Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
hello everybody and welcome to our state of the tech comm industry webcast My
is Sarah O'Keefe with Scriptorium
i'm here with a couple of very special guests and we are ready to kick this
thing off
so couple of notes to get us started we are recording this webcast and we
will provide a link to you and anybody else that registered afterwards
your name as an attendee will not appear in the recording
I'd ask you to take just a minute and find the questions area in the GoToWebinar
interface that's what we will take your questions
we'll try and leave some time at the end and we'll also try to sort of weave in the questions
if we can as we're going along also i would encourage you to use twitter a
hash tag is techcomm2013 for this event
so welcome aboard
and i want to tell you a little bit about our presenters today
so we have Race Bannon
who has what might possibly be the world's longest
uh... official title he is director of the oracle peoplesoft human capital
management customer relationship management and
enterprise components information development
race are you on the line there
i am
there you are welcome aboard and thank you for joining us
We have Paul Perrotta
Paul indicates that his preferred title is future emperor of the solar
system
but officially for now he will settle for director
of information experience otherwise known as what used to be tech pubs
at juniper networks and paul are you there
i'm here
alright and then we have Scott Abel
i came up with some titles for him but i can't share any of them with you. Scott is
the content wrangler
and is an expert in the area of content strategy and strategic use of content
and some things along those lines and scott are you there
i am. can you hear me?
i hear you
reaction
given some of our testing that was that was not a given
hahahahahahaha Scott is going to share with us some
data
some information that he has from benchmarks survey of tech comm he's
done over the last couple of months
and Race and paul are going to help us sort of assess some of these things and
talk a little bit about
uh... their reactions to some of the findings that scott has and hopefully
we'll get some good discussion around all of that
so i wanted to start with the very first question which... scott, what was the
biggest challenge that you identified
Well
I will first start off by saying i surveyed the technical communication industry
by creating a benchmarking survey an online survey form and I'm horrible at
designing surveys so i've learned from
this experience that just because you can create an open-ended question doesn't mean
it will be easiest
set of answers to process
so i had to actually
cull through the over one thousand results in the content wrangler
uh... communication
sorry technical communication industry benchmarking survey which all you will
receive a summary copy of the results in PDF format after the webinar
but by reading through all the
the comments, the anecdotal comments, what I learned was that the biggest
challenge of all is the lack of a content strategy
Now, few people actually said that they used the words strategy
but most of the commonly cited uh... symptoms that these organizations that
the survey respondents worked for include things like
inability to effectively reuse contact
creation of inconsistent inaccurate or mediocre quality content
producing content of unknown customer value
process problems and production bottlenecks
and of course governments lack of time money and resources which seem to always
creep in
but no matter how do you read need
the results you realize that
thee are all just symptoms that are indicative of not having a greater strategy so that
was the number one biggest challenge
so um... Paul to you, you're in a position of having implemented
a strong strategic approach was this your experience also that this
was the biggest problem was figuring out what to do
well so it got figured out before i came to this company but
uh...
we continue to have
challenges around us because of course
when you want a content strategy it's just not about the product documentation
i work in a high tech company we my group is responsible for documenting the
products that we sell to the customers
and to partners but
it's really a bigger issue than that
excuse me
it also has to do with understanding the content strategy with the product
marketing materials the customer support materials
uh... all of the information that is that surrounds our company and our
products
and how our customers experience that
and it's uh...
it's quite a challenge because there's a lot of people who do not want to
coordinate
um there are tools that uh... perhaps we're stretching a little bit beyond
their original mandates
and it is uh... a challenge to change the hearts and minds of the folks involved
even the ones who already know what they're doing and agree with the premise
so yeah i i think this is um... a major issue
for many people and it doesn't just stop when you're talking about product
documentation
Race, what about in your experience
um... in
pretty lucky in the sense that uh... the vice president who I report to, Greg Carik, who runs
all of information development for the peoplesoft oracle
um... is
not just a good manager but an evangelist and i think that is what
people in our
industry need to do with the banja light more what we do and how important it is
quality ever bet a particular issue uncertainly reuse of content this
something we we pick up the might get a pollution and we have found that that
has allow that to reuse and be far more uh... strategic and how we use our
content 'em we do have the issue of lack of time
money and resources because every organization as that though we've
learned how to work smarter not always harder
and um... we have what we've gotten the back-to-back and i think because of did
enjoy thing about organization throughout the rest of the or
um...
we've got buy-in
on i'm doing that they can that way we want them died which is
not only t_v_ for tech com
organization to do
um...
week certainly have these challenges there's no doubt but i think we're
actually addressing them uh... fairly strategically
to use that terminology and um...
and i'm i'm hopeful that
uh...
other organizations will
feed their department on par with every other organizations within the org
uh... man be seen as uh...
being able to use their content to go with the content help troop strength
better
and dun buy into the strategy cutting the body and combat you work at the
number one most important thing
and i think you know certainly from our point of view change management which is
part of what you're talking about this always
is always t
all right so stock when you take a look at the question of tools and
technologies would kick you discover what was what was the state of the art
what list was it so most interesting things that you found there
walked past a few questions and and if i could have a couple of you know i i i
asked him questions of these organizations like tighter partner
organizations that were
carter happy
large enterprises so i wasnt going after the single technical communicator
or uh... i wasnt going after the
the small apartment that uh...
wears many hats i was actually born at the dedicated technical communication
and training folks
and the kinds of things that i've will really interested bikes was i asked them
uh... whatever
what their innovations that they were planning for the future
what what's wilson technologies and standards that were
standpoint the support of making things happen
and what i thought was interesting was structure content forty four percent of
the companies
back out
complex products that are difficult to document multiple uh...
renditions for multiple on misstatements
state aquatic books i've been planned to use of the private exxon up on time
uh... to create their documentation
so at the x_ amount is probably one of the tools and the noticing that it's
certainly a at school
that uh...
the technical communicators or do you think
throughout the forty four percent that creates art let's not contact eighty one
percent
say that they actually use development something warm to create some of the
call
it's also important to note that the other flavors of that's about being used
thirty percent that same group of people don't companies
used custom
due to the
and other sixteen percent usaf book
request of you have eighty one thirty and sixty note you can see that that's
more than one hundred percent which implies that some companies are using
more wanted to be
the people of purposes or perhaps for mexico
and then of course there are software tools
i was surprised to find that
that that some of the tools that we wonder what's happening to them actually
are some of the top software products used in the technical communication
so that we bread maker still bipartisan the most commonly used software product
of amounts to be five hundred or so companies responded to my
uh... survey like cats and the results because they were large enterprises that
will cost api
static a technical communication sheets
and the second most common was it interesting
well and i never really thought about this that makes perfect least a good
sense this tex-mex smacked
screen capture
utility
uh... also very popular two-part series thirty five percent uh...
of more surplus survey respondents using snag it
and then falling down the list microsoft word thirty five percent still use that
as the primary documentation tool
adobe acrobat is in the mexican report captivated by adobe also the five
robocop number six also but they'll be
and then some competitors texts that camtasia
x metal offer is not going to like soft power point and had and adobe photoshop
through some of the most important tools used by technical communicators today
okay so bracelet sweet what's your response to that in particular i know
you're in a tax amount based environment
and you have any feedback on that kind of situation
yet pick you up republic act factional
offering total and uh... i quite happy with it
uh... we do the are highly customized dissolution
uh... to make sure that we can output to html
p_b_s_
uh... gary versions of our might help it better
uh...
a couple of things first of all i think
basic fact of
and i cannot implement ation is due in large part to having a nut
technical resources
on your team directly on your team
and work on
the of delivery mechanistic
pick-up innovation amid scripta necessary for migration think like that
uh... very often that check writing group will
implementa come out and if they don't have somebody highly technical as part
of their team they end up using a glorified where profit
and um...
fine
but uh... it doesn't
even begin
to and
except the power of x_ amount rushes have those technical people behind scene
uh... we ought to have an architect that each one of our teams that uh...
information about where tech writer who observed with an architect
um... and so they do with deep dive into our structure our content delivery
federer poked in i came out great but you
sneaker resources behind it to make it exp
and politics environment delinquencies
so a m very similar to what we have actually we are a customized
in-house doc book solution
we started uh... over ten years ago and it it was not really uh... but the
product troy to react to melt if you get released at the time
so we go down a dark path atop of past and we also use uh... epic as our editor
they are all highly customized with and go see a mess that we use
uh...
and we duke we did take many many inputs
we create
um... the standard outputs of html pbf
uh... various flavors won might help in that sort of thing
uh... i have to echo what rates uh... though uh...
you'd between not
uh... it it you don't have of recipe for success if you don't have
the technical
people on your team within the team that is going to use it to really make this
work
in our area we have a document we call that document engineering team
and um...
about
fifteen to eighteen people
who are dedicated to our tools for making certain that sounded cute stuff
up and running that we get the formats we need and can make changes as we need
to make them
and that's very important for us because um... we get to control helpings look on
the web and we have to change things as we need to
uh... the other side it is promote
content developer side we also have uh... we have writers and editors of
course but we also have information architect
and information architects
one of the ways that we think we're differentiating ourselves in the sense
of using them
to create structure and order and repeated bility
um... and predictability within our content
uh... so that we can take advantage of that when we bring uh... machine
translation machine work into it
to manipulate that content in ways that we need to
and uh... that sort of stars at the front end and aunt at the back end and
somewhere
with the output were able to do more things that we could have done otherwise
in fact we think it's a competitive
advantage to have
that's the kind of talent on the team working in this kind of environment
severe now having having looked at that
then stop i believe that's the next question coming to you is
and assert ties into this little interaction is the industry going what
kinds of things are you seeing
well what's really interesting is that
overall the industry is very innovative and and and i get on limiting this to
the larger companies that his dedicated technical communication teens
i'd ask the question what innovation on the planning for the future find because
next year or so
and what was really interesting with the twenty one percent
he companies of respondents said they will quickly moved to a topic based
concept model like develops
uh... and that was the most common innovation plan for the future
forty one percent of those companies
of a spot that was one of the things that they wanted to accomplish in the
future
uh... along with that and i think maybe hopeful perhaps many of the same group
of the twenty what percent of the movie to properties architecture
are also going to be adopting a component content management system
this is fourteen percent of the the audience
so that they would often on a content management system that yourself
i think the best that's probably amongst a companies that don't have one already
and that actually understand the need
for having on a content management system and don't smoke to the components
which
a lot technical communicators u_s_ race pointed out use virtual first or
pipework officers
probably don't understand the complexity of having
hundreds of thousands of
potentially topics
all over a file called restructured so maybe there's something some some who
have not cut focus on the jewel yet because of the standard to do that
person then
tried at try to administer themselves
but a bit over two billion operations in the third innovation with arnelle race
has a lot to talk about them in this section
and eleven percent of the survey respondents said they were moving to
creating video documentation twenty
and often they cited anecdotal reasons
because their customers are giving this how crappy are uti
at the palace this is an amazing thing that companies actually starting to
follow their customers who were creating solutions themselves
nasa race do you want to talk a little bit about the issue with video and
providing video content
uh... chore on
our organization our information development organization
um... began awhile back uh... doing what we we for to the video feature overview
and they were actually
fortunes six minute videos highly produced
uh... burdine camtasia
um... and they are
died
quality marketing quality instructional um...
uh... had a hybrid
video that customers
salute we love
they
deliver
in a very short amount of time a clear description of the new feature or new
functionality or a new direction for the company
and customers have responded by having thousands and thousands and thousands of
views
our videos were all on you tube
uh... want to feature is available huh
public anyone
and um... the viewership is just through the roof
customer absolutely love them
tight tight echo what got that we argue to culture now
and
when you want to do thumping what you do w_-two any search for a video on how to
do it
and i think
in the techworld that it's going to become more and more the case
that customers are going to watch video to both learn about something ahead of
time and also the deep dive into how to do it eventually choices of information
is that hong kong your side of the world is is ceo also says something that
you're looking at
we are we're just beginning
we have prototypes available we've also decided that we're going to use you to
go to distribution medium
and will be using some temptation like the software to to develop orders for
doing
and we also envision four to six minute videos so that is
that is our direction and that's something that were working on uh... as
a deliverable for twenty thirty as part of our uh...
strategic initiatives
we have a few challenges because
our product is not necessarily a graphical user interface product
it is a command line
and we are primarily
i'm sorry not primarily we are a mixture of hardware and software
it's
wanting to say yes i have a video on how to configure
uh... routers for example
but it requires a lot of
back and information
uh... for people to understand even what's going on that's one thing
second we we're we're seeing a lot of things uh... they could come off as
possible video topics
like install and replace procedures because
our
our um... equipment
needs to be in uh... special room that have to be a certain temperature but
certain power considerations and all
and uh... and it's very delicate and if you do
remove and replace a card
incorrectly
damage it and those kinds of things are run doing it in video
we drink mix
far more sense than it does to tab pages and pages of
description that may or may not get the uh...
get the concept across
what we're also finding is that it's a good way for people who maybe don't
speak english very well
in the video rather than having to go through the the printed documentation of
the written documentation
because they can craft com grasp the concept and i thought meant what's being
done in the print
as a general
uh... lot since lots of video
uh... come on the scene pushback in the comments from people saying i know that
you're in big organizations and the whole thing is you know scary
and expenses
uh... scott would you like to say something about the x_ analyst gary
inexpensive issue
you small-company ironed out but never like to hear this and that is going to
get over it
because it's going to happen and and here's why aps
aapse mobile applications that are
smartphones in tablets require structured information
anne systems back in a move information around to provide answers to consumers
not eight hundred page document sphere
find yourself but instead were actually offering as a service to our customers
with that
of their time we're going to have to be able to put these little apanswers the
small model for contact
really the question coat around that
that computers can help us move information to the black people what
time like one that white language
increasingly on the device that consumer can
jesus two units
i hate to say this but i really think that the technical communication
industry is fragmented
there's this
kind of the people who work with the company's annual maybe do it on their
own they've realized the potential
who are learning these new things and they're becoming extremely valuable
assets to the companies and then there's the tech writers
is about buying people that's the back and say i work for a small company
that's never going to happen or not let you know i don't want to do that
spoke warmly and i say you know what that that's not
but that's not the executive the park discipline
the you can't be
you could be a psychologist for a doctor and workflow large floor
a hospital chain medical facilities or you could be a single psychiatrist
working in your own office in in the collage in your house there's nothing
wrong with either approach
someone who's going to be more formal more system ties to the more process
ordinances that perhaps the other
there will be more reader
in the
small shop orders ones like all psychologists or psychiatrists one
doctor
one technical it works you people that
shared a technical committee job but that doesn't mean that the disappointed
technical communication is going to go down that path
the disappointments that this is content we produce as a valuable asset
companies inc world hate people to do
they will pay to do it in the most efficient effective way one stabilized
how inefficient they are and used to buy that
these departments will tell you that's exactly how this is what that except
bottom-line decision it's not that that's not me
there's some people that get left behind guess flat and everything that we do
want other some people get left behind
slip
will end and you're right
it is a business decision it's not a technology decision and it's not a tools
decision
is how much does this cost and cannot do this less expensively elsewhere
and get similar or better out there
in the actor better be yes and the weather data and your organization you
know i have people
coming to you and saying
that they are not able to do it because your organization's actually recognize
that this is an important change
june it's not just living before that he said it's
thinking differently about our jobs and i think this is critical or are
difficult
will end up in infect people on
we own making that statement
in my opinion we only
selling
but that's a great thing to do to go out and to say we need to have these kinds
of
uh... information snippets we need to be able to deliver it it needs to be
searchable it needs to be fined a bolt there need to be
discoverable ways of finding good information quickly if that is alcs
incorrect
and applicable
in ways that we couldn't do before
best just that's just table stakes metal
you've got to help out an echo what uh...
got that earlier uh...
number one mobile it where it at
uh... everything is going to be going mobile and any technology any structure
and content delivery
uh... strategy
really doesn't need to recognize at the world repelling mobile and if your
strategy does not allow for that perfect mobile content delivery
that is going to be lacking considerably second i think our industry at the whole
become far more comfortable focused
in other words i think there was a time when we did docket with uh... uh
necessary people prefer problem well all we have to have dock with the product
now information development group pretty how
either for or what we do uh... are delivering ka a multitude of types of
deliverables and content
um... that support the customer in many ways and they must become customer focus
they must have a business mind that how with the customer persuasiveness
although they use it uh... which opera played in what got that about mobile
because that is how they're going to be consuming a lot of what we do in the
future
so uh... we can't be in the file of my that and japan to do what we've always
done will not be comfortable focus and cockpit the customer focus
and we have to understand the reality of changes in in how people confirm what we
do such as well
i don't think you can
that's my girl
well i i i was gonna cut you off we've got at least lit up the questions with
this most of which came in on a variant of but what about export but what about
why i want to come back to this in the questions that we're going to be in big
trouble if we don't move on
uh... so
let's talk a little in the skies tie-in comments like something to say that this
is relevance
yeah i mean i think that that uh... think it's important for us to start
thinking about
content as a business after i've been talking about occurred years or so
several other thought leaders in our states but now it's a state technical
communication this is no longer
bitter tech riders i wish that people in our industry could just get past the
idea that you're not in control and more
it doesn't really matter what you think that video
and i would like to say happy supper unique because hai
wanting to be part of history
to wake up and realize that we're part of business
and business needs to create the best situation possible or customers we need
to retain existing customers we need to find new customers and technical
communication is marketing
it's part of the customer experience that's relevant
and it's no longer acceptable to me
and probably two other guests on the show today
to treat it as a isolated island where writers get to make the system
the with this
i agreed a you know
back in the before time uh...
when none of us have um... very much of an inkling about how this would go i was
a writer
uh... at a large company and we produced
printed documentation they got shipped with a product and it went out and
three-ring binders treatments orange county
and did
it was a uh... next it was considered
unnecessary evil an expensive just had to be done because that's what you do
when you're dealing with the government you have to have documentation when
you're dealing with other governments
governmental agencies that sort of thing large institutional customers you have
to have that
but one of the problems is that as we've become a more uh... consumer electronics
based company or country and culture
our business leaders are also looking at that time saying while i can get stuff
on my iphone why can't my company do that
and suddenly you look at what does this mean for me
reese was right if you're not if you don't have a mobile strategy right now
if you're behind
you need to going to be able to do that and you need to connect what you're
doing today
with but that mobile strategy is going to be
and by the way your strategy have to book forward three to five years
right as you played a where the ball is going to be enough to where it is right
now you have to be able to look forward and see what are people going to do
that means you have to have a plan
and it means that you as the
the technical communicator
path to articulate the business value of what you're doing because you're
competing for dollars within the corporation that other people also want
to
and what you're doing it's spelling you're part of marketing your portrait
customer support
you ought to be able to fill out there and say
uh... what idu is so important that you should give me more budget than you were
giving me before
and i can turn it around for you
and uh... then so it's hard to do
because apparently point that you also want to get more money than the other
people pass the burma
you know will into developing them
yahoo but don't you think of our times technical communication arms and this
would be not just
dot com are probably others
tickets so hyper focused on what they're doing
but they don't understand that the way to plan is to understand the competition
unit with other people were asking for what they were promises
you might have to up your game from the fact that you're uncomfortable that
there are operational
you had to be able to communicate clearly you're about which of the
organization are going to help them solve our products are reaching existing
past
absolutely if you walk into your dampened whatever decisions you need to
talk to when you say
i need to change michael
people laugh you know the rome fat is not the discussion the house what you
need to be able to do is to walk in and say if i improved this i can reduce your
expense by three percent
and i want part of that money back in my budget so i could in fact in further
returns
so you're standing on the market he said this is really cool that doesn't work
i know it's really surprising began to another governor you will be left out of
the room
and wind it up and you make the money
they want to know how you can make their life easier they want to know will cut
you must be happy
they want to know what what we do
not only deliver information but help marketing helped
health consultant help implementers help everyone
and you have to advance a life that because they
they still think of doc groups had dr
and you have to go into your organization and i think you have to
reach out to customer with social media plucking et cetera and eventual i took
that as well that you have something to offer them directly and and that is the
only way that you're taken seriously as an organization
you much about that they kept mine
is so much so by the way that we have renamed ourselves we are no called
information experience
we are part of the broader customer experience trained of fought within the
company
and we have up our broader footprint than we did even a year ago
but we are out there we run our own um customer advisory boards and we'd listen
to what they say
we run our own surveys and this is all it's expensive and it takes time and
it's a pain in the *** to do
but we get more insight out of that that anything but our business partners
within the company reusing and they're starting to depend on our
information
to help inform their decisions
solicitor we we are doing well
when hollywood
now or we start talking about this israel's steeple certainly also twitches
which is why it shows here in the partial eclipse kind of thano
and if that's you know the partial eclipse the easter terrified people in
the evil times
indeed total eclipse and or end of the world's uh... is the customers
contributing content great this is the exact yet ka collects foggy
not what kind of numbers do you have around this
well that's kind of interesting because i i i i thought you know i've been
advocate birth has generated content for a while
and aren't didn't think there are many people were actually
allowing the customers to create content but i think what happened was
there were some
and absence of permission as it turns out
we'd like to think that we can allow people to do that
so we think that our customers steamed should not be able to do
uh... create documentation because we don't think they show up
importantly brothers reportedly have real about it
uh... the customers under it
back to their customers
start creating their own documentation they create their own blogs that on
social media channels that video channels love you too
such turns out
customers are total redo within twenty percent cut companies recognize that and
allow their customers at documentation of cherry pop's
now these companies
that are in the smiths uh... they do not allow it for africa so there are some
rules
so there's some control of most of them use wiki based tools that provide
customers with some kind of web-based editing capability
and show the edits are usually uh... something that undergo review and formal
approval process called up
eight percent apartments that responsibly survey
who say that they have a free at it
content also say that they promote
customers three trusted status
that that allows them to add published collections and be in contact with out
any formal with it
now the also there were a telecom youth some parts of our company not
or the products that help people for example of the one that i i would like
lawful there was a level of scrutiny
that um... events and new content
undergo order order coming along sort of thing
and it's usually directly linked to the type of content being produced liability
noncompliance with associated with it
subversive interesting numbers there also similarly seventy percent of the
company say that they allow customers to create documentation and training
content themselves
so they can actually start a new document seventeen percent accompanies a
day and i think it's important to and i think about that
and and of that group
one-third about seventy percent actively encourage their customer students
how did your synopsis
so it along those lines i can tell you that we have recently completed a
surveyed
of people in the industry uh... high-tech industry
in one of the things we found
that we were very surprised by is exactly what scott just talked about
was that this is an important component of customer satisfaction
we measure customer satisfaction my bonus is based on customer satisfaction
scores for the company
and specifically for my organizations wall in promoting that company
are promoting the product services
what we didn't anticipate with how strongly
people want this to be able to
participate in forums in which he is
to discuss issues
people go do it regardless
but they want to do it with urging gates met with the company itself
because they want feedback
and and they want to be able to discuss
with there
our companies
um... representatives the problems and issues that they're facing
and presumably that has of feedback loop into a development cycle
or to feature development or to getting uh...
some kind of problem resolved
we were very surprised to find out exactly how important that is
we also found companies that don't pay attention to it at all
and universally the commentary about using those companies
was very negative compared to those who do
uh... provides some kind of
customer contact capability
and we can't ignore that i'd i'm not willing to uh... uh...
damage my companies are customer satisfaction index just because i'm not
willing to go
went right into the waters there
and that means were behind the ball
so we we see this as a strategic area
we don't un currently have direct creation
a content by customers
however what i can play it that we are
incredibly customer focus uh... we use um... you know cutlery buys reports we
present to them we ask for their feedback
both on the type of content
on the depth of content on how they want that information delivered to the white
are our news our structures today be and they think of other ways that we can
respond to their needs
and we can make although to heart and we really need to
where barry customer focus organization
and then we go back okay okay how can we deal with it it's better to pick up to
this book not content creation directly but we and then the other thing that
that art social media engagement it incredibly
uh... you know faithful linkedin twitter et cetera and we get on awful block of
feedback correctly vital packing up and then we picked up the heart we gather
the minimum to respond
thirty important actually and and what i mean by customer consider the content is
all about social media involved as well
i don't necessarily think it means customers actually creating a new
document on the website and having obliterated there
i think it also includes
people commenting on your website and saying i don't think this is right
unnoticed fifties um... values are incorrect and here's why
i can't seem to make it work
following these instructions what am i doing wrong and having another customer
say all you have to remember to do this before hand those sorts of things i
think are uh...
are invaluable customers they look for that
so this is still in our
nearly controversial enough
so i think we need to turn on tune do the the infamous third rail of tech comp
and uh... stop i believe you have a few things possibly to say unusual nl about
outsourcing offshoring
uh... yeah my paper topic
so i could up kinda
wondering about uh...
osorio outsourcing for a long time and when i was going to go presumptive
earlier this year seekonk she said well carpets in banglore india i thought what
better place to start asking about
outsourcing men to talk to the people who actually do the job
and high drama queen someone chilled on my face book my personal face for pays
for a personal opinion that
uh... when i was showing photographs of my adventure just about every uh...
prompting this particular technical communicators shed some statement that
basically said
hot without
if you want it done right you just send me the higher america
so cause i thought well that's right because everyone knows the british
authorities in the canadian simply don't know i think it's impose quickly
and uh... in if i could be just faulty bottle i wonder what
people who get the company's created and that was kind of a stupid comment with
respect so i posted
her comments over and over again on a whole bunch of social media channels to
get the discussion going on with an article about
and but i but it was
many of the people who are technical communication manager to manage groups
of technical writers in india were ever in the united states or and india
somewhere else
admit that there are some problems with
the content creation process when you outsource expat
quicktime member with uh... no guidance and and how they're paying for anything
except for
sure about what works
to produce a product
so i thought i was really interesting that uh... indians were like moved out
of course personal quality challenges their reasons for that their all the
challenges
so i think that without my thirteen of the american football greats and start
asking them as if the indians fall
that uh... the contracts out because there could be
stuff suck because they're trying it's like
that's not a racist things that believe that members of our with
say those things but i think that he had some here involved dot losing jobs and
out-sourcing which is why we're having this discussion
so i'd be interested to hear what goes to uh... what rates and all have to say
about the subject
of this is a great time
op our organization and about fifty fifty um... north america and india
and we have been rather successful
uh... in are hiring and our management and the level of quality that we have
gotten
from arent uh... parking in india
uh... i think a lot of that cap
do again with leadership from the top making sure it does
they uh... managers knew how to manage
reported uh... we also have a tremendous advantages in that we have managers in
india will manage those requested got a big enough team and that really does
helps
to have fun direct line a managerial support extn
the famed prime location in the convocation
we tried to
give them plenty of support plenty of training we do not just talk projects
over and play good luck
uh... which unfortunately met
people often will talk it over the band played here you go they get back that
result from a ko
india writer tibet
and um... i don't agree i think there are challenges absolutely
but um... though the managerial challenges both are not the much
challenges of the individual up tech writers in india tel
i tend to agree this is paul on it
it my experience but i've i've had um...
team members in india
for the last
i don't know thirteen years of my life
uh... i'd i've had some situations but did not work well
and those were the ones that race just described when you tell somebody um...
well we've hired a contractor in
india in
header bad or in tonight
and chinese and to do release notes and i need them in two weeks for a product
that's about to go out there for most important product
and by the way uh... you've never seen our system nor technology understand our
style guide or understand anything about how we do this and then when they
produce something that's not to our standard we somehow
get all uptight about it
uh... that's not the way to do it
uh... i think it is a problem of leadership
when you talk about quality issues and osi
leadership
problems
show up whether it be writers are americans located in america
or whether they're europeans or whether they are from england or australia or
anywhere else
uh... and i think you have to approach it that way
the challenges with working with india
com are fairly well known the time some differences is pretty big
their is uh...
a british cultural heritage that gets married with uh... a local cultural
that islam difficult to understand sometimes so we're kind of separated by
a common language uh...
to paraphrase church electing
and
you get to understand what those things mean
but professionals are professionals and i can tell you
that when we do
annual rating drinking on the performance of the people are teens
across her geographies
the folks in my hindi locations consistently have representatives in the
top
um... performance indicators
and it's not by don't think that's a coincidence i think it's because we know
how to hire we know how to keep people engaged and we understand that were
investing in our people to make the best kinds of choices we can for the content
we need them
to develop and produce
uh... that's different from saying
people in another country don't know what they're doing
covet
that is racist and um...
uh... say get a little ticked off when i hear stuff like that
tape i think it's important to recognize people
ta
a problem with their jobs going away uh...
and and the they're fearful of that and they don't want that to happen so that
it's easy to kind of bash
at people who aren't
but i think that's a very limited way of looking at something
uh... kind of rude to me as something that's
the author sticking their anagram
right it's it's kind of like let's just pretend this is all happening will just
keep saying that
you should hire because
you know where american right person marking the mayor's you know sometimes
involving you've had this experience projects don't pan out to be cheapens
the with hot spot originally because of all kinds that got to do to manage
project that you could uh... but
but the because with out there
angle which is this is back to it being a business decision
it's a business decision
it's not that great markets
it's not punctuation description decision if not i felt like this is that
this is a business decision so
involved but level
discussion in the baltic people acting like
businesspeople dsa uh... writers upset about
judgment losing their jobs
you know i i i think you're right and every few probably have the same
the the thing issues where you have development going on in different
locations uh... our strategy is to call it a writers as best we can with where
the developers are
that drives a lot of the discussion right there
for the parts that say uh...
you know you know we think this is cheaper to do something in india
i pushed back on my own people uh... earn in our own business partners here
to ask them what they think it's cheaper if you're just gonna go by
um... annual salary
that may be less expensive
uh... by the way if you say that you can hire two indian writers for every one
writer in america or two-and-a-half or three people use different uh... metrics
so say you had one rakhi here in america and you hired three people in banglore
you just spent the same amount of money that you were gonna spend cn america so
it's not though you just saved money
so you can't use the i'm gonna save money uh...
argument right
what you can say is i'm going to get more out a bit for the same outlay of
money but that's a different discussion
he cannot how you're going to save money 'cause saving money means not spending
and if you're going to spend it
you should spend it wisely
and that means you have to say what am i going to have to do to make a successful
well you can just have a staff meeting once a month and hope everyone got it
it means you have to be engaged
and you have to have hopefully people on the ground i happen to as well
who are very good
it is a process and it's like building a team anywhere else and you have to go
visit and you have to
to you basically water and feed the people there just like you would hear
well if you grapple that up and say now what this we fixed that less expensive
for more expensive you can have an argument i'd i've seen
i've certainly generated numbers on both side to that uh... and discussion not
yeah i agree with everything except alanna and i think that
it really dot come down to
created an innovative and actual management
and understand that you must support the people in in
uh... in ways that you might not always have to do with the local with the
knowledge is is tribal and almost buyout motive
whereas when you have a more remote team
i'm you obviously have to make a concerted effort to do the training to
do the checking to make sure you're engaged
uh... i i'd leverage of what you think for example a webcam liking either
basically that talking to them
object uh... one other strategy i highly recommend when you have
eight u_s_ and a non-u_s_
uh... team
is two pair one of your information developer technical writers you call
them uh... with uh... better based in the u_s_ of make perhaps a lot of
experience with someone out to make them in ongoing coaching pair and you make
sure that they stay engaged in a state st check every now and then in the
athlete of the questions federer
and that person who promote now you belief ordered nick got kind of a
partner in the game
and back right there with my team becker everyone up
and especially when the but the new hires remote edit relief teams to help
agreat deal in making sure that peeps that person killed like
part of the team and not just hired help
offshore
and i think i agree with the stumps
living enormous number of really good questions coming into temp want to get
to if i didn't let me just point out that i've seen a off a lot of bad tax
com come out of these so-called really awesome american writers
self there is no question got out there have been no question about
happy birthday i don't think that brigade
no immunity in thailand
on and ask each of you to give me and fairy that there is sort of version of
what is the s strategy to free future proof attached concrete
while you were doing that i'm gonna start time going through the questions
and see if i can't com kind of get some of these summarized silicon address
those but in that you know a very very short stories ten seconds uh...
stock was the best thing that somebody can be a future proves that exxon
currier
become relevant technical communication is just what type of communication and
vision work to be involved in all forms of communication
side-impact customer sir
lieutenant paul
and i i think you need to become far more business literate you need to
understand numbers to understand trends
to be able to associate your work with worked it's important for your company
and to make a convincing argument
race
i think you need to be comment digitally illiterate which it how i predict that
possible
not just text eight seventeen eighty beat it graphic design you need to be a
video creator and video editor and audio after etcetera
and um... the more of those skills you have the more you for your biko and
forget any organization
could we not delivery information and many many ways
sentences served our audience needs those three things too hard to keep
being good shape
now let's take a look here uh... and let's see what i can get through
um... questions about functions of the team technical an architect writers and
editors are there other functions that are on your team uh... paul
yet so we have um...
writers and editors
we have lead writers who were coordinators of on projects
who are at the uh...
product team
representatives who helped and the schedule issues all that kind of thing
we have managers
we have
managers of managers and directors
then we also have uh... knowledge engineers who are people who are
exceedingly skilled they have uh... multiple certifications they've worked
in the field
car i'm basically solutions engineers for the products that we spell
uh... we have information architect
who are i'm helping understand the underlying structures of our content and
what we want to do with that
we have document engineers documentation engineers who are software engineers
that we hire
well here in america and in india and they work on various parts of the
tooling that we need to do
uh... and we have a vp of all of them permission experience
okay uh... mud season passes around tools entrees somebody said yeah accent
no whatever whatever each team all times
without a doubt it standard uh... i greeted
many people want collaborative and
uncertain if the delivery certain kinds of content that he has a very good
example each channel five makes a lot of time to come back if you're getting
beshi them up in the world
and i think it's it can take the kids and i think
uh... x unalloyed far more manipulate evolves
word
and and um...
uh... in certain isn't it that could understand white shelf life with you dot
headband and this is not a neighbor or question
writing about companies are talking about homeless take one with at fifth
third not however that stuff
uh... somebody else wanted to know on the ballot
what about metcalf they say
yeah what about right now
about but the mind still
well they didn't have your skill and i think the cancerous
i figure out your strategy before you start asking questions about tools that
is my answer to every single tool question i have here of which i have
many the answer is figure out your strategy before you ask about the school
so make sure and make sure it's a tool that will be around at the portable and
walk well with you
and um... don't always buy into that
something that may not be there in in two or three years
but none at all not only that but i think that would it make nick dot l
it w colleague or not
kapitanoff empathize enough that you can not believe the product literature about
the product
are the tool that you want to buy you you'd have to go talk to people
identities do what they favor if you are the most led by far the most popular
categories questions i have your boils down to about what about fill in that
school x
the answer is
we cannot answer that question because we do not know your situation
npr.org that's a great idea is not helping you thought about both of you
want to buy a house you'd need way more important things like
argued that the paperback half
do you have uh... buckingham paper that power however the group that you have
time if you have to do the business is about to give you a lot
this is the site
you cannot balance a but have heard that you
on my house it's it's it's it's like a malaysia five thousand war against doing
it because we've been trying that's what we need a to perhaps it's
and
uh...
okay some questions let's see
uh...
and in the category of nearly the same question is what about the tools i have
what is in indian writer calls for an hour
present act needless and i will is which number should i use
exactly the character matically appeared publicly impossible question to ask that
you could come up with the metric a copy of the picture of it
uh... it very for much work toward what is their job category are the more the
engineering doctor i pursue the writers side uh... we have a lot of our own
support operation in india there be a little bit more technical um...
it's all over the map i i don't know that i could answer that
the packages and and you have to also build in the fact that the fringe that
you're going to be them
so that includes benefits and stuff
if structured wildly differently than it is the united states and than d
the overall pay package
is not just the salary justin whose america but you have to remember it
they're different multipliers
um... there's a question about ratios um... talking you see anything that the
ratio of the year
information development people to com
engineering
organization
well okay so it goes uh... anywhere from
uh... i think the smallest is we have twelve engineers provider for some teams
and that goes up to eighteen to twenty two our average is right around eighteen
uh... we think that that's way too big and word we're drowning in that
that's very hard for us
okay race you have any similar approximations
um i actually got because it really depends upon uh...
the teen that tom correlates to the information developers some are in
you know hyper development mode so i'm not too much we tend to
uh...
cynic setup are art one thing that that happen in our our kids that we are
constantly be sharply arm band on the need uh... sodas era of on the right
kind of technical writer and i know one product and i mean if they were that
product revver it gone
um... that area accurate i agree with you and in fact i think the better
metric
is not who
engineers two writers
uh... because you have to ask yourself doing competitors in that doing quit
managers without project managers it gets very slippery very quickly i think
the far better metric is to say what do i spend holistic lee
for all of my information development and how does that compare whitby overall
engineering development cost
and electric are far more competitive every latin america there is a value
right you want to know that for a reason why he went out
what the and
uh... your arm out
started up a far better accurate uh... that's a far better measure of your
of the total investment by the company in the function
and you can after
budgetary changes that based on those numbers
rather than getting onto a project by project
location by location discussion between and was discussion you won't like sicken
enter our live return on investment discussion which i think it's what
we really need to have more filled in the metric that we talked about are
opportunity
people most sold last words
and i have a half a dozen questions here that all pretty much boiled down to you
how do i convince
x to do
lie
so how do i make a small business owner aware that doctor said house that how do
i get management by in it for this highlights l documentation as a business
asset all these kinds of things
uh... do you have a choice answer to the question
how do i sell this
yemen problem too
kickball with persons listen what listen
palton saying that's not making a business case which means i understand
what it cost you to do things today first what you would like to do with it
you know what that will cost
in order to do that you need a strategy for actually building this out this new
vision that you have and he had called you need a basin of the future something
in the future that we're gonna any important yourself
the people who are in the impact your ability to check
the second partners
you need to learn how to manipulate
indeed
this is all statements about their keep goin to on the library we now
psychological luther
uh... about human behavior
and realize that you need to have a good day ordered away of seeing today
races couple is a has done something there's been somebody who's hahaha
moments of the time effort to understand the people they're trying to
requests
and get my bride people that
are going to be a success copper members of the people some unique notebook your
story because the story and the human factor that didn't sound
and when you're trying to help you in internal organization to let you do what
you want to do and you believe he should do
start small prototype then deliver a small project and show that customers
love it
and there is nothing better than proof
the cutthroat like something
and believe me the moment somebody realizes internally pick up a bit like
something you do
even if it dot on the small fail to start they can prove it
they will want and you have to keep doing that over and over not everything
will work out
the one fifty workout um... are going to at tremendous value to your organization
in the pickup trucks carrying attitudes it got it
i completely agree with both dan and i think also
yet to reiterate that you need to understand when you're talking with your
internal partners your boss whoever did you wanna convinced
you gotta understand what problem it is that they're trying to fall
let me tell you they're not trying to follow do your bullet lighten up
they are trying to halt can i make payroll this week can on e invest in
equipment that will help me do pumping twenty percent faster next year and may
be crushed by competition
i
they're focused on big issues and if you can go up and say
i can help you with uh... i think i can get two percent better inefficiency if i
get this kind of money
that is the language they want to talk and
so i'd i think everybody that's on the car will be different for a couple of
minutes that there are so great questions there
uh... brace and scott and paul thank you so much for participating we trying to
get all the questions but they were a few that we're so big that we just can't
even possibly attempt to attack them
uh... thank you all for coming and we hope to see
again on another event i've got a couple of her webcast hosted on one of these
this is is just as the contact wrangler events
and if you could have been station see all of those there
if you have any other questions feel free to send me email or sky uh...
polymer is are also trying to pull or you can send us email will forward it
along
and uh... thank you again and we'll see you on the next one