Technical Writing in the Times of Recession Image Courtesy: Anne Gentle

Purpose and OutlineTo share and gather ideas to adapt and excel in our current jobs and enhance our value as technical communicatorsWhat has changed?What are organizations doing?What can writers do (with and without system support)?

Our performance conditions have changed. Fewer writers; more load Shutdowns; work days crunched No/low raise Variable compensation southwardPerformance awards/bonuses remainReason to adapt, excel, and enhance remainsThe publishing model is changing. CD + Web (print is out) Round-the-year, need-based, smaller updates Embedded documentation Multiplicity of information types – more video request, findable videos Continuous endeavor to improve searchSo what has changed in the last two years?

Saving money wherever possible Reducing outsourcing Removing “value-add” roles Reducing the scope of changeReaching out to the users Prerelease, user conferences, social networking Help as part of the ecosystem http://www.adobe.com/support/robohelpImproved search experience Community publishing systemEmpowering employees Update Help, web pages independently Blog about products Interact with the communityWhat are organizations doing?

Understand the business context. Shift focus from tools to business, identify new user bases, workflows. Take initiatives to: Integrate with the product team Collaborate with other arms of the organizationBreak into outsourced areas. Proofreading, content editing, Legal review, training creationEvolve into a community manager. Go frugal. Write less. Free up time to play Community Manager.What are our opportunities?

Write differently. Scannable style Make topics findable (title, opening lines, keywords, links) Know (guess) users’ search terms, use them at least once prominentlyDirect traffic to Help. Link to Help from blogs and forums (use anchor text)Update frequently to stay at the top of search results.Optimize core Help for search System SupportIntelligent search boxes, smarter algorithmCustom search enginesTie-ups for analytics (web traffic/search data)Internal search analysis and research groups(surveys/feedback gathering)

Source Web (sites, forums, blogs) Publications (system support required) Internal sources Identify gurus, know where and when they publish.Fill content gaps. Use search data. Involve the community.Integrate with Help or link. Check attribution standards.http://help.adobe.com/en_US/RoboHelp/8.0/RoboHTML/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d11aff59bd8a-7ffb.htmlScout for supplementary Help Legal IssuesCreative Commons Product buggingPublic communication policy

Organization Mechanism to share feedback publicly Process and training to establish norms Acceptance/rejection criteria Dealing with inflammatory comments Rewards and incentives (gifts, stars, badges) Community publishing system (nice to have) Integration with forumsWriter Enable (discussions, give administrative support) Inform (new processes, tools, products) Escalate (technical support) Acknowledge (‘Thank you’ mail, points, blog, integrate with Help) Energize (share feedback, accept suggestions, woo 9% (write, acknowledge quality) Share (metrics)Create and manage user communities Neilson’s 90-9-1

What are the ways in which your organization is opening up?Is your Help on the web? Is it enabled for commenting? Do you allow users to directly edit Help contents?If your Help is inside the firewall, what are you doing to reach out to your users?Which writers are not excited about being community managers?What are your concerns about quality and legal issues?Know what others are doing

FacilitationArbitrationPrudenceWeb Savviness Collaborative, web-friendly writing styleAbility to deliver “good enough” qualitySo what are the new and differentiating skills?

Going forward …SaaS application documentationTwitterVirtual/real conferencesProduct evangelismExperience designhttp://www.slideshare.net/bogov/trends-in-technical-communication-presentation

ReadingConversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation by Anne GentleThe Art of Community by Jono BaconClimbing Levels of Collaboration by Anne GentleParticipation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute by Jakob Nielsen Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushikhttp://www.kaushik.net/avinash/

Thank You!Nandini GuptaSenior Technical WriterAdobe IndiaImage credit:Slide 4: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.htmlSlide 6: Adobe Systems, OmnitureSlide 8: http://justwriteclick.com/