The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 10,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
This was posted on LinkedIn and created by Experts Exchange. I think it has some pretty accurate predictions of things that will be predominating our collective tech conscience. A few of these topics are once I’ve already seen overtures to in the last year, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the coming year and how that will change our perceptions of content going forward.
Check it out here:
What do you think? I think this is mostly spot-on. Do you agree? Share your insights below.
While plugging away at the big project I’m doing for work, a problem arose from how some features worked, and developers cluttered up the CMS architecture of the site I’m working on. When I tried to clean it up, the developers rolled out more content that either created duplicates, triplicates, and overwrote pages without my knowledge. This mucked up the whole thing even more, making it worse.
I ended up having a call with my manager explaining the situation, and showed him what happened. He was aware of some of it, and he knew I was trying to fix things, but he was unaware that the latest roll-out complicated the situation. After a good discussion, he came to the same conclusion that I did–it’d be easier to start from scratch with this section of the website than to try to clean it up. I took responsibility for my part of the mess, and was more than willing to put the time in that’s needed to get it right again.
In order to do this, we’ve had to work with the people in the global corporate office to help us wipe the slate clean on that section and resend the new information. Well, this turns out to be easier said than done, due to system issues and communication issues (we’re not sure, even with images demonstrating the issue, if we are explaining what we need correctly to non-native English speaking people, and we are having some trouble understanding their replys). It’s turning into a sordid mess that I didn’t mean to happen. Some of this is my fault, doing some things unknowingly, but it’s also Corporate’s fault for not staying organized with the information rolled out on the various servers and not informing me of these changes in a timely manner, as that’s what is complicating matters. My hands have not touched that section of the website for 2 days because I’m afraid of mucking up things even worse, and so I’m patiently waiting for the correct content to be rolled out so I can move forward.
In this type of instance, my experience has been that no matter what part I played, even a minor one, I needed to take the blame for the whole thing. I needed to fall on the knife for what’s happened, even if I’m actually the victim in this instance. I’m fortunate that my manager hasn’t viewed this as something that I needed to take the fall for, and he’s been incredibly supportive through this small ordeal. I am grateful to have him as a manager and it provides me with some relief. But in past positions, even if I was correct in the midst of something that had gone wrong, I’d have to take full responsibility even if full responsibility was not mine. I’m willing to take responsibility if it is truly and completely my fault. Yet, I’ve had many instances where it wasn’t my fault at all, or I played a minor role, and I’d still be blamed entirely. And it would be one thing if I was a manager taking the blame for someone under me, but I’m always the gal at the bottom of the totem pole! If I stood up for myself in the past, I’d be severely reprimanded, even though I was justified in standing up for myself. So, you can understand why I’ve developed a bit of a complex and learned to take the role of the scapegoat in these instances unwillingly yet necessarily.
It got me to thinking about technical communication and where technical communicators will be given the blame for something that’s gone wrong. Sometimes the blame is justified, and sometimes it isn’t. If a manual has incorrect information, is it the fault of the tech writer, or the SME who didn’t provide accurate information, or the editor? In my case, the developers were being sloppy. I was the one being responsible enough to realize there was a problem and clean it up, initially following their directions for the fix, and they made it more difficult adding a fix to my fix without communicating that they were going to make a fix on their part. So why am I feeling like I need to take responsibility for the problem I didn’t cause instead of taking responsibility for realizing the solution? Is that just me and the conditioning I’ve been put through over the years, or is that a common problem?
In my current situation, like I said, my manager has fully supported me, and he’s about to leave on vacation confident that everything will be fine, leaving it up to me to take care of things. This is a reversal of most experiences I’ve had, and it definitely bolsters my confidence that I do know what I’m doing, and I appreciate that I’m recognized for that.
Technical communications is not for the weak or faint of heart, for sure. There is no question about that. However, technical communicators are being encouraged, as a field, to assert themselves more to show that we do have the solutions and know what we are doing, and to play a greater role in communications. I’m sure you’ve heard the “Break down the silos!” battle cry by now. If that’s the case, how do we do that if we have introverts like me who have been pounded down enough times that they are fearful of losing their jobs for asserting themselves? Is that just me, or do others feel this, too?
Let me know what you think in the comments.
I apologize for not writing for quite a long time. I hadn’t realized how long it had been! I’ve been really busy all these weeks, deep in my professional work, my volunteer work, and working on me. It’s always tougher once the school year starts! My professional work is taking up a lot of energy these days, which is good only because it means that I’m deep into doing what I enjoy–working with content.
About a month ago, I went for Adobe CQ training. The company where I consult is using it to build and manage its new external website, and I’ve been included in the project! It’s a big step up for me, because I’ve been limited to internal sites until now. Having the chance to learn a new CMS, work on the external site, and work on a high-profile section of the external site is a big deal. The training was great, and all those who attended the training were rather excited to use Adobe CQ over the painfully clunky in-house CMS that we’ve been using (and will still have to use for internal sites for a while to come, so I’ll have to use both).
At the training, the trainer was from France, and we had another content strategist who was from the Brazil office. Both spoke fluent English. Over the course of the two days, I got to know both of them well (it was a small training group), and we talked about languages extensively. One of the interesting things about the company I work for is that it is a German company that is having its 150th anniversary this year, so you’d think that the official language of the company would be German. WRONG. Surprisingly enough, the official language of the company is English. When I found that out, I was surprised. And while there will be a German language website, as well as ones in Spanish, Portugese, and Chinese, in the breakdown of the new external websites, more areas would have an English website or translated English website option. Again, this surprised me a little–not that this is a bad thing. It works in my favor since my native language is English, after all.
In talking to the trainer from France, she said that the consultantcy she works for has her based at one of my company’s offices in Germany, so she usually commutes to Germany via a four-hour train trip, stays up there for four days, and then comes home on the weekends during this particular project. When she is in Germany, she speaks in English with the people in that German office. When she trained people on Adobe CQ in the German offices, she did her training in English. When she trained in Shanghai–her stop before the US–she did it in English. She said she took this job because it was in English, even though her native language is French, because it gave her an opportunity to use her second language and improve her fluency.
The fellow from Brazil was so fluent with an American accent that I almost thought he was an American of Brazilian descent who moved to South America. His English was impeccable, and he made so few pronunciation mistakes, that he reminded me of my husband’s accent, which is almost perfect, but there’s still a little something lingering there if you listen VERY carefully.
So, all this got me to thinking about conversations that have been going around in the last year or two about localization and the perception of English being the main language of the Internet, which are topics that have written about before. The impression I’ve been getting through many of the tech comm conversations has been that we should not assume that everyone is learning English, fluent in English even as a second language, and that English is not taking over as the predominant language it’s alluded to be. The message is that we need to neutralize the English we have because most of the world does not speak English, and this action will help with translation. That all makes sense to me. What makes things confusing to me is the implication that English should back off from trying to be the “international” language because perhaps it should be Chinese, or Spanish, or some other language that more populations speak, or that we need to concentrate more on making translation and localization work. I understand that implication as well, and generally I back that notion.
Perhaps my company is a rare case in that the official language of the company is something other than what the native language of where it’s located is. I remember a year or two ago reading about a company in Japan that was making all its employees–down to the mailroom and custodial staff–learn English at the company. The company I work for has been around for 150 years in Germany, so you’d think that there would be a lot of bilingual people in order to work between two continents, but that it would not be Anglo-centric, but rather German-centric. Yet, that’s not the case. I don’t know why they decided that, but it really got me to thinking. If one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world, based out of Germany, has its official language as English, what does that really say? Is English really the predominant “international” language after all? Are there other global companies that are following suit? What does that mean for international English, or for that matter localization and translation efforts? Are we going to end up in a world like in Firefly where everyone spoke both English and Chinese, and no other languages?
I suppose it’s simply my own perception that sees it as confusing. On one hand, we’re being told to embrace other languages and appreciate the translation and localization process for the sake of understanding that English is not the predominant global language we think it is, and then on the other hand, we see proof that global corporations are shifting towards more English or predominant English usage. Did I read or encounter these companies as exceptions, or is this becoming the rule?
What are your thoughts? Post in the comments below, and let me know what you think.
I know I haven’t been on my blog all that much. What can I say? Life gets in the way. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve had a busy summer, and it is shaping up to be an even busier autumn.
“Why would that be, TechCommGeekMom?” you may be asking. I’m glad you asked.
Work has picked up quite a bit, in a good way. I’ve spent a large part of the summer working on three significant internal websites at work, and they are all near finalization. But the big news is that at the end of this month, I’ll be having training on Adobe CQ5–which is a new CMS for me to learn–and I’ve been given a high profile section of the external website for the company where I’m consulting. This is huge! In all my years of being a content manager/publisher, I’ve only worked on one “standard” CMS/WCMS, namely SharePoint. All the rest have been “franken-systems”. I’ve been told that eventually the company will be moving all its internal content to that SharePoint, but first they have to get all the current sites into the current system before they can make that move. In the meantime, the external site is moving forward in a big way using Adobe CQ, and I’m being brought into the fold with a big project.
There are several things that excite me about this project:
1) I get to learn a new WCMS, and I like the challenge of learning something new and useful.
2) This WCMS is one that will help bring the company’s website into the 21st century–there’s a big push on responsive design, social media, and localization for the website, especially the section that I will be working on. I’ve only been learning about these kinds of sites for the last two to three years, but not being able to put what I’ve learned into practice. Now I can!
3) I’ve been given a preview of how the website will be structured and how the content has been chosen and mapped out. I like the content strategy that’s been decided for the overall project and the direction it’s pursuing.
4) I can’t say what section I’m working on at this point, but when I say it’s a high-profile section, it’s a VERY high-profile section. I’m really honored that the company has asked me to work on building this section of the site. For me, it shows me that they like the work I’ve done so far, and they trust me to make good decisions. That means that it’s a big responsibility, and I can’t be lazy on this project. They’ve placed a lot of trust in me, and I can’t let them down.
So, that’s going to be taking up a huge part of my daytime hours. And quite frankly, work has been exhausting, but in a good way. You know when you have a really good workout, and by the end of the day you feel a genuine tiredness from being physically tired, as opposed to being tired simply because you’ve been up for a while? It’s like that, but it’s mentally. Well, it’s physically for me too, since I’ve started trying to squeeze in actual workouts into my daily routine, too, to try to lose weight since I sit on my bottom all day. Throw in responsibilites for my local STC chapter (which I’m still trying to get a handle on), and mom-related responsibilities–there’s a lot going on! So, getting info into TechCommGeekMom proves to be challenging these days.
I haven’t given up on this blog, but being as busy as I am, I’m sure you’ll understand. It was much easier when I started, as I was unemployed with plenty of free time that has slowly diminished as time has gone on once I became employed. Now, I’m taking care of my health and taking on other new responsibilities, so priorities change a little bit. This is still my connection to my tech comm family. And without this blog, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities I’ve had to learn about content strategy or social media practices that I’ll be applying to this project. Like I said, I’ll finally be able to use all the information that I’ve been learning post-grad school from all the conferences and online conversations in practice, and that is exciting to me! The trick for me right now is figuring out how to balance it all effectively, and I’m still figuring that out.
So, if you find that my postings are more intermittant, you understand why. Ultimately, when looking at the big picture of events going on, they are steps in a positive direction. In the words of Martha Stewart, “It’s a good thing.”
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