bookmark_borderInformation Strategy Pyramid

typing_monkey


The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. As such, it stands to reason that two monkeys would be able to produce the same volume of output, but are unlikely to write exactly the same thing. Add in a few more monkeys to the equation and suddenly you have lots of content, none of which really relates to anything else.

I’ll stop with the monkey metaphor before I insult anyone.

Consistency is an important part of communication, even at the simplest level of having a common terminology, using the same words consistently throughout a document helps the reader learn. Take this idea up a level, from a single document to a number of documents and maintaining the same terminology across all documents can further help re-enforce the messaging and aid learning, and should give the reader a level of comfort that the entire set of information has been thought of, and delivered, as a cohesive set.

Move up the stack one more time and you start to look around at surrounding areas of information, outside of product documentation, produced by a different department and it’s here that consistency starts to suffer.

Typically Technical Communications teams will spend some time developing their own Style Guide (however loose), and agree a basic set of terminology, also known as the Product Glossary. Having been involved with creating a Product Glossary in the past, it’s interesting that other areas of the company see it as being a ‘documentation thing’, until such times as you get them to sit down and help you compose entries for it.

I know that the information produced by my team will be consistent and is written in a similar enough style that it won’t ‘jar’ the reader. In other words, it doesn’t matter who wrote the information, it is all part of one larger set of documentation, with a similar tone, voice and style.

Aiming the information at the correct audience is a key part of deciding what the three attributes of tone, voice and style, should be, and it’s at this point that I find other departments starting to struggle. Without a clear idea of the audience, and with their own perception of what the message (the terminology) needs to be, there is a tendency to wander off message, and produce a document which, whilst perfectly good in isolation, doesn’t seem to fit into the overall set of product information.

So what type of information is this? Well it varies, and can be tracked through the customer (or company) journey and their interactions with your company and product. Broadly speaking there are four levels, all of which need to be talking to the correct audience, and ideally should be providing the same message in a consistent manner.

  1. First up there is an introduction, a high level chat about our product and what it can do. This is typically a mix of marketing brochures, website collateral, and sales presentations.
  2. The next level of interaction delves a little deeper into the business benefits and key selling points of the product, and can start to touch on product features and capabilities.
  3. After that, there is a need to provide a level of technical information, outlining the architecture and fundamental design of your product, detail the full set of capabilities, and provide reassurance around any potential implementation issues that may arise.
  4. And then we get to product documentation, training material, and ongoing support and maintenance information.

Four levels of information, all of which should be saying the same thing about the product, regardless of what message that is.

It would be wrong to say that each level is unique, as each interaction your company has with a customer will vary, but largely speaking the four levels allow anyone who is creating information to better understand their audience. Add in a Product Glossary to ensure terminology is consistent, and a strong product message and there is no reason why any of the content being produced cannot be consistent.

Mapping these levels to the amount of content available at each level gives us the following:

pyramid


Of course this is a very simplistic model, but as a starting point, it at least provides the mechanism for anyone about to create new content to pause and consider the audience. So whilst you could add in several levels, and several different mappings of document types, I think it’s better to leave things a little open to question as that helps bring a better understanding of why the content is being produced in the first place.

I first introduced this model to my current company several months ago, and we are currently revisiting this to make sure it is still a good fit to our needs. The next step for me is beefing up our Product Glossary, and then we can get on with the thornier issue of document management, an intrinsic part of having a Content Strategy for your company.

bookmark_borderChange of scenery

Having a few days off, I had it in the back of my mind to do some writing. Nothing particularly serious but just to write and see what happened.

The problem I had was getting rid of distractions. If I sit at my desk, then there is always a wee pile of things to get done, various notes and other detritus to distract my attention … ohh that reminds, I need to order a replacement bank card, ack! see how easy it is.

I use programs like Q10 (for the PC) and WriteRoom (for the Mac) to help remove onscreen distractions, but I realised I need a cleaner physical space as well.

Until such times as I can completely clear out my ‘office’, I decided to relocate to the living room, and sit with the laptop at dining table. No distractions there, well not once I’d gotten rid of the ever curious cat.

And, a couple of hours later I sat back and metaphorically patted myself on the back, having written a couple of ‘chapters’ for that writing website of mine, as well as a couple of posts that just need a final edit before they can go up on my other blog.

I also felt a good deal more relaxed having gotten that particular monkey off my back, and I’ve got plans tomorrow to really gut my office space so I can achieve similar results in the future.

Now, where did I put the bin bags?

bookmark_borderChapter 5

As he walks towards the entrance the nerves swell in his stomach. He remembers a phrase his Dad used for such occasions, “healthy fear” he used to called it, uttering it before every football game, exam and even on the night of his first date.

He reaches for the doorknob just as the door swings open, and a tall dark haired girl totters past him, heels clicking on concrete. He turns his head to catch a final glimpse of her as he steps forward through the open door.

The dull light of the corridor mirrors the smell of age and he wonders again why he is here, why he said yes after all those strange questions, why he found himself accepting the job without fully understanding what it entails. At the far end of the corridor a small light flickers and he walks toward it.

Upstairs, sitting behind a large dark wood desk sits an ageing man. He has been sitting there for some time now, quietly contemplating the past, considering his future and has come to realise how soon the end will come, far sooner than he’d been told. He accepts his fate willingly as he knew it would arrive someday and so he counts off the hours, then the minutes until his death. Quiet solace that he has done all that has been asked of him.

He knows that by the end of this day his chair will be filled by another, a younger man, fresh and confused, just as he was on his first day in this strange job. He smiles as he recalls his first day, the nerves building in that long elevator ride to the 31st floor, the slow steps along the creaking wooden corridor and can almost feel the weight of the door to the very office in which he now sits.

He listens intently and recognises the faint rattle of the elevator door opening, hears every groan and croak of each footstep, and finds himself holding his breath, his eyes fixed on the cold metal doorknob as it slowly starts to turn.

“Ummm hello?” says a voice from the other side of the door, “anyone here?”

“Come on young man, the door is not locked”.

The door swings open and, finally, the office is complete.

Standing in the doorway, Alan looks around the cramped office, bookshelves piled high and at the centre of the mayhem a large wooden desk, behind which sits Mr.Bachman.

“Ohh hi Mr.Bachman, sorry if I’m a bit late, but there aren’t any signs so … yeah I wasn’t sure I had the right office..”, nervously he glances round the tiny room.

“Ahh, but you found your way here nevertheless, a good start I think, yes yes, a good start. Now tell me, have you had breakfast? Would you like some coffee, perhaps? Or are you a man who likes to charge onwards, I think, yes yes, I think perhaps you are, so please sit and let us talk of this place”.

And so they sit, both men, young and old, at opposites sides of the desk and so the story begins.

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bookmark_borderTime off

Being off work for the next few days, giving me a nice long weekend, means I have time to get some stuff done around the house, and more importantly some time to myself to chill out.

The last few weeks have been pretty stressful at work and at home, and part of me would quite like to just lock the door, pulled the blinds and hide away. That’s the selfish part of me, and I try not to succumb to it too much, not that I get much of a chance to anyway, there’s always something else that needs attended to, something else that must get done, and someone else we need to visit.

Anyhoo, I have no real plans, just a desire to have some ‘me’ time. See you on the flipside!

bookmark_borderHow soon is now?

How early do you get involved in a project? At the start? Part way through once the scope has been set? Or once the design has been agreed? Or do you swoop in at the end and document whatever you find?

One common complaint a lot of technical writers have is that they aren’t included early enough in lifecycle of a project. The downsides are that by the time work hits your desk you don’t have a full picture of who the customer is, why they want whatever it is you are building, and how they want it provided to them. All of which directly impacts the information being created.

So how do you, the lowly technical writer, make sure you are involved early in the project? By offering your services as a master information curator, task analysis guru and all round user advocate, that’s how!

During the early stages of most projects, there will be a period when the main requirements are gathered, ensuring the pain points are covered, and that the main scope of what you are building is agreed. A lot of those discussions are largely focussed on collating information from the heads of various subject matter experts (SMEs) and stakeholders, and gaining agreement on it in a singular form.

Sound familiar? I hope so, as it’s not all that far removed from discussing a new product feature with some of the guys who helped build it, and coming to a consensus on how it should be used and, therefore, how it should be documented.

As one of the core competencies of a technical writer, it’s something many of us have forgotten we do, largely because, hey, it’s just our job. However it takes a unique skill set, one that not everyone possesses, to be able to focus a number of different viewpoints into a cohesive story.

This type of work is often performed by a business analyst, but there is no reason why you can’t fulfill a similar role to some degree. The project team get the benefits of your skills, removing some of their early pain, and you get to be involved from the get-go. Win-win, right?

Well, almost. One caveat is that being involved in the early stages of a project is likely to overlap with the end of the previous one, so whilst you are wrapping up all those little issues (you know, unmentioned features and changes) you may struggle for time if you are also helping in the early stages of the next phase.

whygoodinfoisgood

It’s a hard balance to find, but if you really want to get in early, and I think the benefits outweigh the downsides and if needs must you may need to get support from your boss to reschedule some work to free up your time to be involved. It’s a simple enough, progressive, argument:

Understanding the customer and the requirements leads to better information. Better information leads to better use of the product. Better use of the product, lowers support calls, leads to new product features and increased sales.

Which, I think, is a pretty powerful statement to make to your boss when you are asking to clear time in your schedule so you can start this cycle.

bookmark_borderI am not style

On Saturday I found myself in a large department store in Glasgow. I was there to purchase a shirt, possibly two, to get me through the endless round of Christmas nights out, lunches and whatnot that will inevitably start to pile up towards the end of the year.

So I was looking for the smart/casual combination and as I wandered round I started to realise that I’m not style and, frankly dear reader, I never have been.

Don’t get me wrong, growing up I succumbed to the fashion senses of the day, I had a plastic, neon orange belt, neon pink and yellow socks (always worn with one colour on one foot, the other on the other), and the tartan effect jeans to go with them. I had a hypercolour t-shirt, a brightly coloured ski-jacket. Hell I even had a shellsuit at one point.

However even within the strict confines of school age fashion, I always tried to steer away from the norm and I guess it was back then that I discovered my own style.

Which is to say that I don’t really have one, other than that I won’t blindly follow what other people think look good, instead I’ll wear what I think looks good.

However, not having your own style leads to problems if, like me, you take cues from a variety of sources. This approach finds me in Converse skate shoes, jeans and an “independent” t-shirt one moment, and the next in brown leather slip-ons, dark jeans and a John Rocha shirt.

And it’s not that I mind this so much, I’m not style icon but I’m comfortable in what I wear, but I do look on at others with a distinct style with some envy. Walking around the West End of Glasgow (firmly in student land) confirmed just that, so many people with a strong sense of their own style, and there I sat feeling quite the middle-class corporate whore.

Perhaps it’s not envy of their style from which I suffer, but more the desire to make sure I’m not just another middle of the road person, that I too can make my mark.

I dunno.

Regardless I found myself circling the various departments and trying to make sure I bought things because I like them, and to hell with what anyone else things.

After all, I may not be stylish, but I do have style.