One year back in high school, my math teacher called my parents to discuss my disruptive behavior. According to Joe-Math-Teacher, I asked too many questions when trying to understand new lessons. Fortunately, my Mom defended my inquisitive nature; rather than discourage me from asking questions in class, she signed me up for a summer journalism course at a nearby college!
Questionable Discovery
Although my math career was stifled and journalism wasn’t quite the right fit, my knack for asking questions has been a fundamental element in propelling my TechComm career.
Technical Writing is often a problem-solving process:
Who needs information or what does the user already know?
Where is the user along their journey or when will they need this information?
Why does the user encounter this question or issue?
The delight when I discover a miscommunicated detail or unexpected dependency is like a treasure hunt, and asking the right question to the right person is the only way to get the next clue!
Practice Makes Progress
Beyond information gathering, the practice of asking the right questions is crucial for professional development, process improvement, and deliverable optimization.
For example:
Find Opportunity – Seeking to be helpful is a driving force behind many of my career advancements. What’s needed that I can do or learn to do?
Uncover Assumptions – Journey mapping and process reengineering specifically require you to consider assumptions. Is there another way to accomplish the goal? What is a different benchmark we could strive for?
Prioritize Requirements – Determining the minimal viable product (MVP) for faster delivery or understanding success factors are essential to keep a project focused on outcomes. What are the objectives and key results needed?
What have you asked lately that’s led to positive results or progress?
The focus needs to shift away from, “I’m an expert at using this tool,” to, “I’m an expert at understanding how my users interact with my content, and how the content needs to evolve to make them more successful.
The #STC18 Technical Communication Summit is the annual conference organized by the Society for Technical Communication, which took place this year in Orlando on May 20-23, 2018.
Incredibly, it was the 65th anniversary. This milestone illustrates the longevity of the STC organization. This year’s theme, Communicate the Future, exemplifies the forward-looking focus that we will all benefit from.
I attended to represent as President of the STC San Diego Chapter and to present about Future-Proof Writing – an extension of my Effective Content Framework tailored for the conference theme.
The #STC18 Technical Communication Summit is the annual conference organized by the Society for Technical Communication, which took place this year (65th anniversary!) in Orlando on May 20-23, 2018. The theme, Communicate the Future, was all about looking forward—strategically.
What does this mean in practice?
Innovation is a habit, not an outcome
The opening keynote talk, Perpetual Innovation: How the World’s Most Innovative Teams Surface Great Ideas to Deliver Exponential Outcomes, came from Carla Johnson. It was a fitting start to the conference and an opportune topic at a time when the only constant in business is change.
Per Carla, anyone can (and should!) be innovative. The keynote resembled a pep talk from which we can all benefit. As Larry Kunz aptly summarized, “Carla charged us to observe what other brands are doing, distill the parts we can use, and relate those parts to our own brand and customers.”
It’s time to adopt a daily habit of innovation and iterative improvements.
Really, the best ideas aren’t divine. They’re refined over time. That’s what perpetual innovation helps people understand how to do. Really, how technical communicators can become those innovation factories for ideas. –Carla Johnson
Embrace new content interactions
The latest technology-powered interactions are content-fueled interactions. Google calls them micromoments. At MindTouch, we talk about smart microcontent. Essentially, content professionals have an opportunity to impact the world as technology continues to evolve.
As Aaron Fulkerson shared at LavaCon 2017, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will dramatically alter content jobs. At #STC18, we saw many examples of new content interactions:
The conversational user interface, in its many forms, presents new constraints and opportunities for content interactions.
The Conversational UI comes in three flavors: Screen, Voice, and Multimodal @melanie_seibert At #stc18
— Alan J. Porter’s Content Pool (@TheContentPool) May 22, 2018
Nicky Bleiel shared how AI can take technical content and deliver it in potentially unlimited ways. She included striking examples of how Virtual Reality is providing valuable—and life-saving—training content for military and surgical training.
My presentation about future-proof writing showed an example of how Augmented Reality is creating entirely new instructional content experiences.
It’s a thrilling challenge to stay connected to the latest ways that content interactions are evolving.
How do you operationalize a customer-focused strategy?
Just like innovation, it’s an iterative and continuous process. Regardless of the technology used, you can follow a maturity model that enables your customers to self-serve through the entire customer journey.
Who doesn’t like to win? Unfortunately, when it comes to more persuasive presentations, chances are you haven’t earned a spot in the winner’s circle. A survey shared at PulseLocal San Diego revealed that only 14% of presentations actually drive action.
Yikes.
No one wants to give (or attend) a presentation that inspires zero action. Thanks to Arthur Schwartz, we can do better! Delivering more persuasive presentations was the topic of his talk at the latest PulseLocal San Diego event.
Phenomenal presentation by the one and only Arthur Schwartz.
I have yet to see a crowd this engaged at #PulseLocal
The key to preparation is starting from the end. Begin your prep by asking:
What is the ideal outcome of my presentation?
It’s a rookie mistake to get caught up in research, structure, or even worse— your slide design—before you hone in on what the actionable outcome should be. When people leave the room, what should they be thinking and what should their next steps be?
For a more persuasive presentation, start there and work backwards.
A strong foundation
After you have a clear vision of the outcome, you can design relevant and compelling content.
Arthur’s formula works for any type of presentation:
Create a powerful story – Frame your content around a story that builds emotional engagement.
Show up feeling like a winner – Use purposeful body language to reinforce positive thoughts.
Engage and energize! – Connect to your audience through their pain points or personal motivation, then educate and empower them with your content.
More pro tips for A+ presos
After Arthur’s presentation, an engaging Q&A revealed other tips to help make presentations more persuasive. Here are the key takeaways.
Eye contact – Take moments to focus your attention on individuals for ~3 seconds. Don’t be too systematic about, though, and organically pivot your gaze around the room.
Authenticity – When possible, engage with folks on a personal level with individual conversations before your presentation begins. Be the same person when you get in front of the room. If you take on a different persona in “presenter mode” you’ll quickly lose that connection.
Comfortable silence – Allow pauses to become part of the presentation. Your audience needs those moments to mentally process your content and you’ll be less likely to use those dreaded crutch words.
Great conversation tonight at #PulseLocal covering "Event Presentation Matters" and ways to create a powerful story that builds your #customer’s emotional commitment. pic.twitter.com/1gjcjfPblw
#4 Technical Writers. Even though technology has changed much of how companies get their services in front of customers, one critical component remains constant: the need to communicate clearly and effectively. This is where writing skills come in. Some even go so far as to say that a company is only as good as its writing. Since 2012, technical writers have grown by 11%, adding over 5,000 new jobs. There are now 55,000 technical writers working in every industry from software to retail to engineering to health care.
I’ve gone back and forth on my preference for using the #Oxfordcomma, but you can’t argue with how important it is for clarity in technical or legal content.
Court settles debate that’s divided grammar nerds for decades
Ah, the Oxford comma. Journalists often fight over it, academics love it and a lot of people don’t care about or even know what it is. But this singular bit of punctuation is actually super important.
Just ask a couple dairy drivers in Maine who recently won a labor case and overtime pay — all because of the state’s failure to slip in that crucial piece of punctuation into its labor policy guidelines.
I began volunteering with STC San Diego in the middle of 2015. In 2017, we earned two special awards for our 2016 efforts:
Platinum Community Award (the highest designation an STC Chapter can receive)
Most improved Chapter
Thanks to all the community volunteer leaders, speakers, members, and guests (non-members can attend all our events!) – we achieved something special together.
Don’t be complacent if you’re in a good spot now. Your network and credibility is something to build over time, not switch on for a quick return after a missed promotion or unexpected layoff.
Content analytics provides a breadth and depth of insight that can significantly bolster the effectiveness of your content and improve your content strategy.
Leveraging content analytics enables you to:
–Expand your skill set to help you get a job, earn a promotion, or even be kept on-board during layoffs.
–Prioritize your work for content migrations, localization initiatives, or when time is limited.
–Gain insights to improve decision-making, justify resources, or measure content ROI.
I presented an overview of what technical communicators need to know about content analytics, introduced the basic concepts and terminology, and gave actionable recommendations to incorporate content analytics into work processes.
Went to an SEO conference! Whaat?
I’ve been a technical writer & editor for 10+ years and never imagined I’d attend a content marketing conference. After just a couple months into a new role where SEO and Lead Generation became a major part of my responsibilities, I attended MozCon!
I love that my career has focused on technical support content and online self-service because being good at my job helps my company and customers at the same time – fortunately that’s still true with my new focus.
KCS becomes increasingly relevant
Knowledge Centered Service (KCS), formerly called Knowledge Centered Support, is a methodology to better manage the creation and maintenance of knowledge produced by interactions between employees and customers. KCS focuses your knowledge management strategy and optimizes self-service.
What I’m loving about the latest data around customer effort score is that so much of it is based on a customer’s *perception* of effort – which is actually possible to influence through effective content.
Direct Customer Engagement is a thing
The importance of customer understanding has never been more obvious than it is today. Companies like Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Tesla, and Google have woven customer understanding into the very fabric of their products. These companies have an advantage over their competitors because they can continuously hone their features and services based on a deep understanding of their clients. This essential business strategy is called direct customer engagement.
I learned how to embrace change and the evolution of content functions at LavaCon 2017.
Career success insights
Are you holding yourself back, without even realizing it?
The STC San Diego Chapter that I help organize hosted a presentation by Dan Ziagos about how his Tech Pub team began creating instructional videos.
My favorite takeaway had nothing to do with videos. A shining theme from the presentation was that the team had never made videos before. So why them? Because they knew they could figure it out! I highlighted my favorite bits in the pictures here. All you need is a desire to learn new skills, then take the steps to make it happen for yourself. What have you tackled so far in your career with this approach? Or, what’s next on your list to add to your skillset and propel your own success?
Design solutions, not features
Design Tech High School, known as d.tech, was founded in 2014 with the aim of steeping students in design thinking, a creative problem-solving strategy popularized by Stanford University’s design school. It teaches students to empathize with people before trying to devise solutions to their problems.
Google Material Design: If you haven’t already, definitely check out Material Design by Google. The same way that effective content must be functional and purposeful, good design should help solve problems. Incredible resources here include an icon library, design guidelines, usability recommendations, and more. You don’t need to be a designer to find value here.
Sideways dictionary: The Sideways Dictionary is “is a tool for finding and sharing helpful analogies to explain technological ideas. Because if everyone understands technology better, we can make technology work better for everyone.”
