Studying
Affects of Routing Information Through Networks of Communication
Affects of Routing Information Through Networks of Communication
Need to better understand this. It's something I do, and I didn't know it until today.
So, I turned to Wikipedia (something I find that I'm doing more often these days).
What exactly do I need to know about this?
How do I incorporate it on my resume?
How does my writing contribute to the process or structure within this business?
What knowledge will carry over to a new job?
What knowledge have I gained so far?
Does this have anything to do with all of the holes I'm finding in non-process processes?
Apparently, I am a significant contributor to the "Change Management" infrastructure within this NEW business.
Now, if you proclaim to be a technical communicator or technical writer, what's the first rule of thumb?
Change Management according to Wikipedia "is the process of developing a planned approach to change [within] an organization." THAT is a common definition relative to organizational change. It's about implementing the "NEW" way of doing something and focusing on measurable goals and the results there of. People are often resistant to change of any kind. And what we have to keep in mind is the fact that change involves "learned behavior modification". When implementing a NEW process, technology, or idea we have to first change the way a person thinks about it, next change how s/he approaches it, and then introduce that "NEW" process, technology, or idea. Modifying a learned behavior is not something that happens overnight. When entering the doors of a company as a new hire, you tend to run into people who will say something to the affect that they've been strategizing one way for years or the product has been written in this manner for years, so why change a good thing or why reinvent the wheel.
Well, I say to "Hell" with those people. Why should we always have to do something the way it's always been done. This is one of the reasons someone came up with the change management theory. Organizations need this to sustain their bottom-line..."cash flow", "revenue", "income". Whatever you want to call it.
I was reading an entry by Doug Davis, an STC member. He's been doing some research, attempting to tell us where are all of the Technical Communication jobs. This is certaintly what I've been seeing over the years.
Doug states, "These are the fifteen cities (including metropolitan areas) in the United States where over 50 percent of all technical communication jobs are found:"
San Jose, California ( Silicon Valley)
Boston, Massachusetts
Seattle, Washington
Washington, D.C.
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
Chicago, Illinois
Atlanta, Georgia
Denver, Colorado
New York, New York
Houston, Texas
Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Portland, Oregon
Los Angeles/Anaheim, California
Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Research Triangle)
Doug also gives friendly tips on job hunting like, "Ask your out-of-work colleagues where they were last employed and, if the same names keep being mentioned, avoid those companies like the plague." (LOL) I thought that was funny. My advice would be to avoid the company, if you know more than two people who were laid off.
Next month, he'll be writing an article discussing which industries are best to specialize in. I'm looking forward to reading that one.
One of my favorite websites to visit is "Kiwi Jobs". This is a website based in New Zeland. I started reviewing this site back in 1999 and have watched it evolve into something wonderful. It's been renamed, "Career Services" and its written in two languages (English and Maori, New Zeland's official language).
The Career Services website provides extensive information about different types of jobs. What makes this site so enjoyable for me is that you can search on a career title, look up a title alphabetically, or you can look up a job by industry. It offers advice, training, and further reading material about a particular job. What's really interesting? In the job description are testimonials from real people, who talk about their job. This site also offers career growth decisions and activities for developing children's (K-12) potential for the future.
How cool is that?
When you read, so called professional writing and you come across this: "&" and "@" within a sentence or paragraph, what does this mean? According to the writer, the reader is supposed to understand/assume what is meant by these two symbols. I've encountered these symbols more than once in source documentation (information given to technical writers by engineers, developers, sales people or anyone, usually considered a subject matter expert [SME]). Now I'm starting to see it in course design for web/media development.
I've been assigned to edit a media production (eLearning) that's being developed in India. When I use the word "developed" I mean to say, it's being programmed in Flash by graphical designers, and it's being designed (layout/wording) by an Instructional Designer. Our American trainers wrote the original material, but some of the text has somehow changed. My question about this writing is, "Who added these short-cut words (&, @) into the text?" This is frustrating for me. I guess I didn't realize that our language is becoming so globally characterized by symbols arising from telecommunications and the web genra called blogging. These two entities are changing the way we learn, read, and communicate with each other. What's going to happen to traditional English as we (ages 30+) know it? What kind of identities are we forming? Are any social groups really being left out?
For those of you who teach composition or any other writing courses, have you begun to see such symbols in your students writing? If so, how would you characterize these writers? What type of students are using this new terminology: freshmen, upper-class students, non-traditional students, or all students?
Silos are easily established in the workplace. In the building where I work, there are 11 floors. My building is attached to a different building, which also has (I think) 11 floors. Each building belongs to two separate, individual, NASDAQ, fortune 500 companies. Each floor on my building serves a different function under the umbrella company, but each of these floors do not represent the multiple divisions that stretch across state, national, and international boundaries. This company I work for is global, well known, and right now, profitable.
I work on the 11th floor. When exiting the elevators, you can go left (toward the window) or right (toward the receptionist desk and plasma screen TV). On the side where the window is, there are mostly contractors (consultants, as they are termed) and a few full-time, salaried employees. On the plasma side, you have a similar set up, but majority full-time, salaried employees and very few contractors.
On that floor, I sit in a cubical, where the walls are less than mid-height from floor to ceiling. At my desk, there is one overhead cabinet, where I'm supposed to store all of the DRAFTS, REVIEW COMMENTS, and PRINTED (Marked-up) COPIES of the manuals and quick reference documents I write. Other than that one cabinet, there are no other storage compartments. Where do I put my purse? Other consultants who work there are huddled in the cubicals together, bumping into each other with rolling chairs, when they are in the office on the same day.
Just across from me (if I stand and step immediately to my right) are the cubicals for regular full-time employees of the company. In those cubicals, which are the same height as mine, you'll find more space (width), more storage bins (two overhead and at least three under desk cabinets that run from the desktop to the floor, each having three drawers each, with the bottom drawer, long and wide).
There are large offices at the south end of the building, and along the walls behind the elevators are more offices. Executives or upper-level managers sit in these offices. Some are reserved (called Hotel offices) for executives and upper-level managers who travel, and need a place to crash while they are away from thier home based offices.
Its pretty easy to distinguish contractors, regular employees, upper-level managers, and executives. So, what are some of the distinguishing characteristics of my workplace silos. Employees get supplies. Contractors have to purchase their own or ramble through slim pickin's to get what they need. The badge strings for employees are black; for contractors, they are blue. Employees had headsets to use with their phones; contractors have to use the mute and speaker keys (and their phones are older models). Employees are scheduled to attend business meetings; contractors are rarely invited (contractors, for the most part, usually receive 2nd- or 3rd-hand information about the state and status of the product; information is translated and re-translated). Contractors are expected to work a full eight hours with a one hour lunch break, so they are on campus 9 or more hours. Employees are hardly ever on campus for that length of time.
What's great is the fact that contractors get paid more by the hour; the downside is that there are usually no medical benefits. BUT if you have a spouse who is being compensated and has medical benefits, the business is your oyster.
For the past three days, I've been learning, reading, reorganizing, and fitting together parts and pieces of documentation for GE. I'm working in a newly formed division called Asset Intelligence. The documentation needed will be used by their customers, installers, sales personnel, customer service personnel, other gatekeepers within the organization, and my manager to conduct training.
I've had to travel from Naperville to Barrington for the past three days. The commute has been tough, but I have time in the car to think about things and people. Anyhow, while driving: on day 1, I got lost; on day 2, I took an alternate route and was 30 minutes late; on day 3, I drove on the highway that I thought I should have taken the day before, it rained, and I was 15 minutes late. Through it all, my manager has been really understanding and I think she'll be great to work for.
What's been really great about this job is that I feel needed. Whenever I meet someone new, after telling them why I'm there, they get excited, smile, and welcome me all over again. Apparently, someone with my skill set was needed. I'm just glad that I could supply the demand.
Day one went well. I was overwhelmed, excited, and happy. Now, I'm tired, irritated, and sleepy. To bed, to bed, I've got to roll in the a.m. before the sun rises, and so do the kids. It's started!! More this weekend.
Okay, so I've been looking for a job for a few weeks now. Okay, okay, for about a month now. I'm saying a month because I don't count all the weeks I spent while in SNY looking. Anyhow what I recently ran up aginst is the "I can toss your resume out" syndrome. A company does this when your resume is dually submitted by you and a third party. Here's how it works:
What happens somewhere between Steps 3 and 5 is that you've submitted your resume to the same company. What generally happens with the company that you submitted to is that you never hear from them.
Whether your resume is submitted by you via the company's website, or indirectly by two different contract houses to that same company, you've somehow submitted at least two copies of your resume. (Here's the catch:) If your resume ends up on the desk of the hiring manager, and they've seen it twice within the same passing (whether that's been within a few days or a week or so of each other, your resume is "Filed 13"; in other words, your resume goes into the trash. This is a regular practice in industry, I am told. In fact, this happend to me; that's why I can tell you about it. I had never heard of such a shenanigan until now. Guess that's one of the ways companies are doing business.
So, what lessons have I learned:
From what I've read in a few texts dedicated to rhetoric and composition, voice is extremely important. I've always like listening to other people's voices, but not mine. I even enjoy listening to the imaginary voices that I hear when reading. The woman with the sultry voice. That man who sounds as if he's the tall, dark, handsome, muscular stranger. That teacher with the monotone non-projecting voice. There are so many different voices that we hear and imagine, whether we are reading a text or listening to a speaker. The only voice that I've ever been afraid of is my own, aside from listening to my mother when she's angry.
Why don't I like my voice? I've heard it since I was born, but I'd never listened to it until I had to stand before an audience without a written speech in front of me. I've been told all my life that I sound like a 12 year old; that my voice is squeaky; that my voice was not loud or deep enough. During my high school days, I even took a speech class. In competitions, I won 2nd and 3rd place trophies, but never first place. On the markup sheets, the judges would always state or check that I did not project loud enough. I once thought that if I had taken up smoking, my voice would have been deeper, but smoking was not and still isn't my thing; I hate it.
Fortunately, I had an interview a few days ago, and I asked that person, "How do you prep for a course?" She paused and then gave me what seemed like a two minute talk about course preparation. Within the course of her discussion, she said that preparing your voice is extremely important. It's important when you stand before a classroom of students because you'll be the only person talking, and probably during much of the course. This was a revelation to me because I hadn't really thought of teaching in such a way. Obviously, teachers love to listen to themselves or they wouldn't be in the business of speaking. Teachers are public speakers. Duh! And they do it everyday, while standing in front of their classroom audience.
So, what kind of public speaking training do teachers endure before they arrive in the classroom? If you are a teacher, and you are reading this, what type of public speaking training did you have? How did you learn to listen to your voice, to hear it?
It's not easy to stand before an audience of people and find your voice, especially when you know your subject. But when you have to speak, and you know your subject, how do you listen and continue to talk without becoming redundant or monotonous? How do you train yourself to think, speak, and listen to your students without losing pace, place, and poise?
So, yesterday I talked about the job. Today I'll say a blurb about how technology has influenced the job market. Technology has taken on an exclusive role. Everything is electronic. Classified ads in the newspaper are not entirely printed in the newspaper (that thing that you touch and feel with your hands; that has that funny printing press/paper smell). I hope that no one who is seeking employment is totally pennyless while looking. If you don't have a computer with internet access at home and an email account, and you are looking to enter the work force as a white collar worker (do people even use that term anymore?), then it is a must that you invest in a computer, get internet access, and establish an emil account. It wouldn't hurt to invest in a printer/scanner/copier/fax machine too. These are the tools of the trade when it comes to hunting for employment.
Classified ads in the newspapers provide an extended announcement and in many cases contact information via a WEB ID (that's what I'm calling it anyway). Some job ads may have a partial description and a FAX number at the end. So, if you want to gain access to any additional information about the position, you have to have access to the internet. This is where your printer/scanner/copier/fax machine will come in handy. If you can print and FAX over a cover letter along with your resume that would be great; that is, if you're all set up at home. If you don't have access to any electronic equipment in you home, you might want to try FEDEX/Kinkos where they charge $0.10-$0.15 just to make a copy of a single page and $1.00 or more to fax a page. I think that if you don't have the necessary equipment at home, it's going to cost you more money to go out and have someone else copy or fax your resume and cover letter. We have arrived in the so called paperless future. It's all around us, and employers are taking full advantage of that market-driven opportunity.
Just the other day, one company sent me an application (in pdf) via email. They asked me to complete it and then either return it via email or to send it USPS. Now, in order for them to expect me to return any information via email, they must have anticipated that I'd have in my posession a printer/scanner/copier/fax machine, or that I'd spend money at the local FEDEX/Kinkos, Office Max, or Office Depot just to get a pdf made and then somehow return that to them via email. And what would I have done, if I didn't have a printer conneted to my computer? Dell, the computer company, along with a few other computer companies is giving employers the misconcieved idea that all computers are sold with free printers. Is that what's happening now? When I purchased my laptop, no one offered me a free printer. Employers are being duped into thinking too that every household in America has at least one computer in it. NOT THE CASE.
An interesting thought just came to me. What happens to the scanned copy of the application, which has my social security number written on it. If I'm at the local FEDEX/Kinkos, Office Max, or Office Depot, and I give my application to Diane Somebody or Joe Yahoo, how do I know that they will completely delete my copied file from their system? I know that copy companies have to deal with copyright laws by not making copies of copyrighted material, but what about making copies of personal identification information? Who's governing that? Who protects the job hunter? Do you think I'm foolish for wanting to reply to an employer in the same method in which the contacted me? Well, I'm sure that lots of people respond to employers that way. What's more importnat here is that I think copy companies should sign an agreement and pass along a copy of that agreement to its customers along with the receipt, so that they become liable if their employees abuse their customer's information.
That's not all. When completing applications, I've found that they are mostly web-based. When you walk into a department store or drug store and ask to apply for a job, the workers seem to be automatically programmed to say, "Did you check our website?" They may even reply, "Did you complete the online application?" Walgreens, a place where I didn't think anyone would have to complete an online application just to become a cashier, has an online application and questionnaire. Many of the large companies require that you complete an online application via their website, even if the job was listed on HotJobs, Monster, or some other 2nd or 3rd part recruitment website. My...the business world has become employee-techno-savvy. So, as job seekers, we have to acquire another skill or should I say that they have to become techno-equipped because face to face searches seem to be of the question.
Anyhow, it's tough enough locating a job. But it's even touhger if you do not have the correct access skills, capabilities, and the correct assess to necessary equipment or money to to apply for a job. My goodness.
I’ve been in Naperville now for about two weeks, and I'm still looking for a job. What I’d like to do is get into writing and developing course work for medical companies or companies that work within some facet of the health care industry. I really thought I'd have secured something by now, since I’ve been looking since November. I just figured that sometimes when you want something really bad, it gets delayed when you are not patient. So, I’m being patient, and I’m keeping a positive attitude. The job market is not at all the same. Employers are looking and thinking differently, and technology has taken on an exclusive role.
What's different about the job market now than 5 or 10 years ago is that employers are being extremely specific about the skill set they are looking for when it comes to filling a position. Yes, you've got instructional design experience, but you have no pharmaceutical knowledge. Yes, you've written and designed WBTs and CBTs, but you haven't "developed" them. Yes, you've written and designed courses, but where are your samples for designing and writing a course that was instructor led (ILT, they call it)? You reply that you do not have those samples in your possession, yet they expect that you do. What do I look like...master holder of all of the work I've ever produced on the job?
It seems to me that employers don't understand that when you've worked for a company that you don't always get to take your work with you when departing. I would rather be given a writing sample on the spot and an hour or so to work at changing the sample into a set of procedures or a course. That would be a real test to see if in fact I can walk the talk. Now, let's turn back to that word: "development". Personally, I don't associate that word with coding or programming, especially when I'm not interviewing for a coding or programming job.
Developing a course...now, that's terminology I've been used to saying and practicing. Being able to develop a course from start to finish is a huge task. People who have never done it cannot even begin to discuss the intricacies involved, especially when having to develop a CBT, WBT, or ILT. And you know what? At any given time, you may not know who you are developing the course for (who's the audience?). The potential audience could be anyone. What's important in that situation is that you know the product and you should know how your company operates. AND one more thing. To develop an instructor led course where you have little or no contact with the instructor…well, you may as well trust your instinct and develop it as if YOU are going to teach it. That's all I have to say for now.
I've done some research on Google, but will expand my horizons very soon. It's been difficult to locate sisters and brothers who are in the field. I'm in search of any African Americans, who are in the business of Technical Writing. If you are in it, or know someone who's in it, please leave me a note.
Peace out!
The field of Technical and Professional Writing covers a wide range of topics. I've been looking around to see where the commonalities dwell. So here's a list of the different course topics I've seen that are offered at the doctorate level of course study:
Anyhow, that's just a few programs out there, and their numbers (programs offering a doctorate in technical and professional writing and rhetoric) are few. I just thought this was interesting.
After receiving the Statement of Work (SOW), one of the functions we (Technical Writers) carried out along with an Instructional Designer was to analyze what we believed learners needed to know and do on their job as we prepared to design courses or a set of documents that would accompany a new or existing product.
George Mason University's Instructional Technology Program offers an extremely informative website. Their Instructional Design Knowledge Base lists and moves through the seven steps of instructional design to assist development of a project. Task Analysis is step three.
A task analysis provides a means to "[a]nalyze the learning outcomes and performance objectives by identifying the domains and levels of learning and determining prerequisite skills and task/content structure" (Dabbagh).Dabbagh, N. (Aug. 2005). The Instructional Design Knowledge Base. Retrieved 8, 3, 2005 from Nada Dabbagh's Homepage, George Mason University, Instructional Technology Program.
This website also lists categories for determining the "learning domains" or cognitive levels (psychomotor, intellectual, affective) associated with how we acquire knowledge, establishing whether the goal is simple, complex, or somewhere between. AND it offers "techniques and methods for analyzing tasks and structuring content".
When I first heard of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) [pronounced I-SO], everybody (I worked with at the time) was saying, "These documents need to meet ISO 9000 (quality control) standards. If they don't we will be in lots of trouble." What they meant was, "We need to cover our asses and make sure we are in compliance; other wise, we could lose an important license or contract."
ISO is all about quality. Quality products implemented during creation and sustained throughout deployment, makes a solid superior product for the customer. (Or so it's said.) Not only that, ISO is about globalized standardards; it's one way of making sure that a company and that company's competitors are playing the same game. The question, as it is with most companies involved in complying with these standards is: "Is the competition doing it better." The it that I speak of course always involves writing documentation, but it also involves coding (programming), writing specifications, and writing other type documentation, right down to making sure a simple employee handbook meets requirements. In other words, ISO is about writing. It's about following a set of guidelines and principles in order to meet a common goal or set of goals.
Yes, I believe the ISO process and all that's involved in adhering to and enforcing standards is complicated, but if this standard were not in place, in some cases, the very products that you and I use on a daily basis would be extremely unique, and probably not, in some cases, compatable with or to its so called sister product(s).
Take for example cell phones. Each model is different, but there are some features as far as look and feel that must be implemented, like the dial pad or the mouth piece and reciever. What might not be standard, for instance, would be placement of the power button, whether the send/hang-up buttons were one-in-the-same, or whether the phone grants immediate access to a menu via a button called "menu" or whether you have to push some unmarked button, which linked to a "word" that read menu in the viewing window. Oh, yea, and the power plug you use to charge the battery. How many power plugs are there for phones made by the same company? Look all of my jargon here may not be specific to the different parts of a cell phone, but hopefully, you get what I'm saying. Anyhow, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is working to globably standardize cell phone technology, which I think is great, but I'm wondering what companies it will leave customerless (if that's a word). Wikipedia also has a blurb about this.
Oh, there's also an ISO 14000 standard. This standard enables businesses and organizations concerned with the environment (inside and outside) and your health, like for example the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), **to comply with specific guidelines so that whatever products are being developed or manufactured will not cause harm to humans or the environment**. One item that comes to mind when I think of companies that use this standard woud be motor companies. There are probably a thousand type motors out there gas, electric, or battery powered. Right? Well, motors have to be built to comply with certain EPA standards for environmental reasons and for consumer usage, which maps back to being ISO compliant.
We are all affected in one way or another by what results from ISO standards. Just thought to pass the word, or better yet, the acronym.
How do writers, who design courses or **Performance Technologists,** who help to write course assessments, determine a learner's ability to gain knowledge or to perform a specific task correctly? Of course, I don't have the answer, but I can give you some cues clues.
I still can't explain assessment, but where I used to work, they had ways of determining how well a learner would perform on the job based on test scores (I still believe this theory of evaluation is ridiculous). (aside: what do tests really tell us?) Anyhow, I always thought our method for writing assessments was a bit slippery. See, someone had taken time to design a method for calculating test scores against content and exercises, using a MS Excel spreadsheet, but we (the writers) never used the spreadsheet as it was intended. I always tried to follow the rules, which had been established for using the spreadsheet, but many of the people I worked with had found ways of bypassing certain items or fields on the spreadsheet. A co-worker once said to me that nobody used the information, so there was no need to complete the entries anyway. I thought, well why design the spreadsheet with those particular fields?
(...)
I was looking through an old stack of papers and came across some research I had done some time ago concerning how to write Performance Assessments for online (WEB and CBT) and instructor-led courses. See when I was given the task of writing courses, I was able to attended only one course, which was supposed to teach me how to develop and design courses. After sitting in class for a few hours, I found that the course's content was constructed with **designing the look and feel of the course**. It was not structured to teach writers how to write content and excrcises for the learner; let alone design an assessment for it. So, I had to do some research to first find out what the hell an assessment was, and second to find out how to write it into a course that I was creating from scratch with very little help or no help from seasoned course developers.
(...)
Of course, the URL on the paper I had found was listed as UofM...clara (whatever). So when I entered the URL into my browser, the link and the associated web pages had been updated.
So, if you are interested in writing assessments and defining ways of rating performance, (here's my clue) examine UofM's web site called, Virtual Assessment Center. It answers all kinds of cool questions like: Why assess? and What am I assessing? Check them out! You might like what you find.
In my July 21 post, Being Technical I wrote, "Universities and community colleges should look at creating spaces where Technical Writers can learn to diversify their portfolios; these spaces should include building relationships with businesses so that books used to teach—business communication, technical writing, technical communication, professional writing (or whatever they are termed)—are written with a true transition from academic to business writing in mind."
Since making that statement, which I feel is true, I've given it some thought. There are so many different businesses, and they all produce a vast array of documents. Documents for the general public, documents for internal use, documents that they pass on to their clients, and documents for shareholders. Any one book designed to cover that much *how to, what for* information could be tragic. Right? Yea, right. That's because the writing for each company is differnt, and their audiences are different. This leads me to think that books that are written for technical writers might be written so that they are site-specific.
Now, real technical writers, and the people they work with throw this term—site-specific—around all the time, but what would it mean when applied to writing a set of textbooks instead of defining a set of IP addresses or something specific just for XCompany? I think it would mean designing several thousand books (okay that number might be a little high) that specifically target a specific audience of people interested in technical writing for a specific type of company. This might seem a little far fetched, but stay with me.
A long time ago, I interned for IBM. (I'm not picking on IBM because I love the time I spent there. I'm just using it as an example.) On my first day, no, during my first week, I was given a hodgepodge of documents to read about what it was I was supposed to do while there. It's been so long, I can't really remember the document titles, but none aside from a dictionary, thesaurus, and grammar handbook were familiar to me. I was given about nine or so documents to read—this didn't include books that were on the shelf that I could use for reference. Aside from the dictionary, thesaurus, and grammar handbook, only one of the books was truly helpful. There was also an internal document, a cookbook of sorts that some folks on the team had written; it was indeed helpful, but suffered from lack of concept/context-building. But there was little that I had been taught in school that had prepared me for that summer.
I guess what I'm getting at is the fact that there is a set of unwritten and unspoken dynamic information that Technical Writers should be aware of before indulging office work. What's more important here is that the information I speak of is site-specific. No one workplace functions like another, especially in terms of document design and layout and audience, and what is expected of the Technical Writer. The **generic and generalized** books have been written. It's time that we begin to write site-specific texts for the trade. College and university students need some way of becoming aware of site-specific documents and how to write for them before they move into their profession. Is this not possible?
Sure, they say that the Technical Writer wears many hats, but how can we make it so that they know what to do when they put the hat on? What texts are out there that truly prepares the writer to sustain, generate new, and re-engineer what s/he seeks to define for a specific audience? What texts are out there that truly bridge the gap between workplace and academic writing? I can assure you that the texts writen to prepare the student for the workplace and the texts (if written at all) that they read or the knowledge gained once in the workplace are two different sets of documents.
Composition-rhetoric and communication writers who are interested in technology and technical writing might think about this as they theorize next steps for the field.
What does the technical mean when people use the term Technical Writer?
Well, that term suggests a few meanings for me.
When you have to interview or work with subject matter experts (SMEs), it's always a good idea to do the following:
We all use job aids to perform some task either on the job or while at home. A grocery list is a job aid for those of us who often need to remember what it is that we need when grocery shopping.
After reading the introduction to Clay Spinuzzi's book, Tracing Genres Through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design, I immediately thought, how do designers really go about designing job aids so that they aren't cumbersome and so that they are usable by people who generally work on a product or on a particular task. Bad product design can often lead workers to (re)write and list short-cuts as bandaid work arounds to help them better perform their job when the problem or issue continues to present itself.
This lead me to think about a book I once read called A Handbook of Job Aids by Allison Rossett and Jeannette Gautier-Downes, which is a great book by the way. In this book, Rosett and Gautier-Downes begin with their definition of job aids, which is "a repository for information, processes, or perspectives, that is external to the individual and that supports work and activity by directing, guiding, and enlightening performance." They go on to break out parts of this definiton in order for their readers to fully understand what they are attempting to define. What stood out for me about this definiton of the job aid is the fact that job aids deal with typified recurring situated social activities (C. Miller, 1984) that are associated with tasks and sometimes problems that can be reproduced. Job aids are a genre.
So, Spinuzzi brings to light several good questions: What problems result when designers go into the field, gather information, and attempt to formulate a job aid or guide for all to use? What goes unsaid or what is missing when the worker creates his/her own quick reference when working within a system? What gets lost when the designer attempts to design a universal job aid? What happens when site-specific problems are located in the design of a product?
Now, I'm thinking about design patterns, which are often related to how software programmers think about (re)designing systems after studying recurring patterns. If workers are locating and simply jotting down fixes to recurring problems within the system, and then jotting down the same fixes within the documents they are using to perfom their jobs, then how are these fixes (that have become job aids) being rectified and reused to develop and design better documentation and training. Although I haven't completed reading Spinuzzi's book, I'm hoping that as I read, that this is one of the issues he discusses.
So, what are design documents? What purpose do they serve? Who uses them and why?
I believe that academom and Derek have made some extremely interesting comments about the talk last night given by Yvonne Divita.
I was reading the February 2005 issue of Intercom, the magazine of The Society for Technical Communication. The president, Andrea L. Ames believes that the technical communication community must institute changes in the way they practice technical writing. That we must, "[D]emonstrate to our employers and clients that we improve the bottom line, and communicate that value in and outside our organizations and throughout our industry" (2). Furthermore, we need "[to] communicate our value throughout the industry, we must share our experiences, perform and participate in practical and academic research projects, and publish, publish, publish—not just to ourselves but to the world outside" (2).