Category: Work

Over the past couple of years my job has changed. I have the same title and job description as I did before but the structure of my day is dramatically different.

I certainly don’t do much writing any more, other than the odd page or two here and there. Instead I find myself discussing strategies, planning phases of work, and generally communicating with other parts of the company as best I can.

I’m also permanently interruptable.

Part of my responsibilities is as line manager to a small group of people within the R&D team. Obviously the team of technical writers forms part of that, and there are also some developers in there as well. I’m not involved as a day to day manager, instead I’m there for what I guess most people would call the ‘HR’ side of things, including organising appraisals and, where needed, some coaching.

So between those responsibilities, and my own work I tend to spend most of my week talking to people. Either in meetings, or for a quick update on things and despite having my own set of priorities I am more than happy to be interrupted.

A long time ago, when I took my first role as a team leader, I was given some advice that has stuck with me, namely that my main role was to help everyone else in the team do their job to the best of their abilities. That means removing obstacles, dealing with problems and generally making sure that all they need to worry about is their work.

I’m permanently interruptable because that’s my job.

It took me quite a while to realise this, and getting yourself into a position to be interruptable isn’t all that easy. You need a good team around you (which I have) and you need to trust them and delegate to them as much as you can (I trust them, and I’m working on that delegation thing!).

There is always the thought, when you are new to being a manager, of ‘dumping’ on people when you delegate work or ownership of something but I’ve seen that the opposite is true. Most professionals enjoy being challenged, and giving them responsibility is a direct indication of how much you trust them. Yes they might have to step their game up, but that’s all part and parcel of that thing they call a career.

Are you interruptable? Should you be?

Quite a lot going on at the moment, but don’t worry dear blog reader I’ve not forgotten about you, I’ve still got plenty of things to post here just not really finding the time (or requisite brain power) to focus on them and think them through properly.

Here are some of the things I’ve started to write about but not yet posted.

In other words, “here are the posts languishing in DRAFT”.

• Content from the ISTC and STC publications, why isn’t it all free?
• Social Media Models, where I try and outline what I think are the models that we, as technical communicators can get the most value from adopting
• The evils of presumption
• Embracing user-generated content
• Small social media. If your ‘community’ is very small, what will work for you?
• How to stop thinking about documents

I will hopefully revisit some (all?) of these in the future, but before all that I have an eSeminar to prepare for, more details on that soon.

A few months ago I was approached to write a piece that would be featured in a special supplement for the ISTC Communicator magazine. The supplement, sponsored by Adobe, was to be titled “The role of social media in technical communication” and after my presentation on blogging at the Technical Communications conference last year, I was asked to expand on my thoughts about blogging.

There are three other articles in the supplement, all of which look at different ways we can leverage the advantages of social media within the realm of technical communications.

Noz Urbina of Mekon opens with his vision of how we can use social media to help users get the most out of products and services, David Farbey suggests some of the ways social media can help solve some of the problems we all face as technical communicators, and RJ Jaquez of Adobe looks at how using social media can (and should) change the role of the technical communicator within a company by offering a direct way to connect to customers.

It’s a fascinating read and you can download the entire supplement here.

Organised under the ISTC, we hope you can join us for these events which are complimentary and open to all.

London Group, Adobe Offices, Regent’s Park
Sponsored by Adobe
What: The Potential of using Video in Technical Communication
When: Friday April 30th, 13:30 – 16:30
Followed by Drinks Reception and Finger Buffet hosted by Adobe
Where: Adobe Systems, 12 Park Crescent, Westminster, London W1B 1PH
Who: Everyone’s welcome (there’s no need to be an ISTC member), but places are limited
Cost: FREE

About This Event
Video is beginning to be used more frequently in technical communication. This event offers you the chance to get to grips with the basics, offering a hands-on introductory training session with Adobe Captivate, one of the popular tools available for creating and editing this type of video. We’ll also explore some of the pros and cons of using video in technical communication in a short discussion, and there’ll plenty of opportunities for networking and talking over your ideas with other technical communicators in your area over refreshments.

Matt Wicks is a professional trainer and developer of applications and eLearning within the Flash platform. He is expert in Captivate, and will provide an in-depth training session on the uses of this application for Technical Communicators.

To reserve your place, contact Elaine Cole: istc@istc.org.uk

New! Southern Group, The Brittania pub, Guildford
What: Social/networking meeting
When: Monday March 22nd, 18:30 – 21:00
Where: The Brittania, 9 Millmead, Guildford, GU2 4BE
(5 minute walk from Guildford station public car park outside pub)
Who: Everyone’s welcome (there’s no need to be an ISTC member); if you’re interested in technical communications and you’re in the area, come and meet your peers
Cost: FREE to attend; you’ll need to buy your own refreshments at the bar

About This Event
This is the first meeting of this brand new group, and will offer an opportunity to meet other technical communicators in the area in an informal setting.

Coming up!
The Southern Group is already planning an April event which will include presentations by fellow professionals. Watch out for more details in the ISTC’s InfoPlus+ newsletter.

To attend the March event or to register your interest in the April event, contact Elaine Cole: istc@istc.org.uk

Cambridge Group, CB2 Bistro, Cambridge
What: Social/networking meeting
When: Thursday March 25th, 19:00 – 21:30
Where: CB2 Bistro, Norfolk Street, Cambridge
Who: Everyone’s welcome (there’s no need to be an ISTC member); if you’re interested in technical communications and you’re in the area, come and meet your peers
Cost: FREE to attend; you’ll need to buy your own refreshments at the bar

About This Event
This is an opportunity for anyone interested in technical communication to get together with like-minded people in an informal setting, over drinks and/or dinner (some attendees will be ordering a meal, but it’s not obligatory).

To attend this event or register your interest in future Cambridge events, email Richard Truscott and Jeff Bronks: cambridge_areagroup@istc.org.uk

I mentioned in my previous post that we run a webhelp build of our content (a.k.a. our Knowledge Centre) on our developer community website, and that it was hosted in an iframe. I thought it worthwhile fleshing out the detail of that as it includes a bit of custom code some others might find useful.

As our content is locked behind a login, we need to be sure that only people who are logged in can access it. This is achieved by a couple of simple checks.

1. When the Knowledge Centre is loaded, a script runs that checks it has been loaded within the correct iFrame within our website. If it’s not, the user is redirected to the login page.

The javascript for this is added to the webhelp.js file (around line 106):

//———– init function ————
Kbase.init = function() {

//OUR redirect
if(window.top.location==window.location) {
window.top.location = ‘URLTOYOURIFRAME’;
}

2. If the Knowledge Centre has been loaded in the correct iFrame (in other words the above javascript is happy), the website checks for a cookie (checking for login) and then either loads the Knowledge Centre, or, again, redirects the user to the login page. The javascript for this is standard cookie checking stuff (google will find you a zillion solutions).

And that’s it. Nothing particularly clever, but a useful way to (lightly) protect the content of our Knowledge Centre.