My last few posts on this blog have been on UX, SEARCH implementation, WordPress for technical writing, tech comm and helpdesk, and on a documentation business case. I am not sure how exactly I prioritize what to write and publish first. I do not have an editorial calendar per se though I try to sequence a few planned posts if it makes logical sense.

When I look back at my recent posts, these are largely heavy posts in the sense that I needed to some homework, research, and some planning for first draft.

I feel that I need to have a time-off by planning a light post.

Online Presence

Few weeks back, I got to know about about.me. I found it interesting, as a simple option to create my quick one page online presence. I created my page and you can see it here: http://about.me/vinishgarg.

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A couple of weeks back, one of my old database administrator friend asked me, “How is work? Are you still doing the same work–writing procedures and instructions and help files?” I went quiet for a moment because I immediately tried to recall when was the last time I was writing instructions. It also made me think what I have been doing in last few months?

“Almost yes”, I replied and I realized that of late, I had been scoping a couple of new web applications, doing wireframes, planning information architecture (though not following any recommended practice such as card sorting), and planning UX as well. At the same time, I am writing SOPs but the core writing is considerably reduced from my work routine.

This quick question-answer moment gave me a good food for thought for what do I do.

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Of late, a majority of speakers at tech comm events and a few popular tech comm blogs are talking more about content strategy, information architecture, deliverables for multiple devices, and search and findability, and not on tools. It means that the way we enable users to access and find the information they seek is of utmost important, more than anything else. And it makes perfect sense.

In this post, I shall talk about how a select few products/brands provide the Search experience to users in the documentation. In addition to how the search function enables a user to find information, it is important to note what else a user can see on the search result page.

I have included the Search experience for Paper-li, BaseCamp, PayPal, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, and for CodeAcademy.

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Technical documentation has traditionally been developed in HATs or XML editors. It is only in recent years that the content management systems have caught the attention of documentation managers and authors as a potential platform for technical documentation. One of the most commonly used open source CMS is WordPress, and it has really evolved from merely a blogging tool to a product development CMS.

I talked on WordPress for Technical Documentation at TCWorld India Conference 2013, earlier this year in Bangalore. The slide deck is available at slideshare. In this post, I share my experience of using WordPress to develop the knowledgebase for a UK based B2B marketplace.

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One of the core objectives of accurate, clear, complete and a good-quality product documentation has been to help reduce the support calls to the product helpdesk team. Traditionally, the writers and helpdesk teams have been working independently and primarily, the only overlap has been when helpdesk reports are shared with product program team to identify scope of improvement in the documentation.

But old order changes.

The New Order

Jonatan and Mark have made some interesting points in their comments at Jonatan’s blog post: What Does it Mean to Predict User Questions Following a Reversed Taxonomical approach?, where they talk about merger of technical writing and support teams.

The increasing acceptance of user generated content as a part of product knowledgebase has given another reason to many organizations, where the technical writers need to work closely with the helpdesk or support teams.

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During last few months, I have been trying to explore content strategy on how it is different from information architecture and how and why technical communicators may need transitioning to be content strategists, at least  for specific projects.

For my current projects that I am working on, my understanding of content strategy has given me a fresh perspective to reflect back at what I have been doing and why I need to change.

Business Case For Structured Technical Content Authoring

I am developing SOPs for a Florida based business for around 4 years now. Since they had the basic SOP document structure approved by a regulatory authority, I developed MS Word documents templates based on this approved structure and started writing these and then publishing the documents to PDF. As I had anticipated, there were complexities and challenges in managing documents (revisions, review, version control and formatting), however I continued doing it in MS Word because (a) the organization was not really keen to overhaul the process since their internal team was also involved in writing these SOPs (b) I could not prepare a strong enough business case.

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The voting for STC elections is open now and I had a look at the candidates running for the STC office for 2013. One of the candidates for the office of vice-president is Paul Mueller. I know the other candidate running for the same position, Kit Brown and when I posted my conversation with Kit here, I got interested to know Paul’s comments as well.

You can see the conversation with both the candidates on STC open forum.

VG: Hi Paul. Thanks for your time. The STC elections are open for voting and people may be interested to know about your experience, plans and vision for the community. To begin with, “What motivated you to run for the office of the vice president of  Society for Technical Communication?”

PM: STC has given me a lot throughout my career and I believe STC is an important part of a thriving technical communication profession.

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The voting for STC elections is open now and I had a look at the candidates running for the STC office for 2013. One of the candidates for the office of vice-president is Kit Brown Hoekstra. I have not worked with Kit directly though we had exchanged a few emails when Kit reviewed my article for Intercom January 2013 (p 23).

For this candidacy, I wanted to post know her plans and post our conversation here on this blog space but I cannot do it because of STC elections norms. So I posted my questions on STC open forum, and here is the conversation.

VG: Hi Kit. Thanks for your time. The STC elections are open for voting and people may be interested to know about your experience, plans and vision for the community. To begin with, “What motivated you to run for the office of the vice president of  Society for Technical Communication?”

KBH: Thanks for asking me to respond. As I mention in my election profile, which is available at www.stc.org/election/category/vice-president, I want to give back to the organization that has given me so much in my career. STC has a vital role to play as the profession matures globally, and I want to help educate companies on the profession and help our members worldwide contribute to the advancement of our profession.

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At the TCWorld India Conference 2013 in Bangalore few days back, I attended a presentation by Jang F M Graat, titled as *Changing the Car without Stopping the Engine*. In this post, I have covered his presentation based on our followup conversation.

Jang is a technical documentation specialist based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He has been developing technical documentation for more than 20 years now, with core expertise in CMS, FrameMaker and DITA. Jang F.M. Graat holds Masters Degrees in Psychology and Philosophy and has worked in the high-tech computer business as a technical writer, trainer and consultant. You can see http://www.jang.nl for more details.

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Jang started the session by talking about the problem in current content planning and management practices.

[PPT Notes]: The problems are:

• Legacy Documents – huge silos
• Content Management – rewrite, high up-front cost

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On day 1 of TCWorld India conference 2013 last week in Bangalore, most of the sessions were on trends, challenges, strategy, content governance, and process of technical communication. Stefan Gentz from Tracom presented an important concept where he talked about Change Management, in ‘Leading the Change’.

Five Triggers of Change Management

Stefan started with a few quotes from history on ‘Change’ and added that it is inevitable, and the only constant in life. He talked about ‘Change Management’ and referred to McKinsey’s research that quoted five triggers that cause ‘CM’. Four of these are ‘Catching up to Rivals Companies’, ‘Completing or integrating a merger’, ‘Turning around a crises’, ‘Turning for a better performance’. However, the last and most notable is ‘Reducing cost’.

Before talking about Change Management for businesses and specific to technical communication, Stefan discussed what derives the need for change management. It was ‘Economic and Social forces’.

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