Writing

Strategically Named

~ Susan Kelley ~ Leave a comment

 

letterpress

So very often I hear about how tech writing is a dying industry, and it makes me sad. Then, I remember that our name has just changed. The bluster is just bluster. We are content managers, information engineers, media strategists, and so on. The funny thing about some of this rebranding is, I recently looked on Glassdoor, and learned that, depending on what you call yourself, the salary for those titles varies widely.

For example, the average “media strategist” nationally is clocking in at $46,736, while the national average for a “content strategist” $70,000. I’m wondering what the huge distinction is, to be honest. And, I can admit that I don’t really know. My work title is information engineer because I am in a company full of engineers. We make software, we build solutions in the fast-paced software world, so my work is a little more specialized. If you want to know the national average on that salary, I’ll let you do your own research, and then I’ll reassure you that I am not making what Glassdoor says.

smart girlI looked on Wikipedia, and the generalist definition of Information Engineering is that we take a software engineering approach to writing and developing information systems, or that mostly we are computer geeks who write. Well…I’m actually a writer who enjoys software systems. I was hired to work specifically on mainframe systems even though I knew almost nothing about mainframes when I joined the company. I think the big distinction is that, as writers, we know how to communicate complex information and that we have knack for learning things. Definitely if I was not into learning, I would stink at this job. But what actually separates me from a “media strategist” in terms of my skillset? That is to say, what if I wanted to leapfrog from my current job into media strategy? Am I working on the tools that might be portable enough to move from one position to another? Yes. And you should too.

In this field, I argue that it is critically important to continue honing not just the technical acumen, but the strategy, to keep abreast of what is going on in other writing areas in order to be as portable as possible. My specific company is using what might not be considered the most cutting-edge authoring tools, so I make sure I learn some techniques and tools outside of my daily grind in order to stay on top of what’s out there elsewhere. So, if you are in a particular niche, say Information Engineering, it is not an altogether terrible thing to make sure that you know that a “media strategist,” for example, is an increasingly complex role that puts you in charge of content delivery in broadcast arenas. Knowing this, in my role as a software documentation writer, I step up on a regular basis and record videos, work with a program called Captivate (an Adobe product) and just play around with what is out there on YouTube in instructional video land. Admittedly, this is never going to put me in the C-Suite of media strategy, but neither is it going to leave me looking like a gasping fish.

Likewise, I try to keep tabs on other media and collaborative tools like #slack or Asana for collaboration tools. If you are knee-deep in managing content projects, you’ll surely want to be adept with these beauties, or at least one of them. My company is currently using Flowdock. It’s not my favorite, but it is a powerful tool, proven with doc-sharing and it gets  around. Some companies are making great use of Yammer as a powerful intranet communication device as well. I recommend at least having a working knowledge of these gadgets. You can’t go wrong, and a broad skills base is never a bad thing, right? Right.

What about the idea of content strategy, you say? These things lean on media management. A recent post was about content, and I daresay I could reiterate that everything I do is about content – content is text, video, graphics, interfacing all of these things into a usable, consumable, findable set or even suite of instructions and understandable items that users can then put to use, find again if necelightbulbssary and move on if not. From an installation guide to a set of scenarios for implementation to third-party software agreements, it all has to be chunked into usable bits of information in the best way(s) possible, and it is up to us – the wordsmiths, the video script writers, the graphic designers, and the UX specialists, to get it right. And often, more and more and more often – we are the same person.

 

 

I suppose all of this goes to say that in the pool of tech writing tools, we aren’t supposed to stay focused only on the items that specifically make us “tech” writers. So grab that pint and start spending part of your day – every single day – finding what’s out there to make you the best writer, editor, designer and consumer. Because that is your new name. It’s been mine for a while. Communications specialist? A rose is a rose is a technical writer is a media strategist is a content implementation designer. All I know is I craft exceptional messaging every day.

 

Nice to meet you.

 

 

Is it Writing or is it Content?

~ Susan Kelley ~ Leave a comment

 

 

 

In my not-so-distant past, I read an article by a writer, who posts things in a forum which I respect, pleading that we no longer call our writing Content. She ruminated deeply on this topic, outlining reason after reason why we should respect writing enough to ditch this term, (she called it a “catchall”) and give ourselves the respect that we deserve. She argued that there was, in fact, no way that a writer came up with the term “content” to describe what we put into phrases and paragraphs every day for a living.

I felt maligned. Insulted, even. My feelings were hurt partly because I am currently writing-voicepursuing a certification in Content Strategy. Yes, content. I rather enjoy thinking of my writing as “content.” While I agree that there may be more nuanced terms for some forms of writing – and we may be more specific: poetry, haiku, essay, short story, etc., in the world of technical communication, marketing and corporate communications, what we create is…wait for it…content. But I was more bent out of shape because when asked, I introduce myself as a writer. I rarely qualify this term unless I need to.

I am a writer.writer

The words, phrases, and paragraphs that I construct are inextricably linked to a perception of the company for which I work, its products and its mindset. What I write for them is not the great American novel, nor do I wish it to be. This writer argued that “to write is to find out what you think.” How very noble. I wish that I was finding out what I am thinking while I am creating dozens of web pages that instruct software users in the intricacies of an installation process that is many steps long and requires detailed diagrams to accompany my flowery prose. Alas, I am not. What I am doing is creating useful, tangible prose that goes out into the world and does real good. My writing takes root, grows, and from it blooms a garden of procedures. Those procedures help make sure that your debit card works every Monday morning. It’s a beautiful thing, but I won’t be nominated for a Pen Faulkner any time soon.

Because I create content.

She even maligns content as a marketing strategy, which I found specious. I generate literally dozens of tweets per month in order to forward the ideas and goals of my company. That is writing – and it’s hard writing. I have to be creative, pithy, sometimes funny, sometimes I do a lot of research – and all in a very tight space. It’s called brevity, and Mark Twain said that was the soul of wit. I’m with him. And it’s writing. It’s writing content. That content helps users get to my products and helps people understand my work. Plus it’s darn good writing. So there.

books4People consume my content, not the way they consume a classic novel or even a beach read. They do not recommend my work to their friends as the next great thing to read, and they do not say, “Hey, did you see that great process that Susan just created? Wow! Talk about incredibly lean doc!” That, my friends, is the dream of any software documentation writer, I assure you. But maybe, just maybe, what some of my friends say is, “Susan wrote an insightful blog about the value of Content Writing and how it is important, just like writing your memoir. After all, that technical document will show you how to set up your new laptop so that you can write your memoir. And then you can stick your nose in the air and claim that is real writing, not merely content.”

Refiguring The Primary Measure of Progress

~ Susan Kelley ~ Leave a comment

pencilIn Agile Software Development,

“working software is the primary measure of progress” and the manifesto values “working software over comprehensive documentation.”  That is all well and good, but as a writer, I often pause on that one word – comprehensive. I take a moment there and wonder who determines what comprehensive means, and whether sometimes we leave the customer, and the customer’s needs, in the dust when we use that word.

instructions2

Before every developer everywhere has a head explosion, I think we can all agree that expansive documentation is silly and frivolous. So maybe I would swap out comprehensive for expansive. Perhaps I’d have chosen “frivolous documentation,” or “needless documentation.” I’m just not sure I would have chosen the word comprehensive. I get what the manifesto is going for. I do. I want to create lean, usable doc every time. I don’t want to give more than is needed. I want to respond to change fast. My goal is accurate, deliverable doc that addresses stakeholder needs. I suppose I would like to think that, by definition then, my doc is complete, or…comprehensive…in that it includes everything a customer needs. But I agree that I don’t want it to include anything more. I just want to avoid coming up short.

What if I rewrote the twelve principles from a doc-centric focus? Would they work just as well?

  1. My highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable documentation.
  2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in documentation. Agile processes harness edits for the customer’s competitive advantage.
  3. Deliver accurate documentation frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference for the shorter timescale.
  4. Business people, developers, and writers must work together daily throughout the project.
  5. Write documentation around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need and trust them to get the doc written.
  6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a writing team is face-to-face conversation.
  7. Clear, concise documentation is the primary measure of progress.
  8. Agile processes promote sustainable writing. All team members should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
  9. Continuous attention to linguistic excellence and good design enhances agility.
  10. Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of writing not done or words not written – is essential.
  11. The best architectures, sites, and manuals emerge from self-organizing teams.
  12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to create more effective doc and then adjusts accordingly.

Okay, so some of this is silly, and I just wasted twelve lines by playing it out all the way to the end, but it was for good reason. Continuous deployment can happen not just with techmanualdeveloping software, but in the embracing of documentation as part of that software, but instead it is often “kicked to the curb” by many teams as a misinterpretation of that one element of the original manifesto.

 

 

It’s not that documentation should be cast aside; it’s that comprehensive documentation is being misunderstood as frivolous or extraneous documentation.

I did not realize that this was a pernicious issue quite so much until I was giving a workshop to a small class of new developers from across my company, hailing from a variety of offices, and they looked at me funny when I described some of how my team does doc (we are pretty good at the whole agile thing, but sometimes we regress into “mini-waterfalls” and I hate them). One of the young devs was astonished that I manage to get my developers to hand over documentation early in the process so that I have it in a draft state, while the code is still being written, not after the code is all in place. It’s a struggle, I’ll admit, but when I this happens, the result is a joyous celebration of shared workload and well-written doc. We can collaborate, change, shift and learn. And the sprint goes more smoothly with only minor changes at the end, not a doc dump in week 4.

To teams who are not doing this: cut it out with the waterfall, guys. Doc is essential, and your users need it. Otherwise, they are calling support and costing your company thousands with every call. Change your practice and build your doc while you build your product.

You might be asking, “How can you possibly write the doc when you haven’t written the code?”

You are not the first person to ask this, trust me. The answer is pretty simple. A long, long time ago, you couldn’t. Or, at least it wasn’t wise to, because it was a redoubling of work. When writers put their stuff into pdfs or word documents, and then had to make major changes, it meant a bunch of editing and rewriting things. Therefore, developers got in the habit of writing all of the code, then examining the processes and hunkering down to crank out the doc. Fair enough. Now, though, we developed wiki spaces and collaborative tech writing tools that now allow inline editing and let developers look at the cool formatting and linking that tech writers have done with our work.

And – before the code even gets written, there is a design plan in place, and usually a design document to go with it. There are code specifications, right? You can have a nice chat with your friendly tech writer and go over this, either through a face-to-face (see Agile point #6) or via any of the vast number of other tools designed to communicate with your team. Before a developer starts coding, there is a project plan – share that plan. Once the general information has stabilized, it’s okay to let the writer have at it. The benefit is that the writer is having her way with the general plan while the developer is coding away. At the end of both work days, the writer and developer have each created something. In a typically short iteration, it is unlikely that the coding will change significantly, so the two can touch base frequently to mark changes (See Agile point #4).

Are there risks to this process? Of course, just like there are with waterfall. Remember that with waterfall, there were a fair amount of times that programming crept right up to the deadline and documentation was hastily delivered and could therefore be sloppy and lacking. And in this method, it is far easier to tell you about writing documentation continuously than it is to actually do it. It takes time, it takes effort, and it takes dedication – because the primary risk for doc is the same as it is for the software: that the customer’s need will change midstream. That problem was (more or less) solved by short iterations in development, and it is (more or less) solved the same way in documentation.mario

The benefit is this – by writing the doc alongside the development, you can be sure that you deliver the doc in sync with the product. You’ll never sent the product out the door with insufficient instruction, and you will never cost your company thousands of dollars in support calls because your customers don’t understand how the product works or how to migrate it. But deliver a product without comprehensive – yes, I’m back to that word – deliver it without a complete doc set, and you may regret it. Trial and error is okay if you want to see how fast Mario can get his Kart down the hill in order to beat Luigi and save the princess, but do you really want to rely on that when the client is a multi-million dollar bank?

I’ve been teaching writing and writing processes for a very long time, and believe me, the action of draft, revise, revise, revise is not new.

It’s just Agile.