Issues of Trust and Control

Over the past 10 years or so, I’ve gone from not generally making purchases or otherwise disclosing personal information online to regularly doing so. I’m sure this is the case for many people—online purchasing and using the Internet for social networking has required us to become more comfortable with it, or retreat. In this week’s reading “Privacy, Trust, and Disclosure Online,” Carina Paine Schofield and Adam Joinson examine the complex relationship between privacy and trust and our resulting willingness to disclose information in an online environment. A lot of what they covered seemed like common sense to me. Perceived privacy contributes to trust; both are necessary for us to be willing to disclose information online.

Schofield and Joinson’s explanation of the different aspects of trust stood out to me as being particularly relevant to my own evaluation of a company’s online presence. I think I regularly (if subconsciously) make judgments about companies based on the following.

• Ability, or the knowledge or competence of the company and its ability to handle my information appropriately.
• Integrity, or the belief that the company is honest, reliable, and credible.
• Benevolence, or the extent to which the company is doing right by me.

It’s almost common sense; I wouldn’t do business with someone face-to-face if I didn’t think they were competent and capable, honest and credible, and were taking my interests into account. Why should it be any different online? Admittedly, the stakes are higher in many ways online. After all, we’re leaving behind information about ourselves that doesn’t go away—ever.

I think that’s why providing users with a sense of control is especially important. Schofield and Joinson explain, “…where possible, users should be provided with control over whether to disclose personal information and the use of that personal information once disclosed” (p. 26). When we can decide whether we “prefer not to disclose” answers to certain questions, or whether we only populate the required fields, we maintain some degree of control. (For me, being able to indicate that I don’t want to receive email offers is one control option I greatly appreciate!)

Maintain some degree of control over information reminded me of the fiasco with Facebook’s privacy policy changes a few years back. Basically, Facebook changed their privacy policy, and users freaked out about it. Facebook addressed the issue a blog post, explaining in a forthcoming and straightforward way that on Facebook, people own and control their own information. This response illustrates that Facebook recognized that control (even if it’s perceived control) goes hand-in-hand with trust and privacy. By addressing users’ concerns in this way, I think Facebook did the best it could to mitigate the damage done to its users’ trust in it.

Does it take today a whole web 2.0 to raise a child?

As of now I have to admit I never thought really about the ethical dimensions and effects of digital technologies. Of course, throughout our studies we learned about ethics in technical communication. But that is about it. Therefore the article Beyond Ethical Frames by Katz and Rhodes was actually interesting – even though it was in parts hard to understand.

Then doing some further research, I found Howard Gardner’s view on ethics with emphasis on education, but still relevant to our topic.

In this interview he states

“The former lag between behaving morally toward people you know and behaving ethically towards people in the community whom you don’t know that’s been lost. People once they go into digital media will be part of much larger communities. The only question then is do they behave as good citizens or not.”

That to me made the perfect connection to Schofield’s and Joinson’s article Privacy, Trust, and Disclosure Online.

There is the saying it takes a whole village to raise a child. In today’s world will that extend to an even larger digital community? How do children learn about how to act ethically on the Web 2.0. For us it seems already so much more blurry. One example I mentioned in a previous post is the privacy issues with photos. The difference between actual and perceived privacy has to be taken serious. How do parents and teachers keep up with these developments? How do we teach our children the right values, when it seems we ourselves are sometimes lost?

Information Society

Do you remember this band from the 80’s?  There’s no real relation between this and the article, “Privacy, Trust and Disclosure Online” by Schofield and Johnson. but they included the following quote, so I couldn’t resist:

 

 

At no time have privacy issues taken on greater significance than in recent years, as technological developments have led to the emvergence of an “information society” capable of gathering, storing and disseminating increasing amounts of data about individuals. (p.16)

The focus of the article is on personal privacy and all the various aspects of that, such as psychological, physical, and interactional (p. 14), but one area that really impacts us is organizational privacy.  By that I mean, the ability of the employees of our customers to retrie ve and share information without exposing it to our other customers (their competitors).  We would love to implement the kind of communication that social media provides, but our customers are very concerned about keeping their proprietary information away from their competitors.  Even just letting other customers see the kinds of questions they are asking could give away some key competitive details.

It is hard enough to really understand the difference between your actual privacy and perceived privacy as an individual, but I think it is probably even harder for people to make decisions in this area when they are making them on behalf of their employer. This might be the single biggest obstacle to implementing social media in business to business (B2B) communication.

The New Professional’s Guide to Interoffice Email Etiquette

In chapter nine of Digital Literacy, Rachel Spilka discusses the changes email has had on the workplace and the interactions between the people employed by them. Spilka explains (p. 241),

So pervasive and necessary are the uses of digital technology, that organizations and the people within them can be understood to exist almost literally in the digital realm… where our social and business interactions are carried out via email, video, podcasts, smartphones, Web sites and webinars, social media, listservs, wikis, and blogs.

With this phenomena the new standard, it is surprising that newly-hired professional’s aren’t given a guide of sorts on the intricacies of interoffice communications: most specifically the office email. I am not speaking of the entry-level basics of writing respectful, on-topic, spell-checked emails though. I am referring to the more nuanced happenings that we experience within email communication. And, more specifically, especially when we are emailing in an attempt to elicit a response from someone – most especially when that someone happens to be your superior.

I first noticed my dependence on the simplified, professional email approximately seven years ago. I was a newly-hired creative director working for a rapidly-growing company. The general manager, my direct supervisor, was the man with the answers… for everyone. He enjoyed this function, but as such was constantly bombarded with emails and unwelcome office drop-ins. To avoid being lost in his email inbox or shooed from his door, I utilized a very simplified email writing technique. The following rules will be of no surprise to tenured professionals, but let’s just consider this a quick overview of Interoffice Email 101.

The precursor to this email technique begins with a few simple rules:

1. Always send an email if you can.
2. Only call if the matter is urgent and incorporates multiple employees, and if you must call…
   
3. Never leave a voicemail.
4. Only drop-in the office if it is an emergency set to adversely effect the company budget.

When a question has lesser importance it moves down this hierarchy of communication techniques, with the least intrusive being the email. Email holds this place of honor due to this ability to be handled at the recipient’s convenience, rather than the requestor’s demand, as is true with a phone call or office visit. Once email has been determined as the communication medium of choice, other rules come into play:

1. Only send one to two emails to your supervisor per day.
2. Fully analyze the situation prior to sending the email and even then…
3. Only ask the most important questions.
4. Questions of highest importance are listed first
5. Ask no more than a total of three questions.
6. For each question provide the least amount of back-story possible.

More than likely this technique was not thoughtfully contrived for any professional, but rather achieved bit by bit through small successes and failures in communicating with overwhelmed supervisors. In my experience, following these self-imposed rules meant that my emails received a quick response, while other managers were not as fortunate. The higher-stake here, of course, is that without answers other managers could not move their departments efficiently toward the next task… and we all know what happens to managers of inefficient departments.

Resistance is Futile

We are the Borg. Resistance as you know it is over. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.

– The Borg

At work my employee computer ID is QA4268.  If someone logs into our CMS and wants to search for something that I have created, they can’t use my name, they have to know that QA4268 is me–or that I’m QA4268.  Hmmm . . . now that I think about it, that is a teeny bit disturbing, which brings me to the article, Beyond Ethical Frames of Technical Relations, by Steven Katz and Vicki Rhodes.  In it they state, “Have you ever noticed how some systems or procedures at work–say, a time tracking system, registration process, or evaluation procedure–are more adapted to themselves, more focused on their own efficiency and operation, than on the human being who is the ostensible object or user?” (p. 235)

They even follow this quote up with a specific mention to most CMSs and how they are often guilty of this–the one where I work is no exception.  The software has all the technical capability that we require and is capable of fully delivering on everything we ask of it, but in many ways it ignores the requirements and limitations of the people that need to use it.  For example, almost all the information about how information is related to each other is presented in lists or tabular reports.  While this does provide all the detail, people are visual beings that work best when they can visualize relationships.  The CMS asks us to bend people to the machine rather than bending the machine to the people.

The problem, as Katz and Rhodes, describe it is that you can’t separate people and technology when defining processes, procedures and tools.  More and more we are merging with our technology (both literally and figuratively) to become some sort of hybrid.  Katz and Rhodes point to examples like automatic spell-checkers and Bluetooth headsets as examples (p. 240).  The point, as I see it, is that we need to view the relationship between people and technology more holistically.  When we say that we want to implement a CMS, we can’t just select a tool and then throw people at it.  Instead of a CMS we should be implementing a CME (Content Management Ecosystem).  To get the most out of these technical relations, we need to make sure that the technology complements our people and that our human skills fully exploit the capabilities of our technology.

RUN! (Week 12)

While reading the Paine Schofield and Joinson report, the term “survival of the fittest” came to mind.  It seems that rather than having to be fast enough to literally outrun bears and lions, we now need to worry more about the safety of our non-physical identities.  We must protect ourselves from theft of our time, money and ideas, along with voyeurism, forwarding of information detrimental to our professional lives, and personal attacks of any number of other types.  Those who manage to stay in control of their own privacy are those who are fast and smart enough to keep ahead of the “bad guys,” or those who just happen to luck out.

That’s me… the one on the right. Probably shopping.

My husband and I have a friend who will NOT make a purchase on the internet.  In the past, if something he wanted to buy was only available online, he would come to our house, I would order it online with a credit card or PayPal, and he would reimburse me on the spot.  I never thought anything of it – in fact, my husband and I both think he’s kind of silly for being so “paranoid.”  This friend has never had a bad experience with privacy or technology, but he is a generally untrusting person and really, this is probably a responsible way of thinking.  He is, perhaps, one of the “fittest.”

Our family, on the other hand, buys nearly everything online.  Santa Veach has been doing all of her shopping at Amazon.com and Walmart.com and a variety of super-fun specialty stores, having a grand old time flinging debit and credit card numbers left and right across the virtual abyss.  I don’t think twice about it.  We don’t hold anything back on our very active Facebook accounts, except for things that I obviously can’t share because of security concerns at work (not that my friends would care, anyway.)  Our son has had a Facebook account since he was six years old, as do many of his school friends, although they all use false birthdays in order to allow the registration.

We are ripe for becoming victims of some kind of privacy issue or identity theft, but even acknowledging this fact does not convince me or my husband to back off from being so open and “out there” online.  It is just too convenient to have whatever I buy show up on my doorstep, even though I’m giving out sensitive financial information with every transaction.  It’s too much fun for my husband to always check in wherever he is on Foursquare, letting everyone know he’s not home and giving them a rough estimate of how long he’ll be gone.  Our 9-year-old HAS to have a Facebook account because everybody else on Earth has one, and he wants to show everyone the picture of the fish he caught, even though he’s in the age group most susceptible to identity theft.  I suppose sacrificing our privacy is a price we are willing to pay for the benefits we receive from our technological adventures.

A Digital Veteran’s Tribute

Purple Heart

My apologies if what follows relates to nothing in particular from this week’s assignments. It does, however, relate to all the best that the web can do for us. It is also all I can think of right now because the story has reached its digital climax today. If people are worried about losing meaningful connections to those around them because of an over-reliance on internet technology, here’s a Veteran’s Day story about reconnecting.

My wife’s grandfather, born in 1894, was 23 years old when he joined the United States Army and served in France during WWI. In October of 1918, at the Argonne Forest, his unit came under attack, killing everyone but him. Though he had been shot in the thigh and through the hand, he was able to kill the enemy sniper that had destroyed his unit. After spending two months in a French hospital, he returned to the United States and was discharged from the service in April of 1919. He returned to his home in Bark River, Michigan, and the quiet life of a farmer.

In 1941 he was awarded the Purple Heart, and for many years after that, the medal sat on top of his dresser, underneath the portrait of him in his military uniform.

After his death in 1980, my wife’s grandmother needed to move to a smaller place, and as is typically the case, Items are given away. The Purple Heart went to my wife’s uncle. Years went by, as they always do. My wife’s uncle died, then his wife died, and eventually their son moved out of their house. When the house was being cleaned out, the Purple Heart could not be found.

That was a number of years ago. Every once in a while my wife and her mom talk about her grandpa, their memories, and his service. They share what little information they have, but are always left with the sadness that his military artifacts have probably been sold, with little thought of how costly they were to earn.

Enter a technological Veteran’s Day miracle. This morning, my wife was at the computer, again trying to find more information about her grandfather. For some reason, she searched images this time, found a picture of a Purple Heart, and followed that link to a site honoring wounded and fallen veterans. There was an entry for her grandfather, and the medal pictured beside his information had his name engraved on it.

The owner of the site collects Purple Hearts, researches the individual who is named on the medal, and posts the information and available pictures as a veterans memorial.

Jody, my wife, contacted the man who ran the site, told him the family’s story, and said that she would like to be able to buy back the medal in order to give it to her mom. He normally does not do such things, but he was touched by Jody’s words, and the Purple Heart is coming home.

Here is a connection to family that was lost–most likely sold. Through the internet, that connection can be re-established, at least to some degree. It is truly amazing to think what individuals can do and who they can touch as a result of digital technology. When my wife’s grandfather left the military, he could not read or write. He left his mark, an “x” on his discharge papers. He also left his mark on his family, and to a degree, the democracy we benefit from today. And sites like the one my wife stumbled across today are sharing that mark with the world.

Culture Clash: Being Everything to Everyone

Once you have fully investigated your audience and considered their various cultural needs and preferences, you can fully comprehend how screwed you are and how utterly futile your attempts to please them will be.  Given that most if not all technical information is delivered via the internet now, you just can’t presume to know where your audience is coming from–literally or figuratively (Blakeslee, p. 2o1).   And, even if you could narrow down the geographic location, your quest could be further hampered by differences in gender or the device used to retrieve your content, as Kenichi Ishii describes in his article, Implications of Mobility: The uses of Personal Communication Media in Everyday Life.

All the authors that we read this week–Blakeslee, Ishii, and Thatcher–talk about how important it is it understand the differences between your audience segments, but unless you have a lot of time or a lot of writers, you have to make compromises.  In fact, unless you know for sure that your audience is from a Particularist or a Universalist culture (Thatcher, p. 177) you are going to make some people unhappy.

According to Thatcher, a universalist approach, “. . . the default approach is to establish rule that define what is good and right regardless of the social standing of the individual” (p. 176).  While in a particularist approach, “. . . the default approach is to apply rule and decisions depending on relations and context” (p. 177).  So, as a technical communicator I can either choose an approach that treats everyone with respect regardless of their standing in society or a company, or I can try to write 12 versions of the content to reflect where each individual sits in the pecking order.  Thank you very much, but I’m writing it once.

I like the idea of respecting cultural differences, but the internet is dominated by the universalist, western cultures that created it.  The world understand the voice of the internet and has come to accept it.  I would even venture to guess that that universalist voice has started to change the cultures of the people that use it.  Perhaps that is why some governments (China, Iran, (formerly) Egypt) fear it so much and seek to control it.  Maybe people that are addressed with respect regardless of their standing start to demand that from others within their society.

Here’s another problem I have with the idea of bending our writing style to suit the expected audience:

• We don’t often know the audience for certain.
• The audience often exists in many countries.
• What if we add another customer later that comes from another culture?
• If we use different styles for what we write, how do we reuse content to single-source new deliverables?

It surprises me that some of the articles mention that more and more content is delivered on the internet which means that we have no idea how or where it will be used, but they still advocate spending a lot of time investigating the audience.  How are we supposed to do this exactly?  The internet may not be a culture in and of itself, but it does have a voice and set expectations.  How about we just go with that and spend more time creating better content.

I liked how Blakeslee described looking at the roles the audience members play to ensure that content meets the needs of that  ROLE.  I am 100% behind performing task analysis to create role-based content.  I think that makes way more sense than trying to figure out how you should write a procedure differently for someone in Mexico as opposed to someone in Germany.  If we can’t understand the user, we should focus on the use.

The Complexities of Audience in a Digital Age

It became apparent when I started my current job as a technical communicator that pinning down audience is no simple task. Working for a national student loan servicing company, the team of writers I work on creates deliverables for various audiences such as schools, lenders, borrowers, the U.S. Department of Education, and internal employees. Distinguishing between these audiences is relatively straightforward, but distinguishing sub-audiences within them—actually knowing whom I’m writing for and what they need to know—is something I have struggled with from day one.

Prior to taking this course, and even prior to this week’s readings, I hadn’t fully recognized that a great deal of the complexity I experience in my job today is because of society’s evolution into the digital age. Furthermore, the challenges I encounter at my company are not unique to my company or its industry at all; they are largely universal challenges that technical communicators are encountering throughout the world. Ann Blakeslee’s chapter (“Addressing Audiences in a Digital Age”) in Digital Literacy for Technical Communication illustrated many parallels to the challenges I encounter every day.

The Internet allows for the dissemination of information on a scale that has never been seen before. Our writing is often available to anyone who is online and looking for it. While this broad audience is an overwhelming thought, it doesn’t necessitate that we write for everyone at once. Blakeslee explains,

“While technical communicators may not know their exact audiences, the complexity of the product and typical environments in which the product is used provide them with guidance in understanding their prospective readers” (p. 204).

Basically, we can use information we know about the product and where/how it is used to make judgments about the audience. This is something many of do without even thinking about it. For example, I can assume that users of one of my company’s online applications are employees in a school’s financial aid office. Along with that, they are extremely likely to have a moderate level of knowledge about student loan disbursements. This makes it much easier than writing assuming a global audience with next to no knowledge about student loan disbursements—not to mention it makes for more useful documentation.

But learning about the audience beyond this, is where I think the biggest challenges lie. For me, this has largely been knowing precisely (or even generally!) what the audience needs to know and even better, a ranking of the tasks they must perform in the tool. The best way to get this information (obviously) is straight from the audience through interaction and/or feedback, which is not an easy (or even possible) task for many of us. Blakeslee’s case studies sounded so familiar I could have been one of them! Unfortunately, in my position I am not able to get direct feedback from the audience on the content my team writes. The main reasons for this are:

• The privacy of the customer. Any time there is financial information involved, privacy becomes a concern.
• My time and the customer’s time, or lack thereof. My company’s customers are widespread making travel not feasible. Also, many schools, for example, are under-staffed and under-funded; asking for their time would quickly become an inconvenience for them.
• Existing roles and processes are hard to change. Moving beyond the customer service and sales staff having all outwardly facing contact with customers is difficult and requires the buy-in of management (which is not super likely given the first two bullet points).

Virtually all of these were mentioned by the participants in Blakeslee’s case studies. In my case, we have made efforts to obtain information about audiences from sales and customer service staff. Often, they are able to tell us what confuses users and when/how they use a tool. While it’s not as good as interacting one-on-one with members of the audience, it’s better than nothing!

With communication technologies evolving at incredibly fast pace, it is certain our interaction with the audiences we write for will continue to evolve and improve. I am incredibly interested to see how this aspect of technical communication changes in the coming years.

Cultural expectations

In an era of increased written communication mediums, (i.e., email, text, instant message) oral communication seems to be dwindling. Indeed, this notion has been reinforced by both Erik Qualman in his book Socialnomics, and by Sherry Turkle, in her book Alone Together. Barry Thatcher, in his essay Understanding Digital Literacy Across Cultures in the book, Digital Literacy for Technical Communicaiton sheds light on the fact that this argument is less true in what he defines as collective cultures (i.e., Mexico) as opposed with individualistic cultures (i.e., USA). In essence, people of certain geographical locations may have different expectations regarding the need to develop personal relationships through face-to-face meetings and conversation prior to utilizing mediums such as email as a communication tool.

Thatcher notes, “Orality, though, seems to have a much weaker role in individualist cultures, perhaps relegated to expressing personal opinions and beliefs, but certainly not the backbone of society, as orality can be in many collective cultures” (180). By retaining the expectation of oral communication, collective cultures seem to have a more personal, and less objective tone compared with the very objective tone of individualist cultures. In many cases, I have never met the people I email in a face to face setting, nor do I know these people on a personal level. Thus, the communicaitons we share are, by default, solely professional in nature.

In every technical writing class or journalism class that I have ever taken, I have been taught separate out personal information and include only objective information crucial for the reader to understand the message. As a result, the communication pattern is typically serious and impersonal. This practice of objective writing is also true for the workplace writing tasks I am involved with. Other than indicating how I am involved with the project being discussed, I share no other information about myself, and I do not expect my readers to share any of their personal information.

Thatcher stated, “Instead of a dumbed-down readership level, collective communicators tend to complicate their interpersonal dependence as a way of stating the purpose of the communication and their involvement; this creates writer – friendly document design patterns” (176).

An additional difference between the individual and collecitve cultures is that the colelctive culture has an expectation of stating authoritative relationships as part of the personal style whereas the inndividual culture does not. Thatcher notes, “As exemplified in the two EPA emails, the U.S. email demonstrates strong individualism focusing on one reader and that person’s reading needs and processes, while the Mexican email is much more collective, focusing on interpersonal relationships, and especially on authority” (176). As a technical writing student, I make efforts to consider my audience. However, it seems that despite the best use of audience analysis techniques, there will always be cultural differences that cannot be accounted for. And, in certain cases, technical writers, perhaps even in the future, may need to participate in real-time conversations to maintain cross cultural client relationships and successfully transfer information.

Social Media Strategy: Working within your Client’s Culture

I was at a conference on Thursday and was fortunate enough to hear Scott Jameson, Marketing Director for Realityworks, speak on the company’s social media strategy. The interesting part of this particular strategy is that it only loosely involves social media.

In chapter seven of Digital Literacy, Rachel Spilka delves into the intricacies of cross-cultural communications: namely the different social sensitivities across continents. This is a very important and nuanced topic. While I am not comparing this lofty topic to the development of Realityworks’ social media plan, they certainly do have some similarities. Not only does every country have a culture, but every region also. Even every little town and suburb have their own mojo. Why wouldn’t we think that every company and client isn’t just as dynamically unique – even if it is true only in the minutia? But there are times when that minutia changes how a region, town, or client base functions at a base level. This is where we, as communicators, need to be in the know.

A high school student holds a Realityworks’ baby-simulation doll.

If you are not familiar, Realityworks is best known for their baby simulation doll. Schools all over the nation and world are purchasing these life-like dolls and their accompanying software to aid in teaching high schoolers, in a very memorable fashion, what types of life-changes can occur post-baby. Really doesn’t this type of unique and interesting product make for the perfect marriage with social media? So what is the problem? Where is the culture issue? Well, if you didn’t pick it up yet, you are missing the point – just like I did. Mr. Jameson explained how while listening to their clients they learned that most schools block access to social media sites. (And crash goes the social media strategy.) This is a culture issue that is critical for Realityworks to be aware of: It changes how their clients’ function and deeply effects how they browse online.

Mr. Jameson explained that Realityworks does still maintain active presences on most social media sites. He explained that they aid in building public awareness and media interest. However, the purchasers of their product needed more. After some focus group sessions it was learned the clients were begging for information. More information. Detailed information. They had questions like: “How do other schools do xyz?” and “Are grants available for such purchases?” Mr. Jameson felt the perfect solution was a Realityworks’ forum that allows users to talk about their purchases and the programs they build around them. This solution allows for:

• all potential buyers to be able to access information, even while they are in the school building itself
• social-media-style sharing of information
• users to share details about how they manage the programs
• users to share their opinions and related stories
• potential buyers to see others’ experiences

For Realityworks a forum serves them and their clients better than any Facebook page or Pinterest post ever could. (Of course the forum really is a type of social media, but one I have not personally considered previously.) The important thing here is that Mr. Jameson really listened to his clients, learned their culture, and adjusted the company’s social media strategy to best serve them.

Cross-cultural communication: Let’s start at the beginning

Obviously, any topic concerning cross-cultural aspects hits home for me. It is always interesting to learn new dimensions – especially when it is related to our professional field. That being said, Spilka’s chapter “Understanding Digital Literacy Across Cultures” was a great read. Then I tried to find information how German technical communicators would see this development. Unfortunately, the only article really relevant came from a UK author – and from 4 years ago. At least it is published in the tc-world, which is an online magazine published by the tekom (the German equivalent to the STC).

To bring another aspect into this discussion, I have to disagree with many authors who categorize Western cultures on one site of the cross-border work and cultures from Asian, African or South American countries on the other side. Even within the entire Western cultures (U.S. and many West-European countries) the cultural differences are larger than first thought of. Look at you and me: we experience differences in our cultural upbringings.

• Small ones – like different expressions for the same feeling. For example, Americans sit on cloud 9, when they are happy. Germans sit two-doors down on cloud 7. Thank God for Cloud computing.
• Bigger ones – like the use of social network sites. Concerning the relations of communication media and communicative situations, to many Americans being on Facebook is a daily or even hourly way of connecting with others. Germans just started out using it. The majority of my friends in Germany are not Facebookers.

The three values, Barry Thatcher describes are a great way of analyzing the differences between two cultures. The question is how often do we actually take that extra step and do this kind of research about other cultures. I believe the biggest obstacle we (all earthlings) have to overcome is our mindset. The old question and attitude about being superior to others has to be eliminated out of our way of thinking. Being proud of your country is one thing, feeling superior to other countries is a different story. If both parties can settle for tolerance, we will conquer any upcoming challenges. I guess what I want to say is that even though this topic concerning digital literacy is very interesting to know and to explore, I believe that is one of the last steps we have to undertake. First steps first. Pankaj Ghemawat states in his TED talk: “Actually the world isn’t flat”.

So, we might have to rethink our approach when it comes to cross-cultural communication, no matter if the means are digital or not. Let’s start at the beginning.

Facts schmacts, but not culture schmulture. (Week 11)

I found Ishii’s research to be informative, but somewhat… I don’t know… predictable?  For example, on page 358, he offers figures demonstrating that tweens and teens are less socially skilled than adults.   It seems that that is a basic attribute of people in these age groups – it’s largely physiology and brain development that humans generally develop more social skills as a result of maturity and life experience.  Also, the discussion of adolescents using text messaging and mobile phones to keep their social interactions away from their family seemed fairly obvious.  Perhaps it was worth investigating because Ishii is from Japan, where family seems to be more sanctified than it is here.

Anyway, the topic of differences in the use of technology based on culture is an interesting one.  While I haven’t seen differences in “niceties” as demonstrated in Spilka’s examples on pages 172 and 173, I have definitely noticed differences in how people from different cultures view the urgency of e-mail messages.  At work, we have a small percentage of foreign military sales (FMS) contracts, and under my title of contract administrator, I am the main point of contact for our customers.  In one case, I have been trying to obtain some necessary information from a Brazilian customer whose product requires an export license.  Our time zones are only an hour or two off and we could logistically speak on the phone, but I don’t speak Portuguese, and the contact person at that company writes much better English than he speaks, so he corresponds via e-mail only.  I remember learning in an earlier college course that people in Central and South American countries rarely see things as urgent, and are not pushy because pushiness is considered rude.  Obviously, any statement about the people of an entire continent is a generalization, but our Brazilian customer certainly makes a case for this generalized statement.  Every time I need to send an e-mail requesting information, it takes at least a week or two to receive a response.  This is very unusual in our industry, as customers generally want their products as soon as possible.  In drastic contrast to the Brazilian customer is our customer in Japan.  Regardless of the subject at hand or the urgency of the issue, it is unusual to wait more than 20 minutes for an e-mail response.  Likewise, if they do not receive a response to an e-mail they have sent within an hour, they begin sending “second requests” or forwarding it to other contacts they have at our company.

Oh, hello, Mr. Japanese Customer. I see you flew to Wisconsin because it took me an entire hour to respond to your e-mail.

Yeesh.

In looking for evidence in the internet of how widely intercultural business communication is addressed, I found there is a website that offers guides specifically geared toward business communication unique to several individual countries, as well as guides for just about anything else in a country that is influenced by the surrounding culture.  I can see how this could be of high value to industries involving a lot of interpersonal communication or where customer service in the traditional sense is of a high priority. In general though, it seems the nature of my particular industry trumps our respective cultural traditions, at least in part.  There is a basic, professional, courteous-yet-firm “voice” used that is fairly universal, at least in my limited experience.  When it comes down to it, we all just want to get our work done without having others walk all over us and the company we represent.

The Human + Machine Culture and The Metaphor of the Ring

As I read Bernadette Longo’s “Human+Machine Culture” in Rachel Spilka’s Digital Literacy for Technical Communication, I couldn’t help thinking of Sherry Turkle’s book Alone Together: Why We Expect More of Technology and Less of Each Other. It seems an obvious connection to me–both authors address the issue of whether virtual social connections are meaningful enough to satisfy our need for deep, real relationships.

In Longo’s second sentence she writes that as she works at her computer she senses that “other people lurk behind my screen–and I want a relationship with those other people, even if it is mediated by the machine that is a physical manifestation of the virtual relationship.” Near the end of her chapter, Longo writes, “Turning back to my computer, I ask myself why I simultaneously love it and distrust the community it enables. What is it that I desire in this relationship; what is it I fear?”

“Lurk”? “Love it and distrust…”? “Desire”? “Fear”? An odd choice of words I thought. Something was nagging at me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I needed to have another look at Turkle’s book to see if I could figure out what dark cloud was causing this trouble. That’s where I found it.

Part of Turkle’s book talks about always being connected, always having our mobile devices with us, and always checking them. She mentioned cyborg experiments in 1996 where people walked around campus with computers and transmitters in their backpacks, keypads in their pockets, and digital displays clipped to their glasses. One of the test subjects claimed to feel quite powerful, but there were also “feelings of diffusion.”

Diffusion! That’s it! In The Fellowship of the Ring, book one of The Lord of the Rings, before he leaves the Shire for good, Bilbo Baggins says to Gandalf that he feels stretched out and worn thin. Diffused, perhaps? The Ring (online technology) can leave a person feeling stretched thin and diffused.

Turkle and Longo are both talking about a fear not unlike what happens in The Lord of the Rings. Just as the Dark Lord Sauron and the Nazgul can see young Frodo when he puts on the ring, Google and Yahoo! and company can see Longo when she’s working at her computer. That explains the lurking feeling.

What of the love and distrust and the desire and fear that Longo wrote of? Isn’t that very much the way Gollum, Bilbo, and Frodo feel because of the Ring? None can really part with it completely. Gollum is driven mad by his desire to regain his possession of the ring, Bilbo leaves it for Frodo, but only with great prodding from Gandalf, and Frodo can only let the Ring go when Gollum bites his ring finger right off. They all loved the Ring, couldn’t completely trust anyone else because of the Ring, and took care of the Ring as the Ring made them more dependent on its seductive power. Are we too impressed by the seductive power of the internet?

Turkle explains the love and distrust and the desire and fear through the story of Julia, a 16-year-old girl who loves texting her friends, distrusts her own judgments about her emotions, desires comments from her friends, but fears not getting an appropriate response fast enough. During the interview with Turkle, Julia even mistakenly refers to her phone as her friend. Kind of the way Gollum refers to the Ring as his Precious.

Turkle writes, “Always on and (now) always with us, we tend the Net, and the Net teaches us to need it.” If we forget our real relationships and communities because of our virtual communities, then Longo and all of us have good reason to fear and distrust.

One Net to rule them all, One Net to find them, One Net to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Behind the Times?

I usually think of myself as pretty on top of it when it comes to social networking and being technologically savvy. As part of that, I recognize that it’s important to maintain an online presence that is attractive to current and potential employers. I’ve maintained an account on LinkedIn for years now, and update it semi-regularly with my professional experiences and development. Rich Maggiani and Ed Marshall’s article, “Using LinkedIn to Get Work,” made me feel like I am doing a lot of things right. Then I read chapter 8 of Eric Qualman’s  Socialnomics…let’s just say it made me feel a bit behind the times.

I’ve never considered creating a video resume—it’s just not something that ever occurred to me. In my current position, I’ve reviewed resumes of applicants for open technical writing positions and have looked at personal websites and LinkedIn profiles, but never a video resume. I have to wonder if it would add as much value as Qualman claims. He states,

“Recruiters can quickly screen through potential hires in minutes versus all the guesswork associated with traditional paper resumes” (p. 226).

I can’t imagine that a video resume removes as much of the guesswork from the hiring process as this implies. Hiring managers still have to read between the lines and figure out what candidates are really about. After all, a video resume (like a paper resume) is created with the intention of shining the best light on the applicant. It’s essentially a commercial designed to make the applicant look good. (Maybe it’s the technical communicator in me, but I think I’d rather read a professional document about a person than watch a commercial for them.)

Job searching and recruiting varies greatly by industry. I’m just not sure video resumes in particular are the best fit for technical communication. Perhaps Qualman is assuming the advertising industry, which would probably work a lot better for this type of format. Other tools such as professional profiles and personal websites seem to be a much better fit for technical communicators. The ability to display and link to work samples is also invaluable, but probably more beneficial to some people than others. Many communicators who work in a corporate environment write proprietary information for their company and can’t share work samples at all, let alone make them publicly available on the Internet. Again, this may be a better fit for advertising or even freelance writers.

Despite seeming focused more on job searching and recruiting in a marketing or advertising field, much of what Qualman highlights can be applied to technical communication. I’m curious, though, would you find video resumes much more helpful than traditional paper resumes when it comes to hiring a technical communicator?

LinkedIn: Leveling the Playing Field for Workers

I think I like LinkedIn even more than FaceBook.  From 9 to 5, there is no site that is more useful than LinkedIn.  I think that what a lot of people miss is that LinkedIn isn’t just a job search site.  Yes, you can create a resume-like profile and actively search for work, but it is more than that.

As Maureen Crawford-Hentz stated in Erik Qualman’s book Socialnomics, “Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting–ever” (p. 228).  I’m not a big job hopper, but I like to keep my options open so I used to load my resume to the usual job sites.  Occasionally, I would get an email from a recruiter, or I might check the listings on the site, but that is just about all I ever got out of it.  I checked those site maybe two or three times a year.

On LinkedIn, however, I check it two or three times a week.  Not because I’m looking for a job, but because I want to check-in on old colleagues, or see stories that are related to my skills and interests, or post a question to one of the groups that I’m a part of.  It doesn’t just connect recruiters and job seekers, it connects like-minded professionals with each other.  And, the recruiters get the benefit of seeing all that interaction and can use LinkedIn members to help them to recruit the right person.

A couple of months ago I got a message from a recruiter about a job that wasn’t really right for me, but I knew someone that was a perfect fit so I talked to her and gave her my friend’s info.  She called him, and within a week he had an interview.  He was actively looking for a job the “old-fashioned” way and never saw this lead, I wasn’t looking at all and it found me, and I found him for the recruiter.

Also, as Qualman points out, job seekers also have the power now to get inside information about potential employers.  If I don’t know someone that works for a company, there’s a pretty good chance that I know someone that knows someone.

For the important relationships in our lives–family and friends–social media could be responsible for decreasing the depth of our relationships, but it actually increases the depth of most professional relationships.  In the past I would have had zero relationship with most of the people that left the company I work for, so any connection is an improvement.

As we have all probably noticed, there isn’t much in the way of corporate loyalty.  Layoffs are a regular occurrence and sites like LinkedIn can help to level the playing field for employees.  If companies can walk away from their employees  at a moment’s notice, it’s only fair that employees should have the same freedom.

Disconnect?

About one year ago I discontinued my monthly cell phone contract with AT&T. I now have a Tracfone that costs  $30 per month in prepaid minutes (significantly less than my former contract). I can access the internet from my prepaid phone, but I don’t, because it is a small flip phone and the screen is too small to be useful for browsing the web. Everyone I know owns a smart phone with a touch screen, cool apps, and a large enough display to make internet use worth while. This obvious trend is verified by chapter 8 in Erik Qualman’s book, Socialnomics. Within this chapter is a brief section titled: Mobile Me that indicates that people are becoming more and more dependent on their mobile devices at an alarmingly fast rate.

Having used my basic and inexpensive flip phone for the past year, I have found that neither my social life nor my professional life changed much. My friends sometimes give me a hard time because of my “old” technology, but ultimately I am not less happy as a result of having a basic phone. However, I am saving a lot of money every month. One aspect of new mobile devices that I am not comfortable with is the GPS tracking Qualman describes: “This works on the GPS in the phone to locate your friends and tell you exactly where they are,” (216). I have absolutely no desire for anyone to be able to track me. If I want someone to know where I am, I will tell that person where I am going, and I expect that person to trust me. I can see how this type of technology may be helpful in certain emergency situations; however, I would rather retain my privacy.

Sometimes I feel that I may be too anti-technology (despite the fact that I use what technology is necessary for my academic and career success). At the same time, I feel that we, as a society, need to be cautious of a citizenry that is completely dependent on technology. For instance, Qualman mentions that fewer real-time interviews are being conducted by journalists because of technology (215-216). The result of this trend may lead to lost opportunities to truly get at the heart of an important news story. Part of the art of journalism is being able to ask on the spot questions based on interviewee responses and body language—to find out the whole story. Imagine how happy politicians would be if they never had to answer a real-time face to face question.

Maybe Henry David Thoreau had it right in his expirement and book Walden. Such an expirement would be  more drastic, and perhaps more meaningful given today’s real vs. virtual worlds.

“I love Walgreen’s!”: Referral-based Marketing

Just this week I was fortunate enough to run across a prime example of referral-based marketing: There was a glowing review for Walgreen’s Pharmacy from an acquaintance of mine posted on Facebook. In true social media form, her review was commented on and expanded by several other friends: Said one female, “I [love] Walgreen’s!”

Now, it just so happens that not two weeks earlier I had a horrible experience at the very same Walgreen’s: After nearly giving the customer in front of me the incorrect dosage of her prescription, the pharmacist asked me for information about a new type of antibiotic I was picking up for my son’s ear infection. (Seriously!) In addition my also-sick five-year-old and I were fortunate enough to get to wait 45 minutes to experience these exchanges. I was unimpressed to say the least. I told my husband about it, I complained to my mother, I even told a few friends, but (prior to today) I did not rant online. I never thought to.

Even with my terrible experience my friends’ exuberant posts made me think twice about my local Walgreen’s. Considering my initial reaction was to never step foot back in d**n store, I am forced to come to terms with persuasive power of the opinions of those in my social network! This leads me to wonder what type of power a negative comment has on a business’s reputation. In Socialnomics, Erik Qualman states (p. 205), “Heck, if there isn’t 5 to 10 percent negative noise around your brand, then your brand is either irrelevant or not being aggressive enough in the space. The quickest death in this new Socialnomic world is deliberating rather than doing.”

I have to say I see Qualman’s point here. There are so many things in process online, that a few negative comments are unlikely to be able to reverse all of the positives that happen with socially-connected marketing efforts. Case in point is the example Dr. Pignetti has shared that involves a poorly handled online interaction by Progressive Insurance. Although the negative press is rather intense (and understandably so), the largest initial problem with the occurrence was Progressive’s canned response. Had Progressive been monitoring their Twitter feed more closely and responded in a prompt way to dispel the idea of their lawyer representing the defendant in the accident trial, they may have even been able to shine as a caring and connected company. (I am extending the benefit of the doubt here in hopes that Progressive indeed did not have the defendant’s lawyer on payroll.) No matter how you view this terrible incident, for better or worse it is likely that Progressive (and other companies like them) will see far greater benefits in social media marketing than the sum of most negative press.

What does globalization do for us technical communicators?

Longo’s definition of “community” was actually an eye-opener. Nowadays, in the age of globalization many people talk about how the world gets smaller, how we become closer to others from around the world, how communities are not just physical distinguished from each other by location, but how we can form so called global communities, and how we might aim for a world English. Actually, I believe Longo’s explanation makes more sense, a universal community is a not logical. This term contradicts itself.

She quotes Lyotard:

“The only way to construct a universal community is to deny local histories and culture”.

To then come to the conclusion:

“Instead of finding ways to empower people through their localized expertise and worldview, a universal community promotes the idea that knowledge is common across localized groups”

We all have this arrogance in us (at least to a certain extent) that we believe the culture and community we are raised in or choose to live in is superior in many aspects than the next one. I don’t consider this necessarily a bad behavior. It is part of our patriotism, our feeling being included in some sort of community. The urge of belonging to any group is what drives us to meet our socializing needs. I actually believe that we (on average) do way better in this context than our ancestors from 250 years ago. Colonialism just left such a bad aftertaste. In today’s world we have to and we do communicate before we judge. We listen before we speak. To my understanding human + machine is actually a great initiator for this movement. We have the technologies today. So we might as well use them to connect with each other and more important to learn about each other. We still own the (sometimes very strong) feeling of belonging to one specific community. But I believe society changes in being more tolerant and respectful to other communities out there. However, technology cannot overpower cultural differences. It rather should help us to negotiate and to tolerate cultural differences.

Ian Goldin gave in his TED talk Navigating our global future an overview where we (all earthlings) are heading.

Coming back to my previous posts about the role of technical communicators, I am still trying to fit more puzzle pieces in that picture of where our profession is heading. After listening to Ian Goldin’s TED talk, and then going back to Longo’s article I believe she is right when she states

“Technical communicators are on the front lines of these decisions about inclusion and exclusion, especially in human + machine virtual worlds.”

Combining both thought processes I believe, we technical communicators have the ability using our background knowledge in communication to be an important part in the development of society in whatever industry we choose to focus on working in. We can help facilitating this process.

What LinkedIn means to paranoid employers (Week 10)

I’ve worked for the same company for seven years.  Before that, I worked at my previous employer for eight years.  It should be fairly clear that I’m a stable, loyal employee.

Our company had to lay off 50% of our workforce in June of 2011.  It was a terrible day, because we are a very small company and our employees are a pretty tight bunch.  I joined LinkedIn around that time to keep in touch with those who were let go and to see what kind of new jobs they subsequently found.  Somehow, the senior company management caught wind that I had a new profile on what they considered to be a job-search website, and they questioned me about it within a few weeks of my joining.  Why was I looking for a new job? Did I need to talk? Was there a particular individual layed off that I disagreed with?

At least I got a free therapy session out of the deal.

Considering that was over a year ago, they are likely over it by now and realize I was honest in my reasoning behind creating an account on LinkedIn – that I simply cared about the people who were let go and wanted to see when they found new employment.

Apparently, a lot of people are annoyed by LinkedIn, judging by the 44% statistic at http://amplicate.com/hate/linkedin .  Of course, this link should probably be taken with a grain of salt, since it seems to be a message board for complaints.  Their complaints are relevant, though, especially those involving incessant e-mails from the company.  Since joining LinkedIn, I get e-mails several times a week asking if I know certain people or telling me I should update my profile.  To be quite honest, I’m hesitant to add contacts or add details to my profile because then the newly-added contacts receive e-mails telling them I’m expanding my network or that I’ve updated my information. My employer’s paranoia has made me paranoid, and I’m worried that another red flag will be raised and I will be considered “on my way out the door” at work.  Maybe this would have a positive impact, and I’d get a raise or added benefits if they don’t want to lose me, but it’s probably more likely that I’d be considered disloyal.

The benefits of LinkedIn are fairly obvious to those actively looking for work or who work on a consultant basis.  Those individuals need to create a large network and get the word out about their skills and what they can offer as an employee or consultant.  Those of us with steady jobs, though, need to understand that from some employers’ perspectives, LinkedIn looks like a great website for headhunters and people “exploring their options.”  Industries involving aspects of security requirements, employees in whom companies have invested time and money to train, intellectual property concerns and the like foster employees with incredible value, and they obviously don’t want them to go anywhere.  I suppose LinkedIn could be seen as a threat to companies wanting to retain their workforce.

Are You Content with Content Management? or Finding Your Data Doppelganger

Parts of Geoffrey Moore’s paper “A Sea Change in Enterprise IT” reminded me of Erik Qualman’s work in his book Socialnomics. Among many other ideas, Qualman’s book discusses how our internet searches, purchases, and use of social media can be traced, studied, used to predict behavior and react to trends, market to individuals, and increase profits among other things.

Moore writes, “In a world of digitally facilitated communication and collaboration, where almost all data, voice, and video are transmitted via the Internet, every interaction leaves a trace.” After mentioning the possible security and legal problems associated with mining and storing this data, he continues,

“At the same time, however, chief marketing officers are drooling at the opportunities embedded in these trace logs. Behavioral targeting is the new rage in digital advertising, anchored in the ability to infer a user’s preferences from their prior Web behavior, and to thereby present them with offers that are better tuned to their likes.”

I know this data mining is happening, and I know somebody out there has a whole lot more information about me than I care to imagine. What picture of me is shown by the digital traces I leave behind? What can a person tell about me by the pattern of gas pumps I visit and swipe with my credit card? What do all my computer keystrokes add up to? And really, how many people want to know?

EMC Corporation, one of the groups listed at the end of Moore’s paper as an AIIM Task Force member is interested in such information. They are sponsoring a project that is attempting to “humanize” all the collected data that we leave behind.

Rick Smolan is the creator of the project titled The Human Face of Big Data. According to their website, the project is “a globally crowdsourced media project focusing on humanity’s new ability to collect, analyze, triangulate and visualize vast amounts of data in real time. Briefly, here’s how it works. Download the app for Android or iOS. Spend about 10 minutes answering questions, and then give permission for the app to keep track of you, follow you with gps technology, and compare you–anonymously–to other participants. I don’t know exactly, since, as an introvert and lover of the movie Enemy of the State, I have an aversion to sharing too much information.

Besides the data collection part of the project, there’s a photo-journalism arm as well. Photographers have traveled the world to capture images of the human face of technology. Later, there will be a free iPad app to share all the information.

As an added incentive Smolan says users will be matched with their “data doppelganger.” Woohoo! Or is it more appropriate to shout “Yahoo!”?

Smolan claims that by collecting and sharing our data with the world, his project can illustrate “an extraordinary three-dimensional snapshot of humanity.”

Really? A snapshot of humans I could see, but a snapshot of humanity? Can data do that? I’d like to think there’s an element of humanity that can’t be measured and stored through an iPhone.

But I may have to try the app just to find out.

Old and New

Chapter 4 of Digital Literacy For Technical Communication presented insight on technical communicator’s ability to bridge generational differences. Salvo and Rosinski stated, “Second, technical communicators are well positioned to bridge past and future work involving information design” (105). In essence, because of the rate at which technology and communication mediums are advancing, different generations of information users are accustomed to different communication mediums and designs. Thus, technical communicators must find ways to communicate effectively with all generations—young and old, who make up the demographic of their clientele.

This concept is reinforced by the example of early web page design. Salvo and Rosinski noted, “Many new web designers, as their attention moved from communicating on the page to communicating through the screen, ignored traditional principles of page design in their eagerness to invent new design styles and practices” (106). This comment reminded me of a newspaper design class I took a few years ago. During the first portion of the class, we learned about content layout for traditional print style newspapers. The class then moved to designing layout for online newspapers. Beyond having to learn how to use Dreamweaver, we also had to design content pages for mock newspapers based on actual papers. Our professor was adamant about the need to retain some of the traditional print aspects of the layout such as headline and column font. In addition, the web version was to look fairly similar to the print version so users could recognize key aspects. Essentially, we were designing an electronic version of the print newspaper that traditional readers could, in theory, use and read.

However, within the electronic version of the newspapers, we added links to additional stories, images, and videos that readers could not access from the print version. That is, we retained certain aspects, but added features that allowed access to information only available via the internet. This concept parallels Salvo and Rosinskis’ notion that, “Since then [early web pages] many have rediscovered the value of font design and use of white space, and perhaps more importantly, the benefits of collaborating with users. . .toward the creation of readable and usable documentation,” (106). Indeed, while information design is certainly changing, communicators need to consider all possible users of information, and utilize the best methods to reach these users effectively. In terms of newspaper design, fundamental design principles are generally retained for identification purposes, (the newspaper looks the same in print as it does online) and so readers can quickly locate areas of interest.

As virtual space becomes more and more the standard for communication, technical communicators will need to retain certain aspects of tradition document design to reach all user groups. However, technical communicators will also need to develop new design layouts (such as incorporating links etc as in the case of online newspapers) to fully take advantage of the capabilities of virtual spaces. As I consider how the technology of my generation enables new spaces and practices for communication, I can’t help but wonder how things will change as future generations continue to advance information technology. At what point will my generation be the generation of old technology?

The Nuances of Information Design

If there’s one thing I’ve learned since starting my career as a technical communicator, it’s that content (information) is useless when the audience can’t find it. Moreover, it’s not much better than useless when the audience doesn’t know how to use or navigate it. I think Michael Salvo and Paula Rosinski’s chapter (Information Design) in Digital Literacy for Technical Communication covers some incredibly valid points about the potential for technical communicators’ contribution to information design.

Technical communicators, myself included, often have a hand in information design from micro-level sentences and paragraphs, to deliverable design and visual appearance, on up to the macro-level organization of information libraries. From my experience, an interesting byproduct of this is that, among technical communicators, skills and experience can vary so greatly. Additionally, the role of technical communicators varies significantly from organization to organization.

At my company I work in the marketing and communications department (which is definitely not always the case for technical communicators). My department consists of marketing writers and technical writers that produce client communications and supporting documentation among other deliverables. Interestingly, there is also an e-commerce department (not part of marketing) that produces the company’s website and its online tools/applications. The writers in my department regularly work with the e-commerce department. Together we aim to create the most impactful products for the audience, but I’m not going to lie, it can be a struggle at times.

By title, e-commerce doesn’t have any “writers” and marketing and communications doesn’t have any “designers,” but we both must contribute those skills—the skills of technical communicators—to perform our jobs successfully. The tricky part is knowing who is responsible for what, who has what expertise, and whose feedback or suggestions add the most value to the information and its usability. What’s clear is that there will always be information design overlap between these two groups. It’s also clear that we can provide the largest benefit to the audience of our deliverables when we successfully leverage the strongest skills of both groups.

From my perspective, a lot of the awkwardness of this arrangement stems from the fact that e-commerce and marketing and communications are two separate departments (and divisions of the company)—basically, office politics. I know there isn’t a quick or easy solution for all groups within a company to work cohesively together, but how can companies encourage an all-encompassing approach to information design? I’m not sure I have an answer.

The Key to Content Management

Content management and Content Management Systems (CMS) have been around for a pretty long time.   The group I work in has been trying to make it work–with mixed results–for more than a decade.  It is a really big change and old habits die hard in technical communication.  Part of the reason that it has taken so long for CM to take hold has to to with usability and complexity of the CMS products, but part of it might also be that it really requires social media to make it work.

Geoffrey Moore provides a bit of an explanation when he says, “What will enable this transformation are Systems of Engagement that will overlay and complement our deep investments in systems of record. Systems of engagement begin with a focus on communications” (p. 4).  The traditional CMS products that have been deployed over the last ten or more years are absolutely “systems of record”.  They cost a fortune and lack the simplicity and ease-of-use that we have all come to expect from the consumer products that we use–iPads Google, Xbox, and smart phones.

Rather than bending the technology to meet the needs of the people that were supposed to use it, we just spent a lot of time and money bending our people with training and detailed processes.  It didn’t work out very well.  And once our workforce started shrinking and the amount of outsourcing increased, it worked even worse, since no one wanted to spend a lot of money training people in India.   Also, bad internet connections to our remote locations made the systems a nightmare to use.  It was so slow that some people would check-out and download all their content and then work off of their laptop, which  totally defeats the point of a CMS.

Hart-Davidson points to improvements in networking technology and the internationalization of technical communication as trends that have lead to the emergence of CM (p. 129).  I think maybe those two things are not unrelated.  In “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman, he points to the huge investments in the late 90’s that were made to stretch fiber-optic cables across the ocean.  This high-speed internet connection made it possible for this internationalization in the first place.

While all of this history is interesting, I think the most exciting thing for technical communicators is that while all of this is a threat to the traditional role of TC people as writers (Hard-Davidson p. 129), it has created the opportunity for us to expand into the field of Information Architecture.  As the content we used to write becomes a commodity that is broken down into chunks and stuffed into a CMS, we have the opportunity to design the information experience for our customers and assemble those chunks into new deliverables with new contexts.  Salvo and Rosinski describe this new role pretty well, “Applying a mapping metaphor to the act of designing, or creating sitemaps of documents and virtual spaces, encourages practitioners to ask complex questions about their audiences needs and their communication purposes” (p 115).

I think that social media can help act as a catalyst for this change by making it easier and more natural to use these brutally unnatural CMS’s.  If you haven’t read the article by Steven Whittemore that was referenced by Hart-Davidson, it absolutely nails all the reasons why today’s CM products are so ineffective (I used it in another paper).  Current systems meet the technical requirements to store and manage content, but they completely ignore the human requirements to find and make sense of that information.  Maybe social media can be the key that unlocks all this potential.

Changing role of technical communicators

To me Salvo’s and Rosinski’s article Information Design made the perfect connection to Clark’s article in our journey to explore Emerging Media and the roles that technical communicators will more than likely take on in the near future. The authors state

“Digital literacy cannot be just the ability to use certain technologies. Rather, the term must apply to the thoughtful deployment of technologies that make intervention meaningful and informed by analysis, reflection and historical representations of the field” (Spilka, p. 123-4).

This is just possible if we take Clark’s advice to heart and think and assess critically, keeping in mind the rhetoric of technology.

Content management is in this context one of many examples of work areas technical communicators can evolve their skills and qualities. Hart-Davidson defines professionals in our field as “editors, information architects, usability analysts, interaction designers, project managers, client liaisons, and more” (Spilka p. 134-5). This definition stood out to me because I just started experiencing these different roles in real life work situations. I used to be just a technical writer with some responsibilities concerning managing small projects within our department. Now, I am required to slip into all those above-mentioned roles.

After reading the article Content Management a question that startled me from the beginning of this course finally got answered. Didn’t it seem to you like I asked endless times about the role of marketing in technical communication? I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. In this chapter, the authors mention when talking about the threats technical communicators face lately the “rise of user-generated content, and the broader phenomenon of Web 2.0, something that is perhaps best understood as a significant shift in user behavior from passive consumer to active contributor of content” (Spilka). That’s when it made click in my mind. Now it seems to all come together. The magical term was Web 2.0. I know we read and talked about interaction on social media with our clients all the way along, I just didn’t understand our role in it as professionals.

As of now I would consider us technical communicators as service providers for both parties (e.g. producer/consumer) in assisting them in their communication with each other – back and forth. We don’t just assist the companies anymore in providing materials that deliver information about their products. We now assist both sides in providing information, feedback and assurances or solutions. Not just the companies create content, but also the consumers. The authors summarize this in a better way:

“We must devise ways to listen carefully and move quickly to support the emerging needs of users by documenting new uses, supporting them with new features or services, and scaling-up capacity” (Spilka, p. 141).

Another step stone in my understanding was definitely the article Systems of Engagement. The table Evolution of Content was a great summary on how much has changed in the communication models throughout the last decades. I had to check out the AIIM website and found out that they offer a free webinar about ECM (Enterprise Content Management) on 10/31/2012. Might be interesting to attend.

All these bits and pieces seem to come together to redefine our current and future role as technical communicators. Emerging media changed how society communicates. These changes do already and will continue to influence our profession.

The Planet Re-wiring Itself

Geoffrey Moore’s article, Systems of Engagement and The Future of Enterprise IT, was an eye opening read. The article starts by explaining (p. 1),

Over the past decade, there has been a fundamental change in the axis of IT innovation… consumers, students and children [are] leading the way, with early adopting adults and nimble small to medium size businesses following, and it is the larger institutions who are, frankly, the laggards…

And then adding (p. 1),

Our initial response might be to dismiss this trend as not really relevant to the issues of business… [The answer is] [i]n a word, No. In two words, emphatically No. What is transpiring is momentous, nothing less than the planet wiring itself a new nervous system.

And then wrapping with (p. 1),

So at minimum, if you expect [today’s digitally connected consumers] to be your customers, your employees, and your citizens (and, frankly, where else could you look?), then you need to apply THEIR expectations to the next generation of enterprise IT systems.

Wow. This frank description of the trajectory of consumer expectations and businesses requirement to meet it is far-reaching. Moore makes it clear that new and old businesses alike need to not only adapt to this new online world, but become a fluid part of it. It is no longer acceptable for a business to simply have an online presence, they must actually be present online. The new consumer expects to have immediate and personal feedback from the companies they engage with. The business that can meet this expectation will be the one best poised to lead their industries in the next decade.

So what does this look like for marketers and technical communicators in the business world? It takes the exciting shape of merged departments, whose combined talents do more to attract and retain clients than any billboard or online banner ad ever could. This new team, is not only well suited to craft a message for the masses, but to carry a company message and service into the online realm in a way that actually benefits the world’s online community. This team will need to be poised to develop and deliver the benefits that will surely be the next expectation of these growing online consumer relationships.

The online community that demands these relationships and steadily gains knowledge of their collective power, will certainly continue to require more from these businesses. As our worlds become more connected and society more aware of others’ needs and business’ abilities to meet them, the next requirement of these businesses will likely be a form of philanthropy: whether a donation toward a scholarship, the improvement of a local building, or the creation of an aid fund. Is it possible that consumer’s may be on the path to improve society’s “health” with their collective buying power and evolved expectations?

Week 9: Content Management is Never Done

(Post 2 of 2)

Content management is one of those things that we don’t really think about when it’s done well, but can make us very crabby when it’s not.  We’ve all experienced the frustration of not being able to find something we need, especially if the need is urgent.  Until I began the Tech Comm program here at Stout, I hadn’t thought of it in the least.  Now I’ve had two classes in it, and I realize how much effort goes into the initial design of a content management system.

(Forgive me for the following big ol’ reference to quality management-I’m responsible for our quality system at work and we have a big audit coming up in November, so I’m armpit-deep in that subject right now.) One of the basic tenets of a quality management system is continual improvement.  In the quality world, this means that once procedures are put into place, they are not set in stone.  We should always be looking for a better way to do things, usually through inputs from our own employees and customers.  The problem with continual improvement is that people in general don’t like change.  The original writers of the procedures can feel dejected or insulted because it can seem others don’t think their work was good enough.  Users of the procedures can be annoyed with having to learn how to do the same job a different way.  Neither of these reactions is helpful.  Everyone must buy in to the idea that they are all members of the company “team,” with a common goal of the business’s success.

I suppose continual improvement is a big part of both information design and content management.  It’s not possible to please all of the users all of the time.  Changes are bound to be suggested, even if we do all of the research beforehand, with usability studies and such.  Not all problems can arise during testing stages, and the corrective actions are one of the forms continual improvement takes.  Changes to information design concepts discussed in Spilka’s Chapter 4 are limitless, as there is no one correct answer to design issues.  Content managers do their best with usability data they can accumulate and with skills and understanding of concepts of mapping, signposting and general use of space, but they need to stay open to suggestions for bettering their project.  A teamwork attitude has to just be part of their personality in order for them to be successful, and pride can only hold the project and the company back from improvement.  Their job is never really done – they make it the best it can currently be, but tomorrow a change might come along that makes it better.

Week 9: Businesses are to Individuals as Apples are to Oranges

(Post 1 of 2 for the week – they are fairly unrelated)

I don’t own a business, but sometimes I like to pretend I own the company I work for because it helps me learn more about running a business and therefore, makes me a better employee and expands my knowledge base.  What I’ve learned while pursuing this pseudo-goal is that companies have different considerations than individuals have.  Individuals have a lot on the line, but businesses have more on the line, because bad decisions can have a negative impact on the lives of many people.  My opinion is that businesses are the “laggards,” as Moore says in his white paper, for good reason.

Or, wait until someone else breaks it and see how they fix it.

First of all, if business is good, why rush to take chances on new marketing and technological endeavors?  An established company has a lot to protect – its existing customer base, trade information, employees, reputation.  If the company is to begin openly and freely giving information to everyone, they are really giving that information to everyone, including the competition.  Of course, the extent to which this is a concern is highly dependent upon the industry involved.  Think of the companies that pride themselves on being thought of as stable, or the standard in their business – insurance or investment companies, for example. Jumping into new arenas is a big deal. My head is spinning thinking of all of the guidelines that might need to be put in place for employees entrusted with an organization’s virtual identity.  Virtual identities aren’t that virtual anymore.  The general population is going to form an impression of the company from its website, Facebook page or Twitter feed, and likely assume all of the information presented through those sources is representative of that company.  There would need to be at least a second set of eyes on everything in order to mitigate the issuance of misinformation and faux pas.  Why not wait and see how the competition goes about it, and analyze the response they receive?  I firmly believe in letting someone else make the costly mistakes and learning from others’ experiences for free.  This may make the company seem like they are behind, but once they are up and running, I don’t think people care.

E-mail Newsletter 2.0

In chapter five of Erik Qualman’s Socialnomics, he discusses social media marketing and its value to business. He also discusses the use of email marketing and its useful, but limited service in comparison to a more collaborative medium. Qualman states, “Having 12 million e-mail addresses in your database doesn’t mean much if only 1,000 open and click on your e-mails” (p. 109).

 

I have recently been applying this very concept to the remake of an e-mail newsletter I am working on for UW-Stout’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. The current newsletter is a factual list of events sent to approximately 75 individuals in the Master’s and Education Specialist CTE programs. The newsletter has low open rates at 17 percent, and even lower click-through rates at one percent. The initial plan was to overhaul the format and invite readers to engage with the text, but this has developed into a proposal to instead provide the information via a social media group.

 

We have selected LinkedIn.com to best capture the professional nature of the degrees. In addition, we can leverage the Program Director’s current 355 LinkedIn contacts. The majority of these contacts are tied to the CTE program in meaningful ways. Due to LinkedIn’s invite feature, we can easily alert them as to the creation of this new collaborative group. Of course these contacts, in addition to the existing audience will all have social networks of their own that may as a result have CTE information pushed to them.

 

Qualman writes, “To effectively leverage the social graph, every company needs to understand that they need to make their information easily transferable” (p. 14). In other words, to best utilize the interconnectedness of social media users we must present information in a manner that makes it easy to share. This concept has essentially become the ultimate goal of the CTE e-mail newsletter: To leave the static newsletter format behind completely and transform the content into a collaborative forum that will entertain and educate the CTE audience with frequent updates and relevant information.

 

The challenge will be in creating content and managing discussions so that the resulting information successfully compels members to share it with others in their network.

Socialnomics as an ebook: Why not?

Erik Qualman’s book Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business should be an interactive ebook. Just imagine how much easier it would be to completely understand his message–not to mention, an excellent illustration of some of the very technology he is so enthusiastic about.

If Socialnomics were an interactive ebook, there would be links to discussion groups on Twitter and Facebook. This would be a great resource for readers as well as the author. He could get immediate feedback from his readers (customers) and harness the power of his own audience. In this way, Qualman could address their concerns quickly and efficiently, making the ebook even better. We could expect frequent updates, so examples more recent than 2008 would be available. In fact, maybe readers would go back to the book with frequency to see if their suggestions made it into the most recent version.

If Socialnomics were an interactive ebook, rather than simply telling us that the word “panoply” would be linked to a dictionary, the word actually would be linked so readers could easily find the definition.

If Socialnomics were an interactive ebook, perhaps it would have a link to certain pop culture references (zombies) or “vintage” television episodes. When Qualman mentions the Happy Days “Shark Jump” episode (if I remember correctly, it was actually a two-part episode) we could relive the scene. Now that would be cool!

How about films of Qualman introducing each chapter to us by giving us his “Key Points” (currently found at the end of each chapter) before we even begin reading the chapter? Wait for the ebook version.

How about Qualman narrating an interactive view of graphs or charts that illustrate the changing trends he’s always referring to. (Use airplane icons in a graph to illustrate the number of people who “land at” the three competing travel apps he refers to.) Need to wait for the ebook for that one.

Oh, Mr. Qualman, why didn’t you take it the extra step?

Well, I know someone who did take his book that extra step. Al Gore’s (2011) ebook Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis does a great job of incorporating internet and digital technology with nonfiction text. Gore’s ebook begins with a compelling view of our rotating Earth from space. If you allow your computer to communicate its location to the ebook, a pin on the globe will indicate where you are.

Al Gore also appears to introduce the ebook, and he narrates the tutorial (or user’s guide) and interactive graphs, animated illustrations, and diagrams).

Photographs are often linked to their location on the globe. Some “unfold” to show more content, while others become video with a simple click. All pictures can become full-screen by “grabbing” and enlarging them.

Because the pages within each chapter appear as thumbnail size beneath the main art for the chapter itself, it’s pretty easy and engaging to simply browse or skim this ebook.

Image from Our Choice

I absolutely love it. While I also love to read books with real pages, ebooks can be very compelling.

If my 10th graders were reading an ebook version of To Kill a Mockingbird–one that went beyond just flashing words across an electronic screen–I bet more would actually get through it.

Cookbooks as ebooks–there’s idea.

Maybe Qualman Has a Point…

Chapters five and seven of Eric Qualman’s Socialnomics further examine the use of social media in marketing, and how social media is truly changing how companies market their products and services. My post from week four, “It’s All About Attitude,” touched on the idea that because of social media, companies lose some degree of control over what online communities say about them; but by actively embracing social media, they can at least interject a positive voice into these online communities. A similar theme stood out to me in this week’s readings. That is, sizable companies are the subject of social media regardless of whether they want to be. Qualman explains,

“Companies that think they control whether they ‘do’ social media or not are terribly mistaken. If you’re a large brand, you can rest assured that there are conversations, pages, and applications constantly being developed around your brand by the community at large. The community is ‘doing’ social media even if you choose not to” (p. 183).

I work for a student loan servicing company (which shall remain nameless) that has shied away from using social media marketing. Qualman’s statement made me wonder what I would find if explored my employer on the Internet. A simple Google search pulls in a link to my employer’s website, a Wikipedia page, and many, many more—10 pages of search results total. After doing some poking around, I read a lot of really negative things about my employer (both as an employer and a provider of student loan services). The negative reviews and comments far outweigh anything positive. I have to say, I was surprised because I’ve always thought of my employer as a generally good company that tries to do right by its employees and customers.

As far as I know, the company has avoided social media to this point because of the nature of their products and services, which seem difficult to tout on social media sites. Are student loans really all that exciting or fun? Not really. Basically, it’s just another bill you have to pay. Additionally, servicing student loans is a complicated business that the consumer doesn’t always readily understand. Many of those who most actively use social media (younger, college-aged people) know next to nothing about repaying their loans.

I can see why it would be daunting to start social media marketing under these circumstances. In fact, I used to agree with the company’s reasoning behind avoiding social media; however, I think I’m now changing my mind. Qualman’s point that “too many companies believe their problems are unique when it comes to the Web” made me feel like this reason might not be a good one anymore (p. 154). After all, there are many financial institutions that do a beautiful job with social media marketing. I understand that it would take a concerted effort as well as dedicated resources for the company to create a social media presence, but couldn’t it only improve upon the dismal Google search results I encountered? After performing my little Google search experiment, I’m a believer in Qualman’s adage that “it’s better to live a social media life making mistakes than living a social media life doing nothing” (p. 187). In the circumstances of my employer, I truly think doing even a minimal amount of social media marketing could help.

Individual Decisons?

Social media impacts how people make decisions. The ability to reach a decision withouth first reading comments seems to be something of the past. To some extent, I agree with Qualman’s notion that social media allows individuals to make more informed purchasing decisions because of user reviews and conversations regarding products. Indeed, I have read user reviews before making purchases, specifically online or expensive purchases. For instance, before I purchased a motorcycle helmet online, I read the reviews of the product. Most were good, so I felt more comfortable spending the money on the product. However, I also based my decision on the fact that the helmet was DOT and Snell certified.

While the reviews provided by one’s social network may be helpful, doing research beyond user reviews may be beneficial. Qualman’s example of “Suzy” and her purchase of a vacation package based on her social media network provides a good example of how additional research may be helpful. Qualman states, “Suzy sees two of her friends both took a trip to Chile through GoAhead Tours and rated it highly. It’s within her budget, and the same package is available. She quickly snatches it up. . .”( p. 95). Indeed, perhaps this process saved Suzy some time, but the process assumes that everyone enjoys the same things. That is, Suzy made her decision based on what her contacts enjoyed, not necessarily on what she would enjoy, or what her husband may enjoy. Of course it is normal to ask friends and family for advice, but other factors should also be considered in the decision making process.

Qualman notes that without social media, “She [Suzy] probably would’ve narrowed down her choices after hours of research,” (p. 95). The idea is that hours of research is too much time these days. However, in so doing, she would have been responsible for her own decision—or is it just easier to allow others to make decisions for us? By doing the research, Suzy and her husband may have found that Brazil really made more sense than Chile based on both of their travel desires.  For expensive and important decisions, such as a once in a life-time vacation, a few hours of research may be worthwhile. Just because my neighbor enjoyed Antarctica doesn’t mean I will like Antarctica!

Qualman notes, “What this truly means is that in the future we will no longer seek products and services, rather they will find us,” (p. 89). To some extent, advertising has always worked in this capacity. Every time we view a billboard or a commercial, products “find us” However, social media allows our “friends” to become the promoters of products. Essentially, user reviews of products can be very helpful in the decision making process. At the same time, we should also base our decisions on our own personal feelings and attitudes towards products and trips. We are individuals, and as such we are capable of making individual decisions.

 

 

 

A Relationship?

I’m not sure that the word “relationship” means what it used to mean.  If I’m interpreting things correctly, young people shun traditional romantic relationships–they just “hook-up”.  However, according to Qualman, “Consumers today, in particular Millennials, and Generation Zers don’t want to be shouted at, they’d rather have conversations and steady ongoing relationships with companies” (p. 141).  So, we don’t want to have relationships with people, but we do want to have a relationship with our muffler shop?

I have a couple problems with this. First, when in the entire history of humanity have people preferred to be shouted at.  Just because social media offers an alternative to traditional in-your-face advertising doesn’t mean it wasn’t always obnoxious.  Second,  do people really want ongoing relationships with the companies that make the products they use?  I don’t want to treat companies as if they were friends: It demeans the whole concept of friendship.  When I contact a company it is either because it is broken or because I can’t figure something out.  I want to locate the information I need (wherever that is) and get on with my life.

Qualman does a very good job of explaining the technological possibilities of social media, but I think that Sherry Turkle does a much better job of evaluating the moral implications in her book Alone Together.  For example, I like the examples Qualman provides about the Fantasy Football Today podcast.  The producers of the podcast integrated advertising into the content rather than just using a plain commercial.  And they also used the “Tom Sawyer Approach” to leverage their audiences’ desire to participate to provide them with free content (p. 143).   He also makes a very good point when he says that, “Users generally want to be communicated with through the medium in which you met to begin with” (p. 172).

I don’t expect him to explore the moral issues around the move to social media (it isn’t the point of his book), but he never hints at the potentially negative aspects and consistently argues for the benefits.  Yes, there are some really cool possibilities with these new media, but there are limitations and trade-offs with every media and I think it hurts his credibility a little bit when he fails to mention them. Qualman even makes this point when he says, “By pointing out your flaws, people will give more credence when you point out your strengths” (p. 138).

What does it mean for a technical communicator to be a literate user of social media?

The questions Dave Clark asked in the beginning of his article just came from my heart: “What does it mean for a technical communicator … to be a ‘literate’ user of Twitter?” (Clark, p. 86)

Does it mean just to be proficient with the tool or also to have a deep understanding for its roots and learning how the tool shapes linguistic activities?

He answers it with: Yes, all of the above. These questions couldn’t show my inner struggle any better. Privately, I am not much into any social media. Professionally, I am always intrigued in new programs and tools, as I am in social networking. However, I have to find out the practical side of them. I have to be able to use them for my work. Otherwise, I consider them to be ballast, overload. If my work requires me using new gadgets, new platforms, I am all for it to get my work done. But if it just blows up my work, if I am not efficient in reaching professional goals, then I got to stop it.

Hughes “emphasizes not the tools themselves, but their creative design, implementation, and use” (Clark, p. 89). I think that is the key feature why people adapt to new tools. Using them they magically can fulfill a desire they might have had just subconsciously. The desire to connect with others is old as humans are. We are social animals. Most of us like to socialize. Social media seemed to fulfill a desire to do so even when we seem to have no time to do so in real time. However, like with many other trends, humans seem just go for it with the wide-open throttle. It takes a wise man to keep it in a moderate volume. Situations like the breakfast table with parents on their Smart phones and children complain about not connecting with their parents should be an alert to think. In this sense, I mean literally stepping back, shutting off everything and thinking about what is important in life. We went through these phases with other new technologies and got them mostly under control after a few years of hype. So there is hope, we will do the same with social media. It should be a supplement to, not a replacement of real life. It should support not undermine our real life.

However, I know to become literate in something New you have to spend some time with the New. That is part of the process. Also, it is important to keep updated, especially when being a freelancer to know about new developments, to being able to accommodate your customers. That’s why I am so thankful for this course. However, it is not just about learning the technical parts of it, e.g. like to use it. The emphasis for professionals in our field should lie on the critical approach and the assessment of the “broader implications” (Clark, p. 87). Clark defines the term ‘rhetoric of technology’ as “the coherent category of literature that addresses specific concerns of technical communicators” (Clark, p. 87). In the following he introduces different approaches in this relative new research area. To me it would be worthy to dig deeper in this topic – just to make sure to explore the academic point of view on digital literacy from different angles.

Qualman to me delivers a very practical approach. I caught myself thinking pretty often what does all this have to do with technical communication. I get it that the boundaries are getting more blurry. However, me coming from the pretty traditional background of writing manuals, I never considered myself to be in that (marketing) branch of technical communication. I am not saying at all that reading Qualman wasn’t relevant. It is very interesting to learn about all the new ways of advertising and how companies can use social media to boost their products. It just seemed to me that both chapters were targeting the advertising industry more than our professional field. Somehow Clark’s introduction of what social media means for technical communication seemed to be more appropriate.

Please proof me wrong. 

First we were all professional photographers… now we’re all doctors, too?

Our growing dependence upon taking others’ advice is scary to me when I back off and think about it.  Seeking advice on purchases as Qualman describes on pages 89-99 is just good economical sense.  We can save a lot of time, money and frustration by learning from the experiences of others and have our eyes opened to aspects of the purchase or the item itself that we hadn’t considered.  But hmm… medical advice from Facebook friends and acquaintances?  I can see the sharing of home remedies and suggestions for minor health issues, as with the burn example on page 100 of Qualman’s book.  However, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t, say, put a photo of a mole on my arm on Facebook and take a survey as to whether or not they thought it was cancerous, then subsequently base my decision whether or not to go to the doctor on their opinions.

That being said, I do participate in exchanges like this all the time, as both the person asking the question and one of the individuals offering opinions.  Do I think I know what’s best for whatever a friend’s ailment might be?  No.  I just want to help and not seem as if I’m ignoring a friend’s concern.  We have a saying at work, “trust but verify.”  (I know, we seem to have a lot of sayings at my workplace, but they fit a wide rage of situations.)  We take our friends’ input into consideration, but I don’t think most of us take the advice of our social networking friends as seriously as Qualman makes it seem – or at least we shouldn’t.  I acknowledge that on further down page 100 he says that, “After their physician, nurse, or pharmacist, people look within their network from those they trust for good advice on medical treatments and medications.” He then further cites an iCrossing study that suggests that, “Some even list the advice from their friends above that of their physician.” Yipes.  Don’t get me wrong – I know doctors are people like everyone else, they make mistakes, they are working for a paycheck, and there are “good” doctors and “bad” doctors. But even though I have some pretty intelligent friends, I’m sure that in eight-plus years of medical school and continuing education my doctor and the Walgreens pharmacist learned something about health and illness that even my smartest Facebook friends haven’t.

Hold on, Dr. Whoever. I need to get a second, third, fourth and fifth opinion from my Facebook friends.

I suppose the basis of my concern here lies in how disturbing it is that so many people distrust the medical field in general that they would even consider taking friends’ advice over a trained professional.  Often, if we ask six people the same question, we will get six different answers.  Isn’t it likely that we will pick and choose our favored answer, even if it is subconsciously, potentially ignoring something that requires medical attention?  We can talk ourselves into and out of things and allow our friends to convince us one way or another, but hearing a diagnosis or advice from a medical professional carries a certain amount of authority that our friends simply can’t or shouldn’t provide for us. We don’t know the big picture of our advising friends’ situation, even if it seems they’ve experienced the same issue we are asking about, but doctors with access to medical records can take into account details we may not realize are related to the condition. Qualman states on page 101 that the increase in our health care and medical equipment discussions via social networking is benefitting society, but I think this is only true if we apply a healthy dose (pun intended) of common sense, and unfortunately, not everyone has that.

Turkle vs. Johnson

Just in time for your midterm: “Lonely, but united: Sherry Turkle and Steven Johnson on Technology’s Pain and Promise.” 

I can’t get the video embed code to work here, but please watch that dialogue. The 10-13 minute marks are quite interesting to me in terms of the reception of Turkle’s book and how she’s been slammed for being critical of the web.

This exchange actually reminds me a lot of the Keen vs. Weinberger “Reply All” debate from July 2007 titled “The Good, the Bad, And the ‘Web 2.0,'” although that exchange is more about the useless noise vs information filtering aspects of the web rather than people’s behaviors/online addictions.

Feel free to refer to either of this exchanges in your midterm responses.

Google Trends: It’s Cool to Stay in (Public) School

Social Media as Community Conversation

While reading Chapter 4 of Qulaman’s book Socialnomics, I found myself both agreeing and disagreeing with his arguments. On page 61, Qualman states, “It is essential that traditional broadcasters [news] embrace socialnomics, otherwise, they will be overrun into oblivion.” This statement is most likely accurate. It is probably safe to assume that every major news organization, print and broadcast alike, have embraced some sort of social media, or combination thereof to reach their audiences. The use of online newspapers and you tube broadcasts is necessary to reach younger generations who spend a lot of time on computers. Indeed, print journalists are now more and more expected to both write hardcopy and for the web. 

However, I think that the print version and the traditional TV broadcasts will continue to exist for years to come. A large portion of population in the U.S. is 50 and older are perhaps more accustomed or prefer to read traditional papers and enjoy watching the 6 or 10 o’clock news. Qualman quotes Andrew Hayward, ‘We should be careful of these zero-sum games where the new media drives out the old.’ That is, a balance is necessary between traditional coverage and coverage presented through social media. Qualman goes on to argue that social media greatly helped our current president win the election in 2008—so did the traditional media and all of the traditional campaigning and speeches. Yes social media spread the message to millions of people, but the speeches were given to live audiences. Thus, to some degree, one could argue that social media is no different than any other medium; it just restates what has already taken place. What makes social media different then, is the fact that once a speech is posted, it exists forever, and people can view content over and over and post messages about it. It goes “viral.” As such, a single speech, a moment in history, may be preserved and disseminated for criticism or praise. Individuals may base their decisions regarding the speech not only on what was said by the speaker, but also by what all the other social media users have said about it. A conversation is formed.

Social media, I believe, may offer a useful forum for facilitating on-line communities and communication. However, one concern may be that people viewing these conversations may make decisions based on the content—which may be purely opinion—or even false. This possibility has always existed, but it seems that social media and the huge volume of “views” and people who follow a topic create a large space and audience for the dissemination of misinformation.

To change topics slightly, I also found Qualman’s section entitled: Is the Flu a Virus or Just Simply Viral? I just heard on the news (traditional TV broadcast) that the campaigns use data from web searches to determine which topics to cover in their advertisements. That is, they analyze search engine word trends—if the work Medicare is a very popular search, the politicians address Medicare. Until I saw this on the news, I did not realize to what extent this data was used. Everything that is typed into a search engine is tracked and analyzed. Further, this data can be sorted by location, so campaigns can determine what a specific region is most interested in—it is their form of audience analysis I suppose. Similar to social media, I have mixed feelings on this topic. Rather than a candidate discussing what is truly important to them, or, for that matter being honest, candidates can now simply go to a state and talk about what she/he already knows is the concern. Is this good for democracy overall?

Qualman goes on to state, “Whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, Independent, or a member of the Bull Moose Party, you can’t deny the power of real-world community relations combined with the reach and engagement of online social communities and networks to change politics as usual.” Qualman is right—one can not deny the power of social media and online communities. On the other hand, the past few years politically have been as gridlocked and partisan as ever before. Is social media a contributing factor to the political situation we are in, or is it a means to facilitate be-partisan compromises? Or, is social media neither, but rather only a virtual place for people to talk about what is really ocurring?

Letting the Masses Promote the Brand: Is it Worth the Risk?

It was hard for me to choose what to write about from this week’s readings because they touched on a lot of interesting and valuable topics! In the end, I’ve chosen this week’s readings from Eric Qualman’s Socialnomics. Qualman chose a great example to highlight in chapter four, as he explores the successful use of social media in Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Not only did Obama’s campaign actively use social media, but it embraced it, allowing social media to take the campaign further than it would have otherwise been able to go.

During the 2008 election season, it was apparent to me that Obama’s campaign readily took advantage of social media. What I did not consciously realize, though, was the extent to which the campaign built a grassroots following, and allowed that community to do some of the heavy lifting for it. Qualman uses the example of the parody on the well-known Budweiser “Whassup” commercials.

Essentially, the campaign allowed someone on the outside to “take ownership of the brand and promote it” (p. 68). The parody was a wild success and received millions of views. What I find striking about this is how beautifully it worked for the campaign, but also how risky this type of thing is. It could quickly go awry if the party doing the promoting does so in a distasteful or offensive way. To successfully leverage an online community in this way, communicators must be able to stay on top of what’s happening with their brand, and react swiftly and decisively when needed to avert crisis. Clearly, the Obama campaign of 2008 was able to do this, and it paid off—the risk was well worth it.

I have to believe, though, that the risk is not worth it for some brands, and that’s why some are hesitant to fully embrace social media to this extent. Maybe I’m thinking about this in a limited way, but it seems that allowing an online community to take some brand ownership may only work well for certain types of brands and in certain industries. The Obama campaign proved that it works for promoting a person or beliefs, but how well would this work for a product? (I’m having a hard time thinking of a parallel example for a product.) In the end, I think companies and organizations need to weigh their options: maintain near complete control of their message and brand, or relinquish some of that control and hope it pays off.

Obama – just one example out of many

Qualman’s chapter 2 and all the previous readings seem to come together. Great insights. To me this is pretty much all new. My question from before about if the position of a sales person and a technical communicator will eventually merge, found somewhat an answer in this week’s reading. Qualman says, “advertisers need to become providers of content” (p. 65). How do you market yourself, how do you create your own brand, it all have changed with social media. Actually, I was wondering if Obama would combine private with business life on Facebook or if it is all about his brand. So I checked his FB page and found mostly political posts on it. Just his and Michelles 20^th wedding anniversary I found – at first. Scrolling down more, there you go there is a picture of him and his two daughters with a comment about what they did last night.

However, the wording of the comment brings it all back into perspective. You think at first there is a private moment, but no, it is about the convention speech Michelle gave. Ok, so we are back into marketing. I guess where I am heading to with this is I still wonder how do combine all these different personalities we all have on social media. Do you do it at all? Do we need to see Obama and his private life? If not, how is he sharing with his family and friends his important moments? Does he not use social media at all for that or does he use a pseudonym?

Another aspect out of these readings is: Even though I heard about it, I never looked in detail in how Obama benefited from using social network. However, one thing that stood out to me was that you could actually track down what was searched for the most at Yahoo or Google. I don’t quite understand how do you actually access the search results? How do you find out if people google for soda or pop? Literally, how do you do that?

Utilizing Search and Browsing History at a Micro-Level

Erik Qualman’s book, “Socialnomics” once again entertained with interesting points in this weeks readings. The most interesting of which to me was the described ability of a search engine to predict phenomena before its occurrence by collecting and reviewing search data for trends (p. 69). One example was Yahoo’s ability to successfully predict the fast and powerful rise of pop star, Brittany Spears prior to the actual realization of her success. Also noted was Google.org ability to predict the rise of flu season prior to the Centers for Disease Control’s ability to do so. As Qualman states (p. 71), “[P]owerful stuff.”

MIT Professor, Thomas W. Malone is quoted as saying, “I think we are just scratching the surface of what’s possible with collective intelligence” (p. 71). Although Qualman looks at this available data as a set, it seems as of late I’ve been noticing more and more instances where my searching and browsing tendencies are being utilized in a individualized manner. For example, has this occurred to any of you: An ad pops up on the banner of your email browser that just so happens to be the exact product you browsed the evening before? I know, impressive, but slightly creepy right?

What have the advertiser’s done incorrectly in those too-obvious, banner ad, product placements? Really they are advertising the very product you viewed back to you and in a timely manner. What could go wrong? BUT, what is overlooked is that those advertisers don’t know what you thought of that product. It may be that you felt the product you viewed was sub-par. It may be that you decided it was too expensive. It may be a whole host of things. In addition, their very blatant use of your search history is borderline obnoxious. Not a good first impression for any potential customer. The search history of a potential customer must be useful to companies, but there has to be a better approach! Well, I think I experienced just one such tactic this week…

Wednesday afternoon I viewed a dress coat on LandsEnd.com. (It was a beautiful raspberry color, just gorgeous ladies… but I digress.) I read the coat’s reviews, checked out the details and even found my size. Ultimately though, I left the coat in the cart, deciding that it was too large of a splurge. The following day a coupon arrived in my inbox from Younkers. Now this happens very frequently, but what was unique is that the generic coupon that typically arrived had a unique title: “$50 Coupon for Coats.” Huh. Now THAT I clicked on and browsed their selection with the intention of using that tempting coupon. It wasn’t until I didn’t find anything of interest that I realized I had more-than-likely just been marketed to in a VERY powerful way.

Yes, it is possible that the Younkers’ coupon arrival and tagline was just a coincidence (being Fall anyway), but the lesson remains intact regardless. If a company utilizes search and browse results on a micro-level (as well as a macro-level, as explored by Qualman) they can craft very timely, individually-focused marketing campaigns. As Qualman teaches, by using social media to listen to an audience, a company can stay in constant contact with them. Does this sound familiar to you too? Once again, no matter whether we are discussing rhetoric, marketing, or politics – to be successful in engaging and motivating your audience you must first know them.

Obama’s Blackberry

I had almost forgotten that there was a controversy about whether or not President Obama could keep his Blackberry until Qualman mentioned it.  According to Qualman the reason they were going to take it away was that all his messages would become part of the public record, “The reason for the discussion about whether Obama would need to relinquish his BlackBerry did not center on overuse. Rather, it revolved around the fact that his text messaging, tweets, status updates, and e-mails would be part of the public record” (p. 77).

But that isn’t the whole truth I think.  This is a little off subject, but Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of the BlackBerry, has a proprietary email service that runs on servers located in Canada.  Every single BlackBerry message flows through these servers.  That’s why when they go down it takes down the service of every single BlackBerry.  As I remember it, the bigger concern was the security issues around having the private messages of the President of the United States being sent to servers in another country and the fear that some hacker would be able to tap into it.

I don’t think that people were afraid that he’d text a mistress (cough, cough, Tiger Woods).  I think everyone believes that he is savvy enough to use a BlackBerry (or other device) intelligently, but it wasn’t as simple as Qualman made it sound.  Even with GPS turned off on your phone, the cellular provider can still determine roughly where you are based on which cell sites your device is connected to–a potentially bad thing for the President of the United States.

Ok, rant over.  Other than that, I think that Qualman made a lot of valid points about how social media really propelled Obama into the White House.  The way he was able to connect in a personal and direct way with voters energized people in a way that robo-calls and junk mail can’t.  Also, I think he is the first President to really understand and leverage the power of the internet to gather analytical data about what people are thinking about at a specific moment in time.  Why conduct polls to find out what people are saying they think, when you can go to the internet and see what they are ACTUALLY thinking and doing by analyzing search phrases and page hits?

Qualman used the flu to illustrate his point, “Comparing the CDC data to Google’s data showed that Google’s insight was roughly two weeks ahead of the CDC” (p. 71).  If Google can get a two week jump on the CDC, then how much of a jump did the Obama campaign have on McCain?

Symbolic-Analytic Work

About four or five years ago I remember having a cup of coffee with a lady I used to work with.  She had a PhD in English and was working in our group as a Writer/Editor.  We were discussing the current state of Technical Communication and where we thought things were headed.  She had spent her entire career in academia and had recently joined our company.  We had already started to go through a lot of layoffs and she wanted my thoughts on which jobs were the safest.

I told her that I thought she would be safer if she moved away from editing and took on more writing.  I told her that I thought management would start to cut anything that was not directly related to pushing manuals out the door.  She burst into tears.  She loved the English language and I think it kind of broke her heart that editors would be seen as non-essential.

She left our group and within a year we had no editors–we still don’t.  And now even the writing is going away to places like India or Poland.  I think that the group I’m a part of has shrunk by about 75% since 2000.  Two weeks ago the guy that hired me 15 years ago and the writer that mentored me both left the company.  Whatever TC was when I started, it is no more.  As Stanley Dicks explains:

Writing or 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.  (p. 54)

According to Dicks we need to find ways to do more “symbolic-analytic work” that has more strategic value to the companies we work for (p. 53).  This could be the old standby of doing more with less, but I think that most companies have gone about as far as they can with that.  If it can be outsourced, it pretty much has been

So what’s left then?  Where I work, there are still some people that write manuals, but they probably also lead a team of people in India that write most of the content.  These writers may also develop e-learning and flash-based tutorials.  I think that just about everyone else is dedicated to figuring out how we can use new tools and technologies to communicate to customers more effectively (and, of course, more cheaply).

That means figuring out how to make single-sourcing and content reuse work using DITA and a CMS.   For more than a year now I have been leading a team within our organization to move from a book/course based model to a topic-based model.  This includes things like:

• Change management – How do you get people to buy-in to making such a huge change?
• Development process – What happens to the process when we stop assigning book/course and start assigning topics or lessons?
• Graphics – If people are reusing graphic content, how do we make sure it has a consistent visual language?
• Metadata – How do we tag the content that goes into the CMS so people can find it, manage it, and reuse it?
• Templates and Usage – What kinds of authoring templates and guidelines need to be created to ensure that content authoring is consistent?
• Curriculum – What training needs to be created to bring people up-to-speed on this new way of working and all the new tools?
• Content Structure – How do we organize all this information within a CMS so that it makes sense?
• Pilot Project – What projects do we want to put choose for the initial testing of these new tools and processes and how do we use the findings to adjust our approach?

All of this is stuff that is strategic and that can’t be outsourced.  Doing this right could mean huge improvements for the customer as well as huge efficiency gains for the company.  Before this, I used to write books and my life was predictable, but I was so bored.  This is really scary and stressful, but it is exciting and meaningful in a way that my old job wasn’t.

I think that is what Dicks was getting at with his article.  Even though technical communication has gotten a lot smaller as a profession, for those that remain the work is going to be more challenging and more meaningful.  The club is a lot more exclusive than it used to be, but the upside is that TC will get more respect as we add more value.

Employees are as valuable as they choose to be.

For this post, I am mostly considering the “Management Principles and Practices” discussion on pages 59-68 in Spilka.

Now more than ever it is important for everyone to demonstrate his or her value as an employee, regardless of the industry or professional field. Our company has experienced an over 50% cut in our workforce in the past 18 months. Before the layoffs, I was our quality management system director. After the layoffs, I am still responsible for the quality system, but I am also taking care of all contract administration duties and some production management and executive assistant tasks with no raise in pay or any added benefit other than not having to join the unemployment line. I have taken on this added responsibility with a big freaking smile on my face because all four of those titles are considered “overhead” positions, meaning that financially they only cost the company money rather than make it money. People in these kinds of positions are easy targets for the chopping block, and being able to afford to hire individuals for these positions can be seen as a luxury when executive management is getting desperate to cut costs and ultimately save their business. However, just because the position is considered purely an overhead cost doesn’t mean the individual doing the job is doomed to provide no added value to the organization.

One recurring question in the Technical Communication bachelor’s degree program here at Stout was, “What is technical communication?” There is no single correct answer. The ambiguity of our profession really puts us at an advantage if we know how to present our answer when asked what exactly it is that we do. While simply going to work and doing one’s assigned tasks is widely accepted as a sufficient work ethic, it does not allow someone in an overhead position to add value to him- or herself as an employee. So how do we add value to ourselves? A value-added employee is always thinking of ways to do things smarter, more efficiently, more effectively. We need to always be on the lookout for areas in which we can apply our skills, even if it is outside of our comfort zone.  If attending college has taught me anything it’s that I, and everyone else, is capable of much more than we assume ourselves to be.  Our chosen field is something that can be applied in any industry, and it is difficult to think of a document we can’t generate from scratch or improve if we understand the intent and the “big picture” of the company and its goals.  The more we learn about our employer as a whole, the better we can do our job and the more work we can find for ourselves to do within the company.

The only person that can make an employee valuable is the employee him- or herself.  It is not always about learning the most up-to-date technology, but it is always about demonstrating a concern for the company and its needs and acting upon them.  With a little extra effort, technical communicators have unlimited opportunities to do so.

Me! Me! Me! Otherwise known as social networking

 

I’ve been discussing visualizations and infographics with my ENGL 335 Digital Humanities students [check out their course blog here], and I came across this. Relevant to this week’s readings and blog posts, right?

 

We No Longer Search for “All the News that Isn’t”–It Finds Us (And then we copy it)

In his book Socialnomics, Qualman reminds us of the Tina Fey/Sarah Palin skits on Saturday Night Live.

Do you remember how much fun people had watching and talking about these satires? Qualman finds the skits interesting in terms of how popular they were, and where people watched them. According to NBC estimates, 50 million people watched the skits, but according to Solutions Research Group, more than half the viewers saw these over the internet. People had it pushed directly to their social network sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

I wonder if that’s how Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets his news from The Onion. Does he have The Onion “liked” on his Facebook page? Maybe not anymore. The satirical news source, The Onion fooled Ahmadinejad and Iran’s official news agency with a story titled “Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama.” The spoof article states that results of a recent poll show that rural white Americans would rather vote for, go to a ball game with, and have a beer with Ahmadinejad than President Obama.

Well, not only has the internet made it really easy to share the news with others, it has made it really easy to steal the news as well. Iran’s official news agency took the article (you remember it was a satire, right?), passed it off as their own journalism, and then published it in Iran.

I suspect heads may roll over this goof-up.

Qualman’s book says that some people think the SNL skits with Tina Fey may have influenced the outcome of the 2008 presidential election. Did some people think that was actually Sarah Palin? Did people mistake SNL’s comedy for serious journalism?

Similar questions can be asked of The Onion incident. Does Ahmadinejad really think I’d rather share a home brew with him than with President Obama? Really? The Iranian news agency can’t recognize the satire in The Onion?

Actually, I’m not surprised. Sad, but not surprised. Satire and verbal irony can be tough to catch. (Every time I go through Stephen Crane’s poem “Do Not Weep, Maiden, For War Is Kind” with my sophomores, I have a frightening number of students who insist that Crane’s message was pro-war, despite me and other students pointing out the gruesome battle imagery and lines such as “… a field where a thousand corpses lie.”)

So what if people get fooled by internet content? A lot of people are being fooled by what’s on the internet. It used to be that the reliable news sources “looked” reliable. They hade professional layout, quality graphics, good photography, and they were the only sources that could afford to be published or televised. Now, digital technology and the internet give everyone the ability to self-publish professional-looking content. If our material is packaged right, it might get passed along to others. The problem is that it takes a more sophisticated audience to recognize credible sources today than it did ten years ago. Maybe satirical internet content should have to carry a warning label or start with the standard opening, “A funny thing happened on the way to Tehran the other day…”

“Friss oder Stirb” aka “Adapt or Die”

I found Myers “Adapt or Die” pretty intriguing from the get go. Instantaneously, I thought, “Friss oder Stirb”. Just for the heck of it I punched it into my (online) translator and got back the phrase “It’s sink or swim”. Oookay, let’s go for a swim or let’s say a stroll down memory lane. According to the articles by Spilka and Carliner, I would like to show you how digital technology influenced my work as a technical communicator.

I think I saw Phase Two, the desktop revolution. I remember when I first started in the Technical Writing department, my coworkers had sets of manuals for each machine type, which they then photocopied and filled out (by hand) with the technical specification of the particular machine this manual was for. But one of them had already a computer and digitalized those forms, etc. But I think I remember that it was kind of complicated to create a table because the software didn’t offer these features – yet. The graphics – like e.g. for the spare parts lists – were done by a sub-contractor who did so-called explosion drawings. These graphics really showed well how each part fit in with the other ones to form for example a gear. When the company acquired computer-aided design tools, those drawings were replaced by two-dimensional drawings that didn’t fulfill the purpose as well. The engineering department created all those graphics since none of us technical writers knew how to work with CAD programs.

Of the GUI revolution, or Phase Three, I didn’t feel the impact that considerably. For the same reasons Carliner states, we used PC’s. Microsoft Word was the program of choice to do the operating instructions, to integrate sub-suppliers documentation and so forth. We never gave our manuals out to print. They were all customized and delivered in such low numbers. From the copy machine to the laser printer was just a small step for our department.

Since our department created just manuals, not websites, the impact of Phase Four, the Web1.0, was also pretty low on us technical writers. I remember, we had some requests for online documentation. So we converted our word files into PDF’s and were proud that we could connect the table of contents to the appropriate chapters. The last change I remember before I left was that we gave clients a login possibility to our website where they then had the chance to download the PDF file to their specific machine. We were pretty proud of that service. No wait, yes, we just started to integrate our documents in a small content management system, but it was very difficult to navigate and work with. So we ended up using it just for one machine type – an insignificant one. The documentation procedures for all other machine types remained the same.

Of Phase Five (Web 2.0) I just learn here in this program. It is interesting to use some of the newest technology in a safe classroom setting before purchasing it on company’s expenses and then finding out that it doesn’t quite fit the requirements. Many programs are great to use in some part of our professional lives. Others are just not practical for some work situations.

However, when reading Spilka’s and Carliner’s works, I just realized how much I already adapted throughout my working years – without ever paying attention to it. It almost happened unconsciously. I guess what I would like to say is that if we are truly interested in this profession we will find a way to adapt to new technologies, as we will find our own place, our own niche to succeed as technical communicators. Do we have to adapt to each new technology that is out there? I don’t think so. We just have to pay attention and keep ourselves updated and then pick and choose for our specific situations. Sometimes there is a different way than “Friss oder Stirb” or “Adapt or Die”. Sometimes we don’t have to adapt to each new trend out there. Sometimes we won’t die right away.

Technology and Technical Communication

I always find it fascinating to read about the history of the technical communication profession. It is undeniable that technology—particularly the advent of personal computers and the Internet—has completely transformed the landscape for technical communicators. Saul Carliner’s chapter (Computers and Technical Communication in the 21^st Century) in Digital Literacy for Technical Communication does a great job describing the impact of technological changes on the role of the technical communicator.

“Technology has always played a central role in technical communication. At first, it served primarily as the subject about which technical communicators wrote. As various publishing technologies emerged, the technology also became the tool that facilitated the work” (p. 45).

Advancements in technology have certainly made life much easier for technical communicators today than in past decades. Frankly, I can’t imagine the amount of rework that communicators had to put into early documents created using a typewriter, retyping content for each correction or addition. Additionally, the challenges that came along with printing and formatting in the 1970s and 1980s were considerable. Today we, as technical communicators, have fancy software that comparably makes it a breeze for us to perform our jobs, and to create an appealing and usable product that meets the needs of our audience.

While I came away from this chapter with a new appreciation for all the technological advancements we benefit from, I also now recognize that the role of the technical communicator has become a lot more complex as well. Not only do we have more than ever to document (i.e., our potential subject matter has increased significantly), but there is an infinitely larger audience to reach.

In my current position, audience is something we constantly try to evaluate. In writing about my company’s products, it is sometimes difficult to know what level of knowledge and skill an audience has right off the bat. Some users are probably well versed in using computers and technology, others may not be. What do we assume the user already knows? This is even further complicated by language and cultural barriers. Even when a company only produces content for an audience within the United States it can be difficult to determine an appropriate reading level and vocabulary.

I have to admit, I’m thankful to be a technical communicator today, with all the technology we have available to help us do our jobs. But I certainly acknowledge that this same technology does add to the complexity that exists within the field.

Roles change for technical communicators

For this post I decided to write about Rachel Spilka’s book, Digital Literacy For Technical Communication. I learned a lot from the first chapter regarding the evolution of technology and thus the evolution of the role of the technical writer.

Chapter one, in Digital Literacy For Technical Communication by Rachel Spilka provides a straightforward description of how technical communication as a field has evolved with technology. In this chapter, Saul Carliner analyzes one company—the largest employer of technical communicators—to represent the field at large. The result, in my opinion, is a robust essay that suggests technology has indeed altered the roles of technical writers. Carliner’s analysis begins in the 1970’s, “In a few instances, people were hired with formal training in technical writing, but during the 1970s, this employer typically emphasized technical knowledge over writing skill” (23). The primary reason for this was that they were writing for individuals who already had an in-depth knowledge of computers, who didn’t need a step by step guide or manual (22-23).

However, as technology progressed into more and more people’s homes, the audience of the technical writers began to change. That is, Carliner states, “Both the change in markets for computers and the rise of word processing and desktop publishing led to profound changes in the work of technical communicators in this organization” (26). As a result, the emphasis of the technical communicator shifted to include writing technique, audience analysis, and the ability to prepare user friendly guides. To show when each significant advancement in technology occurred and how each advance in technology affected technical communicators, Carliner breaks a 40 year period, 1970-2010 (roughly) down into five phases.

The fourth and fifth phases, the rising popularity of the internet as a communication tool are perhaps the most relevant to me, since this is what I have grown up with. It seems clear that the internet has had a large impact on virtually all aspects of daily life. For technical communicators, the internet created not only new topics to write manuals for, but also provided a new method to transfer the information from those documents. Carliner states, “Electronic file transfer had many effects on technical communication (38). Indeed, the internet made possible email and on-line meetings/discussions. Thus, Carliner notes, “Electronic file transfers also facilitated remote work, as workers in one location could now easily collaborate on or manage projects across multiple locations” (38).

In essence, technical communicators transformed from being product specialists to product designers/explainers. Their primary roles changed from writing for a few individuals with an advanced knowledge of a product, to writing for potentially millions of users with limited or no knowledge of a product. The primary result of the advent and popularity of the internet on technical communicators then is that, technical communicators of today need to have specialized writing skills. They need to be able to write across cultural borders, across many levels of user experience, and in such a way that all audience members find the technical documents useful. This is a large task and why we are all learning how to do this in the MSTPC program!

What Does Social Media Have to do with a Leaf Blower?

In his book “Socialnomics” Erik Qualman writes, “To effectively leverage the social graph (the interconnectedness of social media users), every company needs to understand that they need to make their information easily transferable” (p. 14). Let’s write this another way: To put to best use the networks of social media, companies need to understand that they must make their information easy to share. Huh, simple, but SMART.

I would say companies are figuring this out. Have you noticed how many opportunities you are offered online to click a button and post that you had an interaction with a company/product/post? It was bizarre, but again my readings this week tied into a recent experience. My husband decided to purchase a gas powered leaf-blower online both for the savings and ease of the purchase. (Read: Fifty bucks cheaper and he didn’t want to leave the recliner.) My husband, who only started on a computer a few short years ago, ventured onto Amazon.com, read the reviews and easily completed the transaction. What shocked him was that after the purchase, he was invited to click a button that would post the following to his Facebook page: “Eric just purchased a Husqvarna, 28cc, 170 MPH, 2-Stroke, Gas-Powered, Handheld Gas Blower from Amazon.com.” (I know, holy souped-up leaf blower! FYI: leaves wreak havoc on the job site of a concrete crew.)

The hubs didn’t accept Amazon’s offer to post his purchase to his Facebook page, but how smart that he was given the option. Qualman explains why, “The average person on Facebook has 150 friends – there is a lot of viral potential when one person posts a story or video.” All it takes is one or two friends to hit “like” or comment, and then the post is visible to their approximately 150 connections, and so on and so forth. In the event that no one comments Amazon isn’t out advertising dollars either. It really is a win/win for them.

In my current position I have been producing email newsletters. Newsletters are rather hard to get excited about anyway, but after last week’s Qualman readings that said emails themselves are on the way out, I have had an increasingly difficult time! Is the fact that e-newsletters are so stagnant exactly why? They are too single-sided? They are currently a grocery-list of upcoming events and relevant topics. This may not offer any significant reasons for the reader to even think about passing them on! My new plan is to include a section that has comments provided from the very-connected e-newsletter readership. Possibly if readers are also part-author, the e-newsletters will be more interesting and more “post-worthy.” Oh, if only I can make the e-newsletter as cool as a new, souped-up leaf blower.