It’s really an HR department’s dream to hire a person with more than one skill set – two employees for the price of one.

But when you’re ready to hire a technical writer, are there certain skills they should have in order to be most effective?

What Should Technical Writers Be Doing?

Technical writers are meant to be performing a certain set of tasks, mainly the construction of informational documents, courses and instructional guides.  Now, this doesn’t mean their skills can’t branch out to other writing tasks, but since many businesses now have websites to address, it makes sense that if the technical writer is handling copy for the website, that they might be able to handle the website as well.

Is this really the case?  For many businesses, the website was created by an outside company, who then launched the site and maintains it.  This is an arrangement that allows you to keep the web management separate from the daily routine of work – and it’s an arrangement that should stay in place.  Having an outside firm is much more efficient than simply putting an hourly employee on the task.

The Skills the Technical Writer Needs

However, this doesn’t mean the technical writer should be completely without the skills to understand a website.  Having some basic HTML knowledge as well as CSS will help them to better understand how their text will look on a website.  When they understand this, it will help them to layout the text in a certain style that will show up best.

And in a pinch, they can help the IT department with their text placement on the website.

That said, if you find a technical writer with web design skills, HIRE THEM.  Hire them quickly.   That is a person who can be more valuable to the company than most people who are assigned the writing you need.

What are your thoughts? What skills make a technical writer more valuable?

Related topics
Technical Writer: Which Skill Sets are Important?
Considerations When Hiring a Technical Writer

The latest survey results indicate:

• 61.45% responded that they do not have a degree in Instructional Design
• 36.92% indicated they have a graduate degreein Instructional Design
• 1.64% indicate that they have a non-graduate degree in Instructional Design

The results may suggest that employers typically do not make having a degree in Instructional Design a top priority for learning professionals they hire. Those that do have a degree requirement are more likely to stress a graduate degree in the field than a Bachelor’s degree.

Connie Malamed, of The eLearning Coach, has compiled a top 10 list of what she believes are the qualities, knowledge and skills the ideal instructional designer should possess or develop. Her list focuses on instructional design for eLearning.

10 Qualities of the Ideal Instructional Designer

What do you think are the most important skills an instructional designer should have to be an effective in an elearning position? Leave a comment.

Find an Instructional Designer through WAI

by Kerri Barber

For years we have complained about having to sit through boring meetings full of inept presenters with their nicely prepared slide presentations, where meaningful information is buried in copious amounts of text. We’ve rolled our eyes, entertained ourselves with Meeting Bingo, and even took bets on who would fall asleep during staff meetings. We were not really listening anyway. How could we when the presenter made it nearly impossible to do so? For all our angst, we have often been just as guilty as those horrible presenters we are so loathe to endure.

Any repentant presenters can find thousands of good resources to help improve their skills and help them craft award-winning slides. Still, the problem persists and is even becoming ubiquitous in every company and across every industry. Why do we continue to torture ourselves and others? The problem may be simpler than you think. The two deadliest communication killers for presenters are Fear and Apathy.

Fear Cripples Careers

Fear can cause a person to do some very strange things, like unintentionally waste an audience’s precious time and attention. Almost everyone is fearful of public speaking to some degree, and the allure of a tool that helps alleviate the burden is just too powerful for some. PowerPoint achieves a dubious objective for the fearful presenter by becoming a digital crutch.

Seth Godin, author of the article “Really Bad PowerPoint” and the companion book, “A Big Red Fez,” believes that slide presentations should never be used as a teleprompter. So you can ask yourself: “Did your audience really have to come all this way to a meeting to listen to you read the slides? Why not just send them over?” Indeed, that would be a far more humane way to treat an audience seeking your valuable information.

If fear is motivating your intentions, then address the problem immediately. Realize that you are being asked to speak because you are an expert and what you have to say adds value. If you are a manager presenting at a staff meeting or a subject matter expert presenting quarterly earnings to the board of directors, your objective is clear: be concise and be credible. Simply reading your slides does lasting harm to your reputation. Even worse, you can make your audience angry and resentful. That damaging effect far outweighs the effort it takes to address a fear of public speaking.

If the dreaded “Reply All” email disaster is a train wreck for your career, then consider bad presentation skills a malignant cancer. Your reputation becomes eroded and colleagues will eventually harbor animosity toward you that perhaps even they can’t define, but it will be there. If you are a manager, the problem is far more damaging to your leadership capabilities, and the respect from your subordinates will suffer.

Fortunately, there is hope if you are ready to admit you have a problem. In almost every city there are valuable resources available to help people with mild to severe phobias related to public speaking. There are social groups like Toast Masters that help people overcome their fear while honing their presentation skills in a nonjudgmental environment, If you prefer a more personalized approach, seek a coach who specializes in this area and ask for a consultation. If your fear is so significant or even paralyzing, you may need a qualified, patient counselor who can help you regain your confidence and control.

Fear of public speaking need not limit your leadership abilities and career prospects. This is an area you can correct, allowing you to shine not only as a presenter, but also as an expert with a high perceived value in your organization.

An Indifference to Apathy

It’s already well past quitting time and you’ve spent nearly your entire day in meetings and you’re preparing to spend most of your evening reviewing financial data. The last thing you need to worry about is the presentation you are giving tomorrow. A hectic schedule and increasing demands are enough to make anyone significantly apathetic to their own presentation materials and really, who has the time? You do, if you want it.

There are very few people who relish the idea of doing something boring, unpleasant, and sometimes even painful. These people are called Saints. Chances are, most of us don’t fit in that category. Instead of doing something you find to be a chore, do something fun and enjoyable. Do the impossible and change your world — one presentation at a time.

The best presentations are those that are well thought out, compelling, and have as few lines of text as possible — perhaps even no text at all. That’s right. NO TEXT! The idea is to have your audience sitting comfortably and totally focused on you and what you have to say. Why distract them with text and illegible charts? Instead, use your slides to help tell your story and really sell your idea in a creative way. This is sounding better already, isn’t it?

Seth Godin provides this example in his article to help illustrate the point, “Talking about pollution in Houston? Instead of giving me four bullet points of EPA data, why not show me a photo of a bunch of dead birds, some smog and even a diseased lung? Amazingly, it’s more fun than doing it the old way. But it’s effective communication.”

Imagine you are the director for a short film and you are using your slides to help set the tone. Use PowerPoint’s notes section to provide your talking points while your audience receives the emotional charge of the unexpected from the imagery you present. You provide the commentary to support your message while the slides aid in the meaning. You are already the expert on your subject matter and the audience is relying on you –- not your slides — to communicate the pertinent information. It’s a perfect combination of imagery and expertise that will save you time and add far more impact than you could have ever achieved doing things the same old way.

Presentation guru, Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, agrees and writes in his blog, Five Rules for Better Presentations, “I often think the presenter would be more compelling if he would ditch the presentation software and just speak. Because of this, I’ve even thought of outlawing presentation software in our company.” Can you imagine what your company would be like without PowerPoint? Would a ban on such tools cripple you or liberate you? Why wait when you can take charge now while freeing up much of your time in the process?

Becoming a great presenter is achievable for anyone with the desire to change the way they relate to others. Honing this skill can open doors for innumerable opportunities and help instill a sense of confidence that can affect many other areas of your life. Why sit back wallowing in fear and apathy when you have the power to change who you are and the things you look at every day? The saying goes, “Dance like no one is watching”, so speak like everyone wants to listen. The reality is, they really do if you will only let them.

About the Author

Kerri Barber is the VP of Marketing Communications for WriteData Services, LLC and an award-winning Public Relations/Corporate Communications professional and published author. Her diverse background includes expertise in corporate media, corporate citizenship, and development of brand recognition strategies. Her work has helped thousands around the globe in over 130 countries do business faster and with confidence. She specializes in leadership development and communicating for diverse audiences, as well as electronic communication delivery spanning the digital spectrum.

More Articles by Kerri Barber

• Common Myths and Misconceptions About Layoffs

In the post, Mike gives examples that helped him reach his conclusion that:

“If learning people faced recruiting people in a social media war, the learning people would lose.”

.
Probably the most telling example was that his local ASTD chapter hosted an excellent and informative meeting on social media usage. The guest speaker? A recruiter.

We think Mike (a proponent of using social media for internal training purposes) has a valid point. We’ve learned this from actual experience, in fact. Trying to find professional trainers and instructional designers/developers in social media is no easy task, while it seems recruiters are everywhere you look.

But it’s not just learning professionals who have been slow to join the social media bandwagon. We’ve also brought up the point with our recent post, How Technical Documentation Professionals Can Use Twitter.

We’re not entirely sure of the reasoning behind this, but it could be partially due to the fact that recruiting firms are all about marketing: marketing jobs to candidates and candidates to employers. Because social media has taken such a stronghold as a new marketing tool, it would only make sense that recruiters would be among the early adopters.

Admittedly, even as professional specialty recruiters, WAI has only recently joined the wonderworld of social media. It is indeed a strong marketing tool, but we also find that it helps us stay in touch with what’s going on with both candidates and potential employers.

Social media certainly holds considerable promise for learning professionals, technical communicators and a myriad of others. It just seems that those uses have not yet been fleshed out to the point where they’ve reached adoption by the masses in these professions. What do you think?

Source: Learning vs. Recruiting: Who Would Win a Social Media War?
Related: How Technical Documentation Professionals Can Use Twitter

This post on Tech Tav talks about how new technical writers can stand out in a crowded field of job applicants.

While the advice is geared toward technical writers in Israel, it certainly applies to the U.S. and Canada, too.

The other aspect of this that seems important is that it not only applies to new technical writing graduates, but to those who are unemployed and competing in today’s tough job market. For that matter, it also seems to apply to those who are comfortably situated in a technical writing who think they are secure in their jobs.

The advice?

The advice given in the article includes these five ideas:

• Learn a New Skill
• Get Creative
• Find an Internship
• Do Some Volunteer Work
• Get Involved with Social Media

Lets’ face it: There’s just very little job security anymore. If and when the time comes for your company to cut staff, what are you doing/have you done that might give even the slightest advantage when it comes time to decide who gets let go? Sure, the internship part of the advice doesn’t apply to everyone. But in today’s economy, it seems that you need to be mindful of your qualifications and what differentiates you from the competition every day.

Independent, self-employed and contract technical writers already know that’s true. They need to bring value to the table. And the more they can differentiate themselves from their competition (in a good way), the better.

When’s the last time you learned a new skill? When’s the last time you did something really creative, like a video resume or a demo on using Camtasia, Captivate or Flash? Are you thinking about how you can stand out in the crowd and what are you doing to prevent getting trapped in a career dead end?

What are your thoughts? In today’s marketplace, what are some of the things technical writers can do to stand out in the crowd and get noticed?

As documentation managers, technical communicators, and training specialists, we understand the importance of clear, concise communication. Or at least we are supposed to. As it turns out, many of us don’t. This article explores the new realities of a global information marketplace, the impact of the world wide web on communication professionals, and the importance of saying exactly what we mean.

Often, documentation managers are tasked with all sorts of chores — an increasing list of meetings, reports, updates, and other business minutiae heaped upon plates already full with responsibility. Ironically, many of these tasks are about managing the people, processes, and projects in their department, and not so much about managing the content itself.

Often, documentation managers are tasked with all sorts of chores — an increasing list of meetings, reports, updates, and other business minutiae heaped upon plates already full with responsibility. Ironically, many of these tasks are about managing the people, processes, and projects in their department, and not so much about managing the content itself.

This, however, is changing as more and more organizations begin to understand one business-critical fact: Content is a business asset worthy of being managed efficiently and effectively, just like the inventory of parts in a manufacturing plant or the dollars and cents in a group retirement fund. What’s needed is a coherent, repeatable set of processes designed to control the production, delivery, retirement, and archiving of content, supported by standards, and implemented using software tools designed to enforce rules and automate manual tasks.

This refrain is nothing new. Technical communication literature is packed with case studies, lessons learned and best practices detailing the need for adopting XML component content management, structured authoring, content reuse, automation…you get the picture.

But as many organizations start to see the importance of controlling their content, they usually take the path they have traveled most often before — the wrong path — one that leads to a less successful project. Instead of taking a step back and focusing on content and the needs of those who create it, consume it, and reuse it, organizations usually start by talking about software. And that is where the trouble begins.

As documentation managers, technical communicators, and training specialists, we are supposed to understand the importance of clear, concise communication. As it turns out, many of us don’t. And this is because many of us know what we do about writing from lessons learned from well-meaning educators, who lacked powerful, future-predicting crystal balls. They did not (nor could they be expected to) see the future that has become our global, socially-enabled, always-on, 24/7/365 web-connected reality. They did not know that using a thesaurus was a bad thing. And, as it turns out, it is.

That’s right. One of the most commonly used techniques writers employ — the swapping of one word for a synonym — is actually damaging in many ways. That’s because synonyms are not exact matches. They are words with similar meaning, the use of which can introduce ambiguity. Ambiguous content has been responsible for lawsuits, failed business dealings, customer service nightmares, property damage, severe injuries, and even death.

In our litigious society, organizations that value their content as a business asset worthy of being managed do not allow their writers the freedom to use whatever words they choose, based on personal preference and creative desire. Instead, they limit the words they can use to a base set, which not only helps minimize unnecessary risk, but also drastically reduces expenses.

These are some of the many reasons technical documentation and training managers should convince the organizations for which they work to adopt controlled vocabularies like Simplified English, a standardized controlled language that provides a general dictionary and a set of writing rules. While you need a controlled set of terms to avoid ambiguity, Simplified English dictionaries are flexible and allow you to define your own technical terminology, branding, or extend your vocabulary to include industry, science, medical, or corporate terms.

The use of Simplified English ensures that everyone is using the same word to mean the same thing, instead of allowing writers to use synonyms that have similar meaning, for creativity’s sake.

If you work for a global multi-national organization, chances are good that your content is often created in English then translated to a wide variety of target languages. It is not uncommon for a medical device manufacturer, publishing house, or hardware vendor to translate content to 15, 30, 60, or more languages. In fact, some companies translate their customer-facing and employee-facing content to over 100 languages! Each time you allow your writers to introduce a synonym, they not only introduce ambiguity to the translator (unnecessarily increasing the risk of miscommunication of the translated content), but also introduce additional translation expense — as much as 25 cents a word per language! In many cases, this freedom can drastically increase translation costs.

Organizations that are serious about controlling costs and reducing risk enforce their content rules automatically by using checking tools like HyperSTE from Tedopres International, that enforce vocabulary standards and writing rules as writers create content in authoring tools like Microsoft Word, and XML authoring environments like Adobe FrameMaker, Arbortext, and XMetaL. There are also checker tools available from other vendors like acrolinx.

“The main objective of controlled language is to make text easy to understand. Controlled language standards like Simplified English aim to standardize vocabulary and style, improve consistency, reduce cost of content creation and translation, eliminate ambiguity, and reduce complexity,” said Bob Sima, Sales Director of tedopres International, a company that makes software designed to help organizations control language. “It also provides objective criteria for quality control, a critical factor in the mitigation of risk and improvements in customer service.”

If your organization values its content as a business asset worthy of being managed efficiently and effectively, managing terminology is a no-brainer and a good place to start. It’s always wise to seek the help of a knowledgeable third-party, vendor neutral consultant (or internal resource with similar experience outside of your organization) to audit your content life cycle and production processes, and provide recommendations for improvement. Be cautious not to rely too heavily on the software vendors you select. Often, they are very knowledgeable about controlled vocabularies and the software they sell, but they may not have the domain knowledge and previous experience needed to guide you in the right direction.

For more information: For a free booklet that outlines everything you’ll need to know about Simplified English and controlled vocabularies (including history, use cases, where it fits in the content management lifecycle, etc.), order the 2nd Edition of “The New Language in International Business: Simplified English.”

About the Author

Scott Abel is a content management strategist, structured XML content evangelist, and social-networking choreographer whose strengths lie in helping organizations improve the way they author, maintain, and deliver their information assets.

Scott’s blog, The Content Wrangler, is a popular online resource for content professionals with an interest in content management, content standards, and content technologies. A founding member of Content Management Professionals, Scott previously served as Executive Director of the organization.

Scott writes regularly for trade and industry publications, blogs, and newsletters. He also runs several industry events, including the Web Content conference series and Intelligent Content with Ann Rockley and The Rockley Group.

He’s also a popular dance-music-mashup artist, dj, and music producer who has been spinning since 1982.

Keep track of what Scott is thinking about via Twitter, what he’s doing via Facebook, and what music he’s making via Fairtilizer.

More Articles by Scott Abel

• Who Says You Can’t Use Microsoft Word To Do XML?
• XML Authoring: Coming to a Desktop Near You

This post by Anne Gentle published on Twittip certainly stirs the imagination. While her post applies mainly to staff tech writers, she first discusses how technical writers can get started with Twitter:

• Monitor and listen first
• Play your part
• Give more than you get
• Measure

These steps apply to pretty much anyone who uses social media in general and Twitter specifically, but it’s the suggestions she has for how members of a company’s technical documentation team can help provide information on products and applications they document through Twitter that caught my eye, such as the idea of using Twitter as a medium for release notes.

I’m sure with the ingenuity and creativity many in the technical documentation community enjoy, it’s just a matter of time that this method of keeping customers advised really takes hold.

In what ways are your technical communications and tech support staff using Twitter or other forms of social media to get the word out about your products, latest releases, etc.? Have you given it consideration?

Great leaders are not always born that way.

Unfortunately, many management training programs don’t sufficiently emphasize leadership development, but instead focus on fundamentals and the day-to-day tasks that confront managers within the organization.

If you’re currently a manager or about to become one, you need to think about more than accomplishing tasks if you want to become a true leader.

As writer Kerri Harris points out in Fundamentals of Leadership: Communicating a Vision:

“Experts have long studied the subtle differences between general management, leadership, and truly great leaders. Thomas Cronin, author of, Thinking About Leadership observes, ‘Managers do things the right way, while leaders are more concerned with doing the right thing.’ “

Harris goes on to say:

“There are recognizable characteristics in great leaders and simple strategies anyone can adopt to improve employee performance and change the work environment for the better.”

Harris’ article takes a look at how having vision and then communicating it is the foundation of leadership and contributes to the makeup of a truly great leader.

What are some of the characteristics of true leaders that set them apart from other managers? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Continue reading Fundamentals of Leadership: Communicating a Vision

Going on or conducting face-to-face interviews can be nerve wracking – both for the job seeker and the person conducting the interview.

These ten tips from Karen O’Keefe are designed to ease the stress of interviews and make the interviewing process go more smoothly.

Use these tips the next time you need to conduct or attend an interview and perhaps you’ll improve your chances for success.

Read: Top 10 Interview Tips

Related Topics:

Negotiating Techniques
The Art of Self Marketing

Five Questions to Ask Yourself While Creating a New Documentation Department

by Eric Butow

Congratulations! You’re the manager of your company’s emerging documentation department — and your work has just begun. To create effective documentation for your customers, you not only have to build a sound team, but also build working relationships with all other departments in your company.

In my contracting travels, I’ve set up two new documentation departments in two very different settings. My first was a documentation department for a startup networking software company in 1999. The company’s only previous documentation was a slim manual written by a programmer.

In 2004, I helped set up a new documentation department at the financial aid division for a major bank. Over the years, this division had been passed along to different parent banks — the newest of which was shocked to find that no one had written documentation about financial-aid processes, and no documentation about the software they had used during the division’s last 20 years! As a result, the new parent organization decided that relying on the institutional memories of its employees was a major risk, so the documentation department was born.

When you create your own documentation department, you should ask yourself five simple questions that will help your new department show its value to the company as quickly as possible. These questions are similar to those that a good reporter must answer when documenting a story — who, what, where, why, and how? — and they are as important for a documentation department manager as they are for an ace journalist.

The questions are:

Read the full article