That was the year that was...

Thirteen is considered by some to be an unlucky number, so my first thought as I settled down to write was to wonder why. After a few minutes of pleasurable distraction (what did we do before search engines?), I’ve discovered that there are a lot of theories but no hard evidence to support one over another. So how was 2013 for us, good or bad?

Well, as with every small business, we’ve had our ups and downs – sometimes exacerbated by the fact that a family crisis (no matter how small) tends to affect every member of the business when you’re the same family! I’m not going to dwell on the negative, though... there isn’t a lot of that, and I’d much rather focus on the positive.

So, what happened in our world in 2013? Quite a lot, now I come to think of it! In no particular order:

• We changed the legal status of our business – we activated Clearly Stated Limited on 1 November 2013. The company had existed since Clearly Stated started, back in 2004, but had been dormant as until recently the advantages of trading as a company were negated by the extra administrative burden. Now, however, we are beginning to spread our wings a little, and the change in status fits with where we see ourselves going in the future.
• We presented at TCUK 2013 – both Andrew and I delivered sessions at our professional body’s annual conference, and both were well received.
• We delivered more writing skills training courses – both to local authorities and at a university.
• I dusted off my clinical knowledge to work on a health-related application.
• We received a SaBRE Certificate which acknowledges Clearly Stated's support of Andrew's reserve service.
• I developed a CPD framework for the ISTC.
• Andrew passed his first module on the Graduate Certificate in Technical Writing with the University of Limerick.

All things considered, that’s a pretty good year. 2014 is already shaping up quite nicely. We’ve made contact with a few people we’re looking forward to working with and are already planning conference attendance and milestones for the next phase of our development.

Alison

Keeping up-to-date...

Things change so fast in our field (technical communication) that it can be difficult to keep up. What can be even more difficult is providing some evidence that you’re at least making the effort. That’s why I’m pleased that the ISTC’s CPD framework is finally up and running. (I’m also pleased because getting it to this stage has taken an inordinate amount of my time over the last 18 months.)

So, aside from getting my life back, why am I so pleased?

Well, in line (I guess) with just about anyone who takes what they do seriously and want to do it to the best of their abilities, I am constantly learning. I don’t mean I’m constantly attending training courses – although I do some of that too – but that I work on a different project, find out how to use a new tool, come across a technique that someone shares... and I find I’ve learnt something really useful.

My problem, until now, was that although I knew I’d learnt lots of good ‘stuff’, put on the spot in an interview or when writing a covering letter for a job, I couldn’t always remember what I’d learnt when, or what the context was at the time. In short, I couldn’t tell a coherent story to support my application.

Now that’s not a problem.

I’m a Fellow of the ISTC myself – and although all our members have a requirement to keep up-to-date, I can now prove it. I have to maintain a CPD record to keep my Fellow status, which makes it all the more valuable to me.

And having to keep a record means that the information that was previously just swimming around in my head and had been absorbed into ‘normal working practice’ can now be accessed as discrete pieces of information and referenced.

You know what it’s like – you’re writing a covering letter to apply for a contract and you’re desperately trying to think how you can show you’ve met a particular requirement. Now instead of frantically trying to remember, I can just have a quick glance at my learning record instead.

Couldn’t I have recorded this anyway? Well, to be honest, I often did... but not to the same level, as it was only notes for my own use. Now there is a little more meat on the bones.

If I want to think of myself as a professional (and more importantly want others to do so), I need to start acting like one.

Alison

Mixed Messages

I don’t usually touch on politics in my blog posts – I believe it’s against policy – but I was struck by a recent article where our illustrious PM decided to link the quality of state education with the inability of many to find a entry level job on a production line. As a technical communicator, I think he’s wrong. My reasoning is based both on my own experiences in education and training, and my current professional practice.

I remember preparing for my GCSE English exams. Our English teacher received a missive from the exam board on the subject of ‘structured writing’. There was a whole section on the types of phrases we could use to compare and contrast arguments and introduce points of view, which our teacher dutifully read out to us. They became more florid the further into the list you progressed, perhaps reflecting the fact that a lower-grade student would only be expected to remember the first few. Right at the end was “there is a train of thought that runs...” – by this point the class was in hysterics. There was something about the way that our teacher chose to read that list that let us know it wasn’t to be taken too seriously. She finished with the staunch admonition that were we ever to use such a convoluted phrase to convey “others think...” she would hunt us down one by one.

There is, however, a train of thought that runs to the acceptance of such phrasing (it has taken me 15 years to work that into a piece of writing with an almost straight face). The people who hold this view were taught by the other type of English teacher: the ones who didn’t laugh and snigger at the directives being sent down from those who view having an education as having the ability to show off (or as it is called in the north of England, ‘ponce about’). The adherents of this doctrine write as floridly, passively and with as many synonyms thrown in as possible because they have been taught that this is how the educated communicate. (If you don't believe me, watch the tortuous pursuit of definition that is Prime Minister's Questions.)

Of course, this is how the ‘educated‘ tend to communicate. Lead engineers, managers, and those at CxO level (where x is some function of the business) generally communicate from within their own comfort zone, blissfully unaware that to those outside their circle they may as well be using a foreign language. The manager states “we must be flexible with regards to the future” when planning layoffs; meanwhile the employee is wondering when the new yoga classes are going to start. In another example, the lead design engineer has referred to the same binary function selector as a switch, toggle, selector and lever interchangeably within a single paragraph of emergency shut-down instructions... that are being read whilst the machine in question trundles towards a cliff edge. Both examples mirror political communication a little too well.

The real problem is that job seekers don't know exactly what they need to do to get the job they want because they aren't told in a way they understand. Therefore, the issue is not in the education and training of the many, but the education of the few who think their communications strategy is fit for purpose when attempting to get a message across different levels in society, organisations and processes. In many cases the problem lies with message and sender, not the befuddled receiver. This gap is why technical communicators exist. We work with subject matter experts and transform their message into something that the end user can understand.

Whilst my services as a professional communicator are a valuable commodity, I feel that on this occasion I can distil 25 years of experience as a learner, teacher and technical communicator to help the Prime Minister and anyone else who fancies being a politician or leader of men avoid some often identified pitfalls.

Answer the question being asked

You may be a leading expert on a particular subject, but when someone asks “what happens if I press the big red button?” your answer should go along the lines of “when you press the big red button, X happens.” Your audience do not want to know about why you think red is a nice colour, why X is such a favourable outcome, or how brilliant you were in suggesting to a colleague that they have their secretary open a bidding process to pay a large company – run by a family friend – to subcontract an electrician to install the big red button.

Think about the context of the recipient

I have an emergency bandage. The instructions are in 5 steps. Steps 1 to 4 deal with applying the bandage, and consist of big clear illustrations that can be read under a torch in low light. Step 5 deals with removing the bandage and consists of black text on a grey background. The pictures exist because when your mate is bleeding to death at 2 in the morning, you don't have time to read an essay. There are people in society who – for whatever reason – are bleeding out and are relying on you and your team to get the job done, and they really don't have time for anyone to wade through verbiage.

Short words are the best

This pithy piece of tech-comms wisdom stems from one of your predecessors, but it is true. I'd suggest that "yes" and "no" are two of the short words that might come in useful for answering questions. If people want your life-story or to know what you've been thinking about recently they can call you "Dave" and add you on Facebook.

Andrew

We have ways of making you think!

A good friend of mine is a developer at North 51. Recently we had an interesting discussion about mind control. Not the type of mind control that would let me unleash hordes of hypno-zombies as a tranced and swaying flash-mob at the local Tesco (although having sacrificed last Sunday morning in that edifice of consumerism, I’m not entirely sure someone hasn’t already pulled this off), but rather the kind of mind control that would let me think my pointer across the screen, or these words onto the page.

Whilst even this seems far fetched, headsets like the one pictured here let people play Angry Birds with just the power of their minds. Angry Birds is a fairly simple game, essentially involving the movement of a mouse/pointer and a single click or dragging action (depending on whether you are playing on a PC or a tablet). The fact that the description of the game varies between a tablet and a PC gives some idea of the issues we might face when giving instructions for a user whose interface is their own mind. The cursor in Angry Birds (PC) is a hand, so are people playing the game thinking “I’ll move the mouse around with my hand” or “I’ll move the hand around with my mouse” or even “I’ll move the hand around with my hand via the mouse” (think of your own variant). Any guidance for play-by-brain computing not only has to account for these differences when describing the desired end result but must also cover the thought processes that are involved in reaching it. I have been thinking about how this could work in practice:

You are feeling sleepy

Instructional materials could use techniques from the relaxation or hynotherapy fields to induce a non-cluttered state of mind before operating the game/robot surgeon/share dealing platform. This is not really a new idea. Educators have been springboarding off the work of Soviet scientist Georgi Lozanov to create non-threatening, trance-like language classes filled with baroque music and a brain boosting vibe for decades now, and there’s no reason it could not be coming to technical documentation near you soon.

Enter the Sandman

Sandbox environments are big in the gaming community, and as documentation gets increasingly gamified there’s a lot to be said for blurring the line between the real situation and a simulation. (Pilots do this already, the theory being that in a simulator no-one can hear the passengers screaming, praying or bouncing off the walls.) Yu-kai Chou divides gamification into White Hat (nice) and Black Hat (bad) gamification. A nice happy sandbox environment with all the tips, hints and lessons being presented in a calming and constructive way would blend the best of usability with the logic of well-written instructions and a little bit of Zen.

The future is probably a lot closer than you think on this one, so I’d be really interested to hear from any others (technical communicators or otherwise) who’ve given this fascinating field a bit of thought.

Andrew