consider culture not only as a human race but digitally for those of us who might work interculturally in the future. Barry Thatcher explains the difficulty in digital communication in regards to the differences between American and Mexican culture. According to Thatcher, the system they used “work[ed] well in the United States because of its values of individualism, universalism, and specific orientation. This cycle, however, did not work well in Mexico, which tends to have more hierarchical and interpersonal values, thus implying different uses of digital technologies” (p. 171). Normally, when we think about traveling internationally, we think about language barriers, being able to get around, understanding their currency, and being able to ask where the bathroom is, but we now also have to consider protecting social relationships based on daily cultural life for the locals, whomever they may be, and how their culture is different not only from ours physically but digitally as well.
As an aside: I got a Facebook this week. THIS IS A SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC EXPERIMENT.
Honing in on Audience
In part III of Spilka’s Digital Literacy for Technical Communication, the focus is on the relationship between technical communicators and their audience, taking a deeper look at ideas such as ethics and communicating between different cultures. The overarching theme is the emphasis that technical communicators must, and for the most part do, place on their audience.
Although I am not yet a technical communication (TC) professional, as a student of TC I have quickly learned the importance of considering one’s audience in the field of TC. It is one of the first and most highly emphasized points in many of the foundational courses for TC and it is not hard to see why – the purpose of a technical communicator is to advocate for the user/reader/audience and ensure that all associated documentation is easily accessible and understood. An important part of this user-advocate role, I believe, is understanding the rhetoric involved in communication of all kinds and attempting to write or design for the appropriate rhetorical situation. This, to me, is what sets technical communicators apart from other communicators (e.g. writers) – the emphasis placed on how the audience will perceive what is being communicated and utilizing that rhetoric in appropriate and ethical ways.
As I was reading this section, my mind kept wandering to one of the many “articles” I find linked on Facebook daily. With the uprising of so many “social news” sites (e.g. Buzzfeed), it is hard to get away from articles that use pop-psychology and serve no purpose other than entertainment. As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed this morning, I came upon this article:
In case you want to read the article, it can be found here
Out of curiosity, I went to the page and read through it (though these sites are notoriously difficult to navigate with only one portion of the list on each page – known as “click bait”). In situations like these, I most often like to read the comments that other Facebook users have posted on these links. As usual, this post was littered with comments of offended women going on about how they don’t care what a man thinks about their hair, they will do what they want, etc. Other comments were in response to those negative ones, claiming that the article was not telling you how to style your hair, or even that you should base your hair choices on what men think, but that it was just a little bit of insight into what men’s opinions are.
Aside from the fact that I don’t trust or believe these type of “survey” articles, due to lack of substantial research or any reliable study methods, it struck me as interesting that the primary controversy of the article seemed to be (as is often the case) about what the authors were actually trying to say with this piece. While this type of controversy is probably encouraged in the “social news” world, it is exactly the opposite of what a technical communicator strives for.
This is what I believe sets technical communicators apart from other communicators. The goal in TC is to be clear, precise, understood and to approach the situation from an appropriate rhetorical perspective so as to convey exactly what he/she means. This is not as easy as it sounds – as was exemplified by the above article, each reader’s perception is different and is clearly colored by past experiences, current opinions, and overall personality. This makes the technical communicator’s job that much more difficult to attempt to find a way to unite all those differences in opinion to convey one message.
What Do We Learn? Skills. When Do We Learn Them? On the Job or Whatever!
Working as a technical communicator over the past two years without an undergraduate grounding in the skills, methods, and research tools has been enlightening. While it has given me a greater appreciation for the work being done by my coworkers and others in the field, it has also caused me to reach out to sources like the Society for Technical Communication and a master’s program in order to secure essential skills and new tricks to show off to supervisors and future employers.
What exactly am I looking for, you may ask? Social media, content management systems, Adobe Creative and Technical Communications Suite, User-Centered Design, and Project Management, to name but a few. Beyond the skills that I have a personal interest in or am curious about, I find that trolling through job descriptions to look for what will impress and keep me relevant in a community that is designing, defining, and streamlining what technical communications means and what is necessary to work in the field.
One of the key skills I am looking to pick up from the MSTPC program and put into practice is learning how to learn, and I have found that it is definitely a critical skill that I’ll need on my side moving forward.
Source: (http://masstapp.edc.org/communications-toolkit)
As Michael J. Salvo and Paula Rosinski (2010) said, “search and retrieval – or findability – as well as navigability become increasingly important as the information age produces more documents than ever. As the volume of information increases, designing for storage and retrieval becomes more important in the planning stages of writing. After all, information that cannot be easily retrieved when needed is useless” (103).
Now this makes sense when you’re talking about the basics of the technical communications field. Authoring, editing, designing, displaying, distributing, and analyzing all the content constantly put out by companies, universities, social networking sites, and academics takes a lot of time and effort by practitioners and academics under fire by Chief Financial Officers Wading through the amount of content that
When it comes to us as a class however, my mind starts thinking about how we as technical communicators work to gather, study, and disseminate information. Learning how to read, analyze, and write papers for my English undergrad along with internships for my Journalism minor made me an attractive, moldable candidate for the Technical Editor position I got shortly after graduating, but that position did not offer anything in the way of training documents or files.
It was entirely a mentor-based position. That was both a positive and a negative, I came to find as I delved into the world of technical editing. It was great to work side by side with practitioners who had years of experience in the field and in the government contracting sphere; I was exposed to a lot of insider information that no one bothered to write down because it was industry standard or specific. There were breakdowns in email content based on the office I was contacting and the military or civilian title in front of the person’s name.
Source: (http://tweakyourbiz.com/finance/2015/03/16/top-online-business-mentorship-advice-resources/)
I learned quickly and started keeping my own folders and Word docs with acronyms, workflows, and Department-specific language no one would ever use (and I would get graded down for if I showed any of it to one of my professors).
The problem was that as soon as I was hired, the company started to lose employees. When I was hired I was told it was a stable contract with no turnover but everyone was leaving so all of the great mentors were jumping ship and it was up to those of us who were newer to train employees and help them learn the process.
So while we were learning we were also training new people, designing SharePoint sites, and teaching classes to government employees. Needless to say, the situation could have better. It was enjoyable to take more of a leadership role with incoming coworkers and I also got the chance to design a few training sites and standard operating procedures. Whatever problems I may have had with the company, it was clear that I had been allowed to really grow into a role and put on the different hats expected of me by the field.
My next job was a different story. I had walked into a great company with an understanding boss, but the work itself functioned on a sink or swim basis. I was expected to dive into the work and start working. No real oversight. Clear cut design and structural rules to follow but how I got there was all up to me. Yes, I was encouraged to reach out with any question but I wanted to make a great first impression so I just got my hands dirty with the research, writing, and designing of technical materials and documents for client approval.
The chapters talk about information design, content management, and the rhetoric of technology, but how do we use this in our full- or part-time job lives? For me, it’s become critical to seek the keys to staying up to date on information, technology, communication, and other trends essential to my work and moving forward in the field.
Citation
Spilka, Rachel. (2010). Digital literacy for technical communication. “Information design: From authoring text to architecting virtual space. Taylor & Francis Group. New York, NY.
Twitter and Classical Rhetoric?
Once again, I found myself puzzled and intrigued by the weekly readings. In particular, I focused on David Clark’s (2009) Shaped and Shaping Tools (2010, Spilka). Let it be noted by all that I am giving it my best to be academic and objective when it comes to reconsidering modern technology and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram because it seems like the audience isn’t interested in my disdain. In fact, many of my peers are calling me out because I’m a 28 year old technical communications student going to graduate school exclusively online but all I can seem to do is bash technology. I assure all of you, if going to school traditionally, face to face were a realistic option for me, you bet that’s what I’d be doing. I don’t enjoy the online learning experience as much as others, but I also can’t fathom drawing my degree out over the course of several years. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m desperate to be finished and doing it online in a year works best for my life. So, do I particularly like online schooling? No, not particularly. Am I grateful for this particular mode of technology? Yes, very particularly.
But, alas, I digress. Go figure.
Let’s talk about David Clark and his approach to the rhetoric of technology. Specifically, Clark discusses Twitter at length. I remember the first time I learned about Twitter. It was around 2010 and I was watching sports highlights or the news maybe at the bar where I worked at the time. I remember seeing a Twitter username, or “handle”, and something like a status update along with a hashtag for something. My friend Chris and I were puzzled, and talked about the fact that we had no idea what that was all about. I kept asking people, “What’s the deal with the pound sign on everything these days?” At the time, I was 22 years old, so I was out of touch back then, too. Clark, later in the chapter, goes on to use Twitter and classical rhetoric in the same paragraph. He begins with “classical rhetoric as a means to argue that the ancients saw technologies as arts in which the end was the civic good to be produced by the product, not the design and making of the product” )p. 93). I take this to mean that, even according to the classic rhetors of ancient times, Twitter could certainly be considered among creating rhetoric and art. Of course, I have a serious problem with this when you compare Twitter feeds among the great epics and poetry of good ol’ yesteryear, but then I tried to think about it in another way.
One thing I have noticed about Twitter that makes it really quite unique compared to anything else is the fact that it makes celebrities and public figures so much more accessible to the public, fans, and followers. Never before has the general public been able to instantly know what was on the mind of their favorite actor, comedian, or even the president. It’s a second-by-second update of the people we look up to the most. It allows artists and fans to interact with one another as though they were “everyday” friends. I’ve learned by listening to the radio that a lot of singers these days have “fan armies” that identify themselves as being mega-fanatics of that celebrity (i.e. Justin Bieber’s “Beliebers,” Taylor Swift’s “Swifties,” and Beyonce’s “Beyhive” (yikes, y’all)). When I was a kid, I just “really loved” Hanson and the Spice Girls. There wasn’t a name for it.
That made me think. Maybe to the younger generation, Twitter is going to be their classification of rhetoric. In hundreds of years from now, I suppose anthropologists will be looking back at our history and seeing Twitter as how people were documenting their lives. And perhaps in the future rhetoric and technology will be even more mind-numbing and pervasive than now. I remember writing a fan letter to Jonathan Taylor Thomas in elementary school and I got a signed postcard back from him. (Swoon). Maybe getting a tweet back from your idol is today’s version of receiving mass-produced autographed fanmail.
References
Spilka, Rachel. (2010). Digital literacy for technical communication. “Information design: From authoring text to architecting virtual space. Taylor & Francis Group. New York, NY.
My, How Things Have Changed
The best description of the term genre as applied to information design is the term “fluid.” Michael J. Salvo and Paula Rosinski, in their article, Information Design: From Authoring Text to Architecting Virtual Space, explain how the evolution of print documents to digital documents represent the history if the genre of information design. Fluid is an accurate description as the presentation of information will change form depending on the vehicle being used. As the vehicle advances, or changes, the way in which people receive and use the information also changes.
Years ago, when I planned my wedding, I bought a wedding planning kit that contained a book of check lists and reminders, a timeline and schedule, and a million different advertisements and pieces of valuable information. I ordered invitations through the mail, from a print catalog. I sent out RSVP cards with self addressed, stamped envelopes so my guests could easily, with no cost to them, let me know if they planned to attend.
I kept my family and wedding party in the loop with constant phone calls. I sent out (via the United States Postal Service) information packets containing a schedule, itinerary, and phone numbers & addresses to the dress and tux shop, venue, hotel, etc. I did all of my shopping for decorations, favors, in person. I found the most recommended DJ and cake lady by asking the event planner from the venue for referrals. Because I worked at a newspaper, I had the luxury of designing and creating my own programs, using colored paper, art catalogs, a typewriter, and a photocopier.
Last year, I helped my son and his fiancé plan their wedding. Kari (the bride-to-be) created a private wedding website for her to post her ideas, plans, thoughts, likes, etc. That way, I could log in, see her ideas, and know her vision. We used interactive spreadsheets to account for RSVP’s. We designed the invitations using publishing software and ordered them online. We inserted small cards with RSVP instructions for text, email, and snail mail (for the technologically challenged). We used Google to search for ideas, decorations, recipes, favors, or anything and everything we needed. We used Facebook groups to keep family and wedding party members informed. We found the best places to get a cake and entertainment by asking the Facebook world for suggestions. The wedding party simply had to submit their measurements and payments via the shop website. We used software to pre-plan the room layout.
Salvo and Rosinski, in their article, discuss the evolution of communication in small changes.
“Over time, small changes accumulate and result in new emerging genres. In the clearest example, memos have become email, but so too email has been altered quickly into instant messages, Twitter posts, and position papers and diaries rearticulated online as blogs” (p. 107).
As I realized the jump that RSVP’s took, from mailable cards with self addressed, stamped envelopes, to text and email, I began to consider how much the whole entire process of wedding planning has changed due to technology and information design.
Likewise, I remember a day when I checked my email first thing every morning, and several times throughout the day, just to see if my friends or family sent me something. Today, I check it out of obligation, knowing that I’ll find advertising or business notices, and nothing fun and exciting. Instead, my friends and family use text or Messenger to contact me.
Remember when voicemail was the best thing ever? My dad had one of the very first answering machines, called the Code-a-phone. Today, if I leave a voicemail for my son, he flips out. “Mom, I can see that you called. I’ll call you back,” or “Mom, don’t leave a message. Just text it to me.” Apparently, it takes too much time and effort to dial voicemail and listen to the message. By the time I catch on, texting will be out and he’ll have a new message preference.
References
Spilka, Rachel. (2010). Digital literacy for technical communication. “Information design: From authoring text to architecting virtual space. Taylor & Francis Group. New York, NY.
New Knowledge in the Technical Communication Field
User-Centered Design and User Experience
The purpose of part II of Rachel Spilka’s Digital Literacy for Technical Communication was to provide insight into some new, foundational knowledge in the TPC world which all technical communicators should know about. As this book is from 2010, these ideas are likely a bit more understood now then they were at the time of publishing, but are still relevant. The overwhelming idea that I saw between the three chapters was the use of user-centered design and the importance of user experience in technical communication. Although most explicitly discussed in Chapter 4, Salvo and Rosinski’s “Information Design”, all three chapters discussed concepts that either directly or indirectly related to user experience.
Components of User Experience, found here
Having taken a course last semester on user experience, I have studied in-depth its importance in technical communication and the use of user-centered design. All three chapters in part II of Spilka’s book emphasize the increasing importance of these ideas for technical communicators. As Salvo and Rosinski point out, when the internet first became commonly used, websites were often created without regard to traditional page design conventions, leading to websites that were difficult to navigate and unpleasant to use (poor user experience).
Photo found here
We now know the importance of considering page design even when creating web pages. Additionally, we have to consider all aspects of documents (both online and in print) including the rhetorical situation, the user experience, accessibility, etc., when creating any documentation – these chapters emphasize the importance of the role of technical communicators as we are trained to examine documents in this way.
These chapters outline the importance of understanding and utilizing the technologies available to us as technical communicators to help readers and users in all tasks. I would argue that immersing oneself in these technologies and examining them from a critical standpoint would help all technical communicators become more effective.
Digital Literacy in the 21st Century
Working in 2016 as a technical communicator means that we have to stay on top of technology, but what I think is more specific is that we have to make sure to take a proper survey of technological advances, both personal and professional. What does this actually mean? Maybe your job doesn’t involve social media or other trends that fall outside of a cubicle. It doesn’t matter if you don’t use it in your job.
Digital literacy in the modern era is something that has to be cultivated and developed by current technical communicators. Professional organizations like the Society for Technical Communication do their best to connect practitioners, teach best practices and techniques, inform the public about the critical role of technical communicators, and establish a baseline for the field, a field that depends so much on who takes part and how technology will grow to meet the needs of users, those anticipated and those yet to be determined.
Based on my personal journey, I can tell you that I had no idea what a technical communicator was before being approached by my previous employer for a Technical Editor position. I had worked as a writer and editor with work experience in magazine and newspaper publishing. The basic skills transferred, but there was a different way of thinking about the content and working with it that I had to learn on the job. My experience there was based on mentorship and learning as I went. We used technologically on a very basic level (working as a government contractor with technology years behind the times definitely did not contribute to my digital literacy) and had no digital tools for learning or analysis.
Working in this field means being willing and able to embrace change and build connections between disciplines and schools of thought that have their own unique structures. New technologies mean that any traditional idea of workspace, learning, businesses, and institutions have to evolve in order to continue competing and remaining relevant, especially to an audience that is being reared in an environment where technology is the new normal.
The schema of the modern world is such that information is deemed old within hours of its release and the news which may shock one individual does not phase the next because of the streaming coverage available to them practically wherever they happen to be at the time. The age in which verbal communication and oral storytelling were the be all and end all of knowledge gathering has long since passed and now, everything is shared at lightning speeds through shortened statements and improper sentences online and over the air. Literacy in this sense, means being able to access the forms of information sharing and collection that would permit a person to be active in their society and have awareness of the occurrences going on around them. And at this stage, the definition of literacy has already been ruptured beyond its basic level.
Personally, the advent of the Internet and emerging technology has made it easier than ever to communicate their thoughts, opinions, feelings, and ideas with a global audience. Given the fact that I work in the writing and editing field, I find it important to keep a close eye on how that has been affected by this trend. “Writing and editing will continue to be important activities for many technical communicators. However, they are increasingly being viewed as commodity activities that business considers questionable in adding value and that are candidates for being outsourced or offshored” (Pilka pg. 54). Working overseas, sending work out to freelancers and contract temps so that corporate can continue to meet its bottom line without investing too much in one of the critical areas in establishing and maintaining an appropriate presence.
It also matters a great deal to both me and to the field at large because of the ever increasing globalization effect that technology has. What worked in the past and what is working now to bind us together has made us more aware of our international partners. It has also made it more apparent that we have become reliant on the very technology that most take for granted nowadays. Utilizing technology at work and in the classroom is a prerequisite in the developed world and is looked on as lacking in third world countries and developing nations. Employees find themselves either without the latest and greatest technologies to draw upon or thrust into the deep end, developing content and creating standards for an evolving and shifting pool of apps, software, hardware, and devices most of which do not have any rules and regulations set in stone.
The Historical Documentation of Change in Technical Communication
Elissa Matulis Myers said in the March 2009 issue of Intercom that technical communicators “need to define their own opportunities and then move boldly forward” (2009) by adapting to the changes in their work environment or risk becoming irrelevant. This is true not only for technical communicators, but for everyone working in an environment where technology plays a significant role in their professional tasks.
Cover graphic of Intercom, March 2009, Society for Technical Communication.
In that same issue of Intercom were two helpful articles about adapting to keep up with the changing business environment. One offered practical advice to recession-proof your career by taking actions to decrease the chance of being laid off such as “add[ing] value to your company, ensur[ing] management recognizes that you add value, and repeat as needed” (Molisani, 2009, p.14).
The second article compared and contrasted social media and technical communication “…to demonstrate how social media is changing the way we communicate, to engage our audience in a dialogue, to create a sense of community, and to better meet expectations” (Maggiani, 2009, p.19).
These articles reinforce the idea that we need to adapt to both the shift in technology and management.
When Myers published her article in 2009, I was a year away from graduating with my bachelors of science in Technical Communication and entering into a workforce that was in turmoil due to the economy. Yet, somehow and according to Meyers, I found my way to become visible and indispensable to my employers. In essence in order for me and many of my colleagues to become successful and stay on top of the business, we needed to “…adapt to the changes and become a valuable asset to a work environment…” (2009).
Documenting Our Past to Find Our Future
If we want to look to the future of technical communication, we must look back into history. When reading Saul Carliner and R. Stanley Dicks’ respective histories of technical communication, I was excited to see how the field of technical communication transformed in the last forty years. Many of the tools and processes that were used by technical communicators since the end of World War II are still around and others have completely disappeared. Carliner said that technology in the last thirty years has affected our profession and shows us the five phases in the development of technical communication. Besides technology making these transformations in our field, Dicks points out the changes in management and business economics profoundly affected technical communicators. Both authors show us the larger picture in which our field has been affected, once again, by technology and management.
I want to emphasize that our work is constantly shifting toward becoming the experts in content. We no longer are bound to being experts in a specific tool, instead we are experts in content, information, concepts, and ideas. Dicks shows how technical communicators have moved on from the fundamentals of technical communication and into the field of symbolic-analytic work, which “their primary products are ideas (e.g. assertions, recommendations, value judgements) delivered in reports, plans, proposals, and other genres.” (Dicks, 2010, p.55). Symbolic-analytic work sounds more like content strategy which is to manage content, analyze methods, and use effective processes for publishing it.
For me, at work, I’m more interested in finding ways a business can reduce cost, increase revenue, and use technology when creating and managing technical content. This is a mantra I share with many content strategists, of which Jack Molisani promotes these ideas every year with his LavaCon Content Strategy Conferences (2013). I think he and others like him have adapted to the current trends in the changes with technology and management.
I feel have made the move from being a traditional technical communicator when I first started in my college years. I imagined I would do more than just edit copy or document processes. I did a lot of fun things such as publish a newspaper and create websites. My focus was on using technology tools and how I can use them to publish faster, easier, and smarter. If I can make recommendations on using the tools, I can prove my value towards the company and remain gainfully employed.
Just Keep Going
In conclusion, in order to maintain relevancy, Myers points out that “[s]uccessful technical communicators need to be able to sell their skills and value independent of their industry or content, and they should not base their marketability on the expertise they have acquired in a specific field” (2009). More easily said: market your knowledge of concepts instead of expertise in the tools.
References
Dicks R.S. (2010). The effects of digital literacy. In Spilka, R. (2010). Digital literacy for technical communication: 21st century theory and practice. (pp. 51-81). Taylor & Francis. New York, NY.
Maggiani, R. (2009, March). Technical communication in a social media world. Intercom, 18-20.
Molisani, J. (2013). Building a business case for content initiatives. [Presentation Slides]. Retrieved from http://lavacon.org/business_case_for_content_initatives.pdf
Molisani, J. (2009, March). Recession-proof your career. Intercom, 14-17.
Myers, E. M. (2009, March). Adapt or die: Technical communicators of the twenty-first century. Intercom, 7-13.
I Was There
Nothing can make a person feel old as reading the history of events for which one was present. This is the case with Carliner’s Computers and Technical Communication in the 21st Century in Digital Literacy for Technical Communication by Rachel Spilka. As I read the history of technical communicators and the evolution of computers, one thought stood out: I was there.
I was there when mainframe and mini computers were used in banking. Right out of high school, I worked for a bank whose mainframe computer was housed at another location and connected to our minis via telephone line. I remember how awed we were when our computer buzzed and a pop up window opened with the Digital Tech style font from someone at the main branch. That was the earliest form of texting and we thought we were very advanced, technologically.
Photo Credit: Sevenels.net
When I wrote for a newspaper, many years ago, I turned my copy in to the typist who would type it and submit it and send it back to be arranged on actual newspaper sized pages. When we created ads, we didn’t use computers. We designed them by paging through hundreds of volumes of “clip art.” When we found what we wanted to use, we would photo copy it. Our copiers were the best in the business. We would enlarge or reduce the size of the art with the copier. For words, we would submit in writing what we needed printed. One person would create the copy, and we used the copiers to manipulate the size of the font. We would then cut it out and glue it with our artwork into a specific sized ad to be glued on larger sheets that made up the newspaper. Many years later, when I took a group of students to tour the newspaper, I was envious of the ease at which the writers could create and submit their pieces. The advertising art department was much smaller and didn’t involve glue and scissors. I’m not sure if they’re still called “Paste Up Artists,” but they now use Photoshop, Illustrator, and other software to create the art.
I learned HTML so that I could write up nice adds for Ebay. Today, I can use Ebay without having to write code. I was one of those people that Carliner described, buying the cheapest PC I could find (IBM Aptiva). I watched as companies that I worked for purchased technology packages and had people come in and set up systems, teaching us all how to use new software. I noticed when mainframes gave way to PC’s, and I sat in meetings where we discussed which software would serve our needs best. As I read through the chapters, I recognized each significant change and phase since I had also experienced it. I used libraries instead of Google, typewriters instead of word processing software, correction tape instead of a delete key, and glue & scissors instead of Photoshop. I was there to watch the technological revolution (and I’m still young).
References
Spilka, Rachel. (2010). Computers and technical communication in the 21st century. Digital literacy for technical communicators. Taylor & Francis. New York, NY.
Sevenel.net. (2016). Machines of loving grace. http://sevenels.net/typewriters/royals.htm. Retrieved on September 24, 2016.
Becoming a Symbolic-Analytic Worker
Theodore Roosevelt is attributed as saying, “The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future.” As a relative newcomer to technical communications, I appreciated the overview in Carliner’s article “Computers and Technical Communication in the 21st Century” of how the field has developed over the past 40 years. He lays the groundwork for understanding how changes in content management and publication technology has shifted what it fundamentally means to be a technical writer. Because of the advances that he describes, notably in GUI development and the emergence of the Internet, our primary function has evolved from “crank-turners” for publication to a more nuanced understanding of content creators.
This is the shift that Dicks further explores in “The Effects of Digital Literacy on the Nature of Technical Communication Work,” and that I find fascinating both in light of my current job and future opportunities in the field. The key phrase that caught my attention in Dicks’ article was the evolution of technical writing into “symbolic-analytic work,” which he attributes to economic, management, and technological trends. In “Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age,” Johnson-Eilola further describes symbolic-analytic work as it applies to technical communication: “Symbolic-Analytic Workers possess the abilities to identify, rearrange, circulate, abstract, and broker information. Their principal work materials are information and symbols, their principal products are reports, plans, and proposals.”
Twenty years later, Johnson-Eilola’s description of the evolving role of technical communicators certainly seems to have borne out. Technology has advanced to the point that the nuts and bolts of the publication process are no longer a burden. Technical writers no longer contribute value by knowing which lever to pull, so to speak. Instead, in order to add value to the post-industrial society that Dicks describes, we need to be performing higher-level tasks regarding how content is created, managed, distributed, and understood.
This shift is happening throughout many sectors of the economy, as shown in the chart below, and technical communications is one example of it:
In my own experience, I was hired in 2012 with the elaborate job title of “Writer.” The next year, the company changed the name of our division, and there was a mild identity crisis as all of our business cards changed to say “Technical Communications” instead. Although some of my more romantic colleagues were dismayed by losing the artsy flair of being “writers,” I thought that the shift was a much more accurate reflection of the scope of our work. The majority of my work day is not spent strictly writing, but rather investigating new projects, deciding which information is the most meaningful for our audience, and managing content at a much higher level. As Dicks points out, we need to re-envision ourselves not as merely documenters but “strategic contributors”.
In “The Effects of Content Management on Writing in an Administrative Office,” McCarthy brings it full circle and argues that just as the scope of our work was initially limited by the technology available to us, we should now seek content management systems that support our new roles. He states, “With the missions and desired outcomes of organizations now closely entwined with how they manage their knowledge, the ability to develop tools that support the formation and coordination of the textual representation of knowledge is extremely important” (McCarthy p. 5).
I think Carliner would agree. Technical communications evolved in direct response to the available technologies, and as we complete the shift into symbolic-analytic work, we need to seek development of tools to support it. Although I think these tools will likely look a little different in each industry and context, at the heart they need to support collaboration, flexibility, interactivity, and ease of use, allowing us to focus on the higher-brain tasks of communication and our evolving audience.
Personally, I’m excited about working in this new world where I have the opportunity to think critically, explore new ideas, and continually redefine successful communication. I find it a much more dynamic and engaging environment than simply being a “routine manual” worker, as Dicks cautions is quickly going extinct.
References:
Johnson-Eilola, Johndan (1996). Relocating the Value of Work: Technical Communication in a Post-Industrial Age. Technical Communication Quarterly, 5(3), 245-270.
McCarthy, Jacob E. Effects of Content Management on Writing in an Administrative Office: Building a Way of Organizing Writing. Proquest, 2009.
Spilka, Rachel (Ed.) 2010. Digital Literacy for Technical Communications. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.
Van Damme, Dirk. “21st Century Learners Demand Post-Industrial Education Systems.” OECD.
The Evolution and Future of Technical Communication
The Readings
In part I of Rachel Spilka’s Digital Literacy For Technical Communication anthology (2010), the history and future of the Technical Communication field is investigated. Saul Carliner begins the section with his piece entitled “Computers and Technical Communication in the 21st Century”. This piece discusses the history and evolution of the field through his experience as a technical writer in the software/technology field. The second chapter of the section is composed of a piece by R. Stanley Dicks entitled “The Effects of Digital Literacy on the Nature of Technical Communication Work”. This piece discusses not only the history of the technical communication field, but its current and projected intricacies and structure. While Carliner presents a quite interesting and compelling history of the field, Dicks provides a detailed outlook of how the field will change and what this will mean for current and prospective technical communicators.
Carliner’s View
Carliner’s in-depth history of the technical communication field was fascinating to me, and curtailed nicely with a piece I read last week for another course I am taking this semester (ENG 700). That paper (“The Rise of Technical Writing Instruction in America”), written by a famous technical communication scholar, Robert J. Connors was also very informative on the evolution of the field.. Both pieces presented a detailed history of the field and how emerging media over the last several decades has caused the profession to change immensely – Carliner focusing on the effect on the professionals in the field at the time and Conners on the change in the academic programs and courses associated with the field. This was of particular interest to me as a prospective technical communicator, not yet in the field. I think it is important to learn the history of the career you desire, in order to respect those who have come before you and paved the way. As Carliner described the earliest methods of creating and publishing technical documents and the early days of computers, I was in awe of the way technology has changed since the 70’s. For each decade he provided a unique look at the changes in the field, technology, job titles, and viewpoints of technical communicators. This allowed me to see how far things have come in the field and gave me new perspective on how things are now.
Dicks’ View
Dicks’ piece was less historical and more future-oriented – using the past to inform the future changes in the field. Much of what he wrote had me quite nervous to enter the field. His discussion of the need for technical communicators to be able to defend their worth to their employers (and coworkers) seemed to propose a somewhat bleak view of the field, one in which no one appreciates you or your work and you are in constant fear of losing your job. However, as he went on to discuss the way technical communicators are currently utilized in the workplace and as part of teams, the field seemed much less daunting and more as I had imagined it.
Much of what Dicks described when looking at the current organization and utilization of technical communicators related back to my only real source of knowledge of the field – my husband. As a software developer for GE Healthcare, he works in a scrum team (which includes a technical writer) to develop and improve software. His description of the type of work technical writers do was the main motivation for my interest in the field, so as Dicks began describing a position of neglect and lack of appreciation/integration I really began to wonder if I made a mistake again in my choice of future field! Fortunately my fears were lessened as I continued to read.
In Conclusion…
Both of the pieces in Part I of Spilka’s anthology gave an in-depth history and view of the technical communication field and how it is likely to progress in the future. There was not a great deal of discussion of Web 2.0 in either piece (a small section in each dedicated to the topic and the future uses), but I think that will be one of the larger game-changers in the field in the upcoming years.
Fear of Social Media? Embrace It!
No one ever said that social media is easy. The internet is a wonderful place where we can connect with one another, use it for business, and get our entertainment. Likewise, social media works in the same fashion which all kinds of content can live in harmony.
Can social media and technical communication work together?
Whenever I think of social media and technical communication, I go back to my first professional presentation and conference proceeding, “The Benefits and Pitfalls of Social Media Networks” (Koch, G. L. & Renteria R. A., 2009). With my co-presenter, we showed how social media can be used in productive ways despite the negative press surrounding it at the time. To counter the notion and fears of social media, we provided tips to help colleagues embrace this emerging communications technology.
Society for Technical Communication 2009 Summit Proceedings
In “The Rhetoric of Reach: Preparing Students for Technical Communication in the Age of Social Media” Hurley and Hea (2014) describe modern stories where professionals damage their career because of something they posted on social media. In their article, they describe students who have a fear of using social media in the context of technical communication. I find it amusing that in the years since I co-presented about social media that these issues of using it for professional causes remain present. I still refer to ”fatty paycheck” Tweet, Facebook Fairy’s Kevin Colvin, and Airline Crew Insulting Passengers on Facebook as early examples of social media mistakes. Fortunately or unfortunately, the internet is a great record keeper.
So, where does social media sit in the form of technical communication? Hurley and Hea present responses that showcase the reasons social media is not favorable for technical communication purposes because students think it can “cause more harm than good,” make people forget how to write well, and feel “they must dumb-down literature because of the diverse audience that now has access to it” (2014).
Due to the sensationalism of social media, students are often less likely to use these new and emerging technologies for professional purposes. However, me and my co-presenter provided the counterargument years earlier that you can, indeed, use social media for professional purposes. We showed that while using social media can be a risk, the benefits may outweigh the dangers when used appropriately and after becoming familiar with the privacy settings (Koch G. L., Renteria, R. A., 2009).
Lastly, the literature is not being dumbed-down, instead plain language is taking root. When looking at effective writing, I consider taking the easier and simpler route of writing because it is closer to how we communicate with each other in real-life. In the well-known adage of “less is more,” let’s consider adding another one: “plain language is easy to understand.”
We can use social media for many things and nothing should stop us from embracing it for educational and professional purposes. It’s not a bad thing.
References
Hurley, E. V. (2014) The Rhetoric of Reach: Preparing Students for Technical Communication in the Age of Social Media. Technical Communication Quarterly, 23(1), 55-68
Koch, G. L. & Renteria R. A., (2009) The Benefits and Pitfalls of Social Media Networks. Society for Technical Communication 2009 Summit Proceedings, 83-86
My blogging evolution
Before this course, I blogged off and on for several years on Blogger, LiveJournal, and WordPress. In college, LiveJournal was my first exposure to the idea of a blog. I used LiveJournal as a personal diary to share my thoughts with my closest friends who used it on a frequent basis. To me, it was my first social network experience because I would check every day for new posts from my friends and I would post there many times a day. After a few years of constant posting, I abandoned my account because my focus shifted to Facebook.
My life is behind one of these electronic typewriters. Credit: Roger Renteria.
Beyond documenting my personal life to my friends, I blogged about my summer internship for a grade. As part of the class requirements, I wrote about my experiences working for the Public Information Office at New Mexico Tech. My blog only had an audience of one: my professor, and I didn’t think I’d reference it here eight years later. Now when I re-read these posts, I definitely notice how different my writing was back then. As with any kind of activity, you get better the more you keep trying you improve with practice.
After I attended the Society for Technical Communication 2011 Summit, I started my own blog called WriteTechie. I was inspired to create a technical communication blog because I saw so many people blog about their experiences at the conference, technical communication issues, and anything related to this field. At first, I had difficulty finding topics that were interesting to write about, and I couldn’t maintain a consistent schedule.
When I was told in a job interview that my professional website was “too bloggish,” I converted my blog into a professional business website; my blog became a section of the website. Right now, if you search on Google for “technical communication blogs,” my blog shows up on first page of results. If you search Google for “professional usernames,” my blog post shows up first. I used search engine optimization to get my blog post to show up at the top, and somehow it has stayed there since 2011.
Lately, I hardly blog much because I have no time to write lengthy articles and do the necessary research to post anything meaningful. At my current job, we discourage blogging. I admit there are no technical limitations to blogging; however, it is a massive time commitment. That is something I understand when I look at my own blogs I’ve created. At some point, blogs become stale and then dormant.
Where do I go from here?
When I was reading the articles about blog literacy, I was surprised to learn from “Scholarly Reflections on Blogging” that “[b]logging has slowly become part of academic life” (Doucet, 2012). Andrea Doucet makes a nice point that blogging frees you from the bounds of the academic world and opens your content to larger and different audiences. I feel that when you write in a blog, you have more room to speak freely and develop a voice than in other formats such as press releases or research papers. In essence, blogging can be a formal-informal way of communication because you can express your professional ideas in a fresh and casual format while reaching a very broad audience. Andrea and I agree: “[b]logging has helped me as a writer” (2012). Whenever I read my old work, I notice an evolution in my writing. Writing for blogs is challenging and I know it only gets better with more experience.
Lastly, before I read, “Why We Blog” (Nardi, Schiano, Gumbrecht, & Swartz, 2004), I didn’t consider my LiveJournal as a type of confessional blog which was a form of catharsis. In retrospect, writing in my LiveJournal was therapeutic. When I read old posts, whether from LiveJournal, Blogger, or WordPress, I look back at how much I’ve grown since then. Some day when I least expect it, I’ll look back at this blog, re-read my entries, and wonder: what was I thinking?
References
Doucet, A. (2012, January 2) Scholarly Reflections on Blogging: Once a Tortoise, Never a Hare. The Chronicle for Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com/article/Scholarly-Reflections-on/130191
Nardi B., Schiano D.J., Gumbrect M., & Swartz, L. (2004) Why We Blog. Communications of the ACM, 47(12) 41-46
Being Part of the Consumer’s Community
Because I don’t yet work as a technical communicator, I mainly approach technical communication as a health consumer. I have multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system attacks the brain and spine, causing weakness, fatigue, and other symptoms. Living with MS, I was frustrated by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s outreach efforts. I felt it focused on fundraising and new drug treatments, none of which had helped me. As a health consumer, I wanted results I could see.
In January 2012, my cousin posted Dr. Terry Wahls’s TEDx talk on Facebook. Wahls stands for 17 minutes, explaining how changing her diet changed the course of her MS. She demonstrated how she started out in a tilt-recline wheelchair and transitioned to walking without a cane and riding a bike in less than a year. She credited this change to eliminating grains, legumes, and dairy and eating great amounts of vegetables rich in sulfur and phytonutrients, along with high-quality animal protein.
YouTube allowed Wahls to reach millions of people with autoimmune disease, including me. Because of social media, I changed my diet and started using electrical stimulation on my muscles. I bought Wahls’s book and googled the Paleo diet. With YouTube, Wahls achieved an element of what Verzosa Hurley & Kimme Hea (2014, p. 61) and Pearson (2011, p. 5) called reach. She found me, a customer for her book, before I knew I was her customer. She persuaded me to change my diet and lifestyle. And although I didn’t stop needing a walker, her diet helped me greatly reduce my fatigue and alleviated many other symptoms.
Though she had social media accounts on Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube, Wahls rarely posted or commented on social media. (In fairness, she’s busy practicing medicine, running her foundation, and conducting clinical trials on diet and MS.) But she didn’t become part of my life.
After I started the Wahls Protocol, I enjoyed so many health improvements that I resolved to stick with the diet and eliminate other potentially inflammatory foods. With Google, I found Sarah Ballantyne, a medical biophysicist, at www.thepaleomom.com. She had improved her own autoimmune disease and lost over 100 pounds after changing her diet. She wrote about the Autoimmune Protocol, a diet similar to the Wahls Protocol. The Autoimmune Protocol further eliminates eggs, nuts, seeds, nightshades, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
Ballantyne maintained active social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, and iTunes. She posted original recipes and linked to others. She hosted guest bloggers on her website. She guest-blogged on other bloggers’ sites and appeared on their podcasts. She updated her blog frequently with original scientific papers and always posted links on social media. She started a podcast with Stacy Toth of www.paleoparents.com. She started a cooking TV show. She went on a book tour and met me!
By creating content and giving other writers a forum on her podcast and website, Ballantyne contributed to the community of health consumers looking to improve their health with her diet, and she became part of their lives. She created a following and increased her visibility, as Verzosa Hurley & Kimme Hea (2014, p. 65) and Pearson (2011, p. 5) put it. She reached this consumer in a way that the National Multiple Sclerosis Society didn’t.
REFERENCES
Pearson, B. (2011). Pre-commerce: How companies and customers are transforming business together. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Verzosa Hurley, E. & Kimme Hea, A. C. (2014). The rhetoric of reach: Preparing students for tech comm in the age of social media. Technical Communication Quarterly, 23:1, 55–68. doi: 10.1080/10572252.2014.850854
#ProfessionalCommunicator
I admit that my knee-jerk reaction to the relationship between social media and technical communication is similar to that of the students in the “Rhetoric of Reach” article by Hurley and Hea. Comparing technical communication to tweets and wall posts seems to cheapen the role of the technical writer, moving it from an elevated profession to the medium of the masses. It suddenly seems like something anyone can do, just tapping on their phone on the bus.
However, there are actually a surprising number of similarities, as I brainstormed in the diagram below (forgive the poor formatting). A job description for a technical writer on Truity called attention to several skills that would also apply to having a successful social media presence, such as strong and clear writing, effective use of multimedia like links and graphics, and continuing revision.
I think Hurley and Hea also identified a major area of overlap in their discussion of reach and creating reader-driven content that is tailored to be relevant to your audience. Understanding and responding to the needs of your audience is a crucial part of technical writing, and the secret to creating documentation that achieves its purpose. In his article “Re-Thinking the Context of Technical Communication,” Kirk St. Amant touches on the importance of audience analysis and how it’s one of the most significant trends in today’s technical writing. I’ve found in my own job that we spend a lot of resources to investigate our audience’s interests and needs and solicit their feedback. Similarly, a successful blogger seeks to build a relationship with his readers and create a forum that connects to their needs.
Despite these similarities, I think the differences are also significant and separates technical communication into a separate art form. I put a few differences in the diagram below, but I’d say that the biggest distinguisher is in purpose and content. Social media contributors with large followings have a strong personal voice. They are very much a part of their work, and their purpose is usually to express a viewpoint or tell their own story. The Forbes article “Are You a Social Media Narcissist?” explores how social media (especially for the millennial generation) is all about you and how you are using social media to elevate yourself and build relationships.
In contrast, the focus of technical communication is on the product or the content being communicated. The writing is objective and divorced from the personality of the writer. The goal isn’t self-glorification or personal connection but rather to provide information to an audience clearly and concisely. The difference becomes obvious in writing style and expression.
Because of the similarities between social media and technical communication and their continuing convergence in audience interaction and multimedia, I’m very intrigued by the rest of this course and look forward to further investigation in how they relate. However, I think it’s important to keep in mind the fundamental difference in purpose and function, and how that plays out in writing style and content.
Blogging to Slay Impostor Syndrome
Earlier this year, as I was finishing up the online classes for UCSD Extension’s copyediting certificate, I knew I needed to launch my copyediting website if I wanted to get more clients. I also knew that blogs can drive traffic to a website.
But I was afraid to start one. What if people didn’t like it? What if someone criticized something I said? What if I made a mistake?
What if they found out I’m a fraud?
UCSD Extension offered an elective called Digital Journalism: Self-Editing and Publishing for the Web.) The catalog promised that at the end, I would have a website and a portfolio. The class would make me start a website. So I signed up.
I named my copyediting website www.ogrammar.com because it’s a play on words from H. L. Chace’s “Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.” My family has quoted this story for years, and O Grammar seemed like a memorable business name.
For the journalism class, I wrote a 500-word article about how a retired accountant and his son got arrested demonstrating at the U.S. Capitol.
I’m proud of the story, and I’ve shown it to immediate family and close friends. But I haven’t put a link to it on Facebook. Although Jessica is right that the Internet is forever, my fear of being judged imperfect has kept me from exposing my work to a wider audience. There’s got to be a happy medium!
It’s funny that Molly mentioned food bloggers and their interminable stories. I wrote a recipe for coconut yogurt, but I didn’t post it, for two reasons:
- Impostor syndrome.
- What does coconut yogurt have to do with grammar?
But a few days ago, a friend asked how I make coconut yogurt. She inspired me to post my recipe. (Molly, you’ll be happy that I learned how to let the reader skip the backstory!)
I loved Alex Reid’s point in “Why Blog? Searching for Writing on the Web,” that “the regular writing practice of blogging will help you discover some intrinsic motivation for writing.”
I’ve found that the more I blog, the less I’m afraid of failing at writing. And as Reid says, writing becomes its own reward. It is overpowering the fear of failure.
And maybe if I keep blogging long enough, I’ll even figure out what yogurt has to do with grammar.
Using Social Media to Teach Technical Communication
The Hurley and Hea (2014) article is one I used for my final paper in English 720 last semester:
I really think the idea of incorporating social media into technical communication courses is extremely beneficial to the students and the professional world. Companies need technical communicators who are experienced and skilled in the use of social media! As I’m sure will be evident by the case studies later in the semester, many companies are not using social media in ways other than marketing. There is a whole world that could be opened up if social media was utilized to communicate directly with consumers to better companies’ products and knowledge of what is working or not. Additionally, social media can be used to disseminate information (and allow interaction) about troubleshooting, common issues, instructional information, etc. The benefits of companies adding these types of post to their existing social media (or adding social media if they still do not have any) could be immense. That’s what my final paper for ENG 720 was about (along with the rhetorical uses of social media for technical communicators and companies). The incorporation of social media courses into technical communication programs is essential if these changes are to be made.
My Life of Social Media
As I mentioned in my introductory discussion post, I have a great deal of experience with social media, and use it many times a day. Blogging is something I have dabbled with (still have a few accounts here and there, but I rarely use them). The main appeal to me about blogging (and social media in general) is the ability to connect with others – people who you would never otherwise have had the chance to know. I think it’s a wonderful addition to our social worlds to be able to “meet” people who may be thousands of miles away from you, and create relationships that may never have otherwise been possible.
I agree with Andrea Doucet (2013) when she emphasizes the benefit of blogging (which I believe extends to most social media) in connecting writer and reader. There is no better feeling, to me, than getting a comment on your post with an “I thought I was the only one!” or “thank you for sharing, now I know I’m not alone”. This connection in both the social and intellectual aspects is what makes social media great in my opinion.
To finish out my diatribe on my love of social media, here is a snapchat photo I took earlier of my sweet greyhound looking at the rain.
A Mixed Bag of Blog Experiences
A major reason that I pivoted from journalism to technical writing is the joke “What do you call an unemployed journalist? A blogger.” For me, blogs have been a casual acquaintance that make an appearance in various contexts every couple of years. I’m always impressed with the potential of blogs to be a dynamic forum to give voice to your worldview, and then a little bit disappointed when the reality of the work they take and mediocre response sets in.
I actually kept my own blog for a semester in college when I was studying in New York City, which was considered a different world from my home and school in Minnesota. It was the stereotypical travel “abroad” college blog to share pictures and stay in touch with family and friends. I like to think that my blog was slightly more clever and widely applicable than most, and I actually had a pretty strong and consistent readership. Then I came home and intentionally killed the blog.
Nevertheless, a lot of the points in the Nardi, Gumbrecht, and Swartz article “Why We Blog” resonate with my experience with personal blogging. Along with the mix of motives for creating blogs, the authors discuss the awareness of readers and the effect that blogs can have on off-line relationships. My NYC blog was certainly an intentional form of communication, and I was very aware that my parents read it. I also appreciate the authors’ acknowledgment of “blogger burnout” and how the pace and style that you set for your blog can determine its long-term sustainability.
As a reader, I have a couple of favorite blogs that I frequent, but I haven’t bookmarked, closely followed, or commented on any of them. These range from recipes blogs to political commentary to friends’ blogs, and I categorize them all as “junk food” reading when I want to mindlessly skim and not think.
Along with my personal use of blogs, I’ve also blogged previously in academic contexts. Somewhat surprisingly, I actually can’t remember any blogging when I did online courses in eighth, ninth, and twelfth grade. I’m not sure if it was just too early in the virtual education revolution or if blogging wasn’t to be trusted to high schoolers.
In college, I did have several traditional and hybrid classes that included an online blogging component. My experience is in line with the findings in “Learning with Weblogs” (Du and Wagner) about the value of using weblogs in a constructivist model of learning. The learner-centered nature of a blog certainly helps with engaging course content, processing it, and creating based on it. Then again, this isn’t particularly new, and teachers have had students writing short essays for generations, long before they could be published as blogs.
However, I’ve been disappointed in the past with the collaborative aspect to blogs that Du and Wagner emphasize. Despite the potential, I haven’t really seen great dialogue come from blog comments. Even for classes that require commenting on others’ blogs, the comments are often low-level steps to a grade and don’t meaningfully contribute to a larger conversation or collaborative learning. In his article “Instructional Blogging: Promoting Interactivity, Student-Centered Learning, and Peer Input,” Stuart Glogoff enthusiastically embraces blogs for online learning, but also recognizes the difficulty in creating quality community through blog commenting.
I think this comic is a fair summary of my casual contact as a blog passerbyer so far, and I’m hoping for a much better level of comments and engagement in this course.
Emerging from Emerging Media
This Course
Before taking this class, I tinkered with social media. After this class I suspect I will continue to tinker with it. Not because I don’t want to do more, but because working more than full-time and going to school full-time precludes pretty much anything else for the foreseeable future. But, when I’m ready, I know I will be very glad I took this class.
It has challenged me to think about what drives communication within social media, i.e., it’s rhetorical basis. It never occurred to me to think about social media from a rhetorical perspective. But, the great eye-opener for me was to realize social media is perfectly compatible with rhetorical practices.
For example, in social media, we think about how to put the message together: short meaningful sentences if possible. We group information under headings and use lots of pictures. What we are really doing is attempting to deliver a message in as palatable way as possible. In other words, we are thinking about the reader’s experience. And, from what I’ve learned this semester, nothing could be more important.
My Final Paper
Dr. Pignetti suggested my final paper could build off of my blog posts this semester. My strategy for those was to take the readings, think about how they apply to my past and present work, and form an advice-based post. (The advice was intended as much for me as anyone else.)
My paper presents a set of practical guidelines related to social media that can be applied by individuals or businesses. It’s a practical guide—a sort of owner’s manual.
This guide is organized into five components: communication strategy, channels, content, connection, and community. I formed these by thinking about how the principles around social media we discovered this semester fit together. Each principle or idea could be grouped under one of these categories.
Communication refers to the strategy that needs to be considered when engaging in social media. Channels represent the various types of social media individuals and businesses can publish information to. Content is a discussion on what types of information fits into your strategy whether that is self-generated or curated. Connection refers to how you connect your social media efforts to external content and themes. Community means the importance of building a sense of community around social media efforts.
It’s important to see these five components not as individual puzzle pieces, but as pieces of a solved puzzle—they work together to achieve an effective, and comprehensive social media platform.
Good Luck to You!
I have enjoyed reading your blog posts this semester. I learned something from each one and often that something caused to me think in a different direction, if only for a little while. But that, I’ve come to realize, is the point of education.
Another End Brings New Beginnings
I often say that everything happens for a reason and at the time it should be happening. But what I have found with my schoolwork over this past year-and-a-half is how the uncanny unfolding of situations at work parallel and seem to be answered by my school work. This class was no exception. For the past year, I have worked to try and create a blog just for my own department and for various political reasons it has not been very successful. Fortunately this class has brought a number (too many to count) ah-ha moments. For example, developing a sound social media strategy is vital in order for organizations to survive in today’s digital world. But the miss to this strategy is how we can also create a social media strategy as it relates to internal organizational communication. Something I am now working to formalize with my role.
Just like the following image, however, aligning social media tools can be just as challenging to solving a Rubik’s cube. Interestingly enough, the Rubik’s cube was actually designed by a professor to help his students look at how you solve an objects structural problem and solve individual problems without the whole object falling apart (Wikipedia). The same goes for developing an internal organizational social media strategy. While organizations may have entire strategies to build around this topic, it is looking at each situation that needs to be solved and understanding how that situation and solution fits into the whole strategy.
On that note, a sweet melody that brings to you my…
Final Paper Abstract
Many marketing and communication experts have defined this time in our history as Web 2.0. It is the time in our digital history that highlights how organizations are required by societal norms and expectations to use social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook to communicate and connect with their consumers. Kids, adults, students, even grandparents are using social media channels to connect with each other on a daily (sometimes even hourly) basis. But the use of social media for organizations to communicate and connect with employees is uncertain and volatile. In fact, in a study completed by Towers Watson (2013) the results concluded that just over 50-percent of companies are using social media to connect with employees in some way. There seems to be little evidence and research into the social media structures and strategy for internal organizational communication. Therefore, this paper will look at the social media channels that could be used to build an internal social media communication strategy for an organization and to begin identifying the effectiveness of these social media tools and tactics.
Whew – nearly all of that in one breath. I will say that the research aspects of this final paper have been tedious, exhausting, and exhilarating. It can be like finding a needle in a haystack when there is little research out there. But what has been an interesting challenge is to take the knowledge that has been built around social media and decipher and pull from it how internal communications could benefit from these tools and tactics.
And although this semester is coming to a quick close, the work around this class and this final research paper will drive my career and school work. With that, while I could probably write to you for hours on this subject, I’m afraid I must bid you adieu. Thank you all for such a wonderful semester. Your thoughtful comments and intriguing posts truly provided for some great thought provoking conversations.
Feliz Navidad. Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukah. And to new beginnings.
ajnystuen
aliciaryoung
Allie K
Amery Bodelson
amodioc0599
b0bryan
bngeenen
Angie Myers
crhunter
delwichej8841
Chelsea Dowling
drakek2454
evelynmartens13
AaronF
Gina
heidideckermaurer
Rob_Henseler
jebehles
jeffreyuw
jenlynngregz
jessaclara
jessryter
JJ Miller
jodee14
johnsons0566
jripslinger
kbeecken
knoblockj
lanaksolberg
lanib50
laurajoy79
Dan Lea
Lynn
lihill630
lisamrohloff
lttaylor3
maryvanbe
miriamannelevy
Michelle Mailey Noben
oliver550
paul1838
peahleah
profpignetti
Robyn Gotch
Roger Renteria
Lori R.
scottc0957
season1980
smitht09052013
Jennifer Smoot
Rebecca Snyder
srherbert
voigtb