Tag: TechCommGeekMom

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Unruly Content: Why Governance Matters

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

As things wind down for me and I adapt to life without the STC, I realize that it’s probably time for me to try to come back to writing on here. It’s so infrequent that I do, but hey–it’s been a busy last few years, and there’s literally hundreds of old posts you can read if you really wanted to.

Something that’s been on my mind in the work that I’ve been doing is thinking about content governance. Who’s responsible for what? Who wants to take responsibility, and for that matter, are they the right people to take responsibility? Who’s going to maintain all the changes and restructuring that’s done after a project?

I can say with confidence that I’ve spent a good part of my content career being a content janitor. What do I mean by that? Well, it’s exactly like it sounds. I clean up other people’s content messes. Sometimes those content messes are small spills, and some are dumpster fires. Either way, it’s not unusual for me to play a role in cleaning up things when others have made a mess.

I think what frustrates me most–and this has been at multiple places over my career–is that everyone not only thinks they are a writer, but they also think they are content strategists and information architects. Now, this isn’t to say that this can’t be learned organically, but the best ones learn from even better ones, and there are standards, processes, and best practices that one needs to learn to create quality content. When those who are not in the technical communications field or those who don’t have true training and practical experience get involved, it can turn into a hot mess quickly. What’s more frustrating is that when those who DO have that experience and training speak up, we’re ignored, even if we’re the actual experts.

Years ago when I was a volunteer for one of Scott Abel’s Intelligent Content conferences, he encouraged me to take a workshop with Lisa Welchman, who is the queen of digital governance. Her workshop made so much sense because it was really about logical things that people simply didn’t employ! I eagerly bought her book (Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design) and it’s still a staple in my bookshelf now. So much of what she writes in her book is common sense as well, and it has influence a lot of my thinking over the years. So much of it boiled down to, “Well, who is taking responsibility for this from the beginning to the middle to the end and beyond?”

How many of us technical communicators walk into roles where the people around us are not content people or don’t fully understand how to manage content correctly? It’s happened more times than not for me. Part of the issue is that without proper project management, change management, and a clearly communicated plan for governance during your project as well as after your project is done, it’s going to be a disaster. Heaven forbid if you explain that doing the due diligence is being too rushed to account for issues that can be resolved with some more time. Those who are normally responsible for content and have the expertise could speak up about these things that aren’t clearly defined, but then it’s seen as stepping on toes, or being out of line, or being difficult. Project parameters and governance shouldn’t be made up while you’re closing in on the end of the project. This is especially important when you have a lot of stakeholders, whether it’s across departments or even divisions of a company.

So, this is where the role of content janitor comes in. A project is launched by a group. There’s the big fanfare that it’s a success because it’s up and running. But not too long afterwards, all the cracks start surfacing. It’s the moment that the technical communicators are wanting to scream, “I told you so,” and yet these same people who were not tasked with leading the project despite being the experts are now the scapegoats who get blamed for all the problems–and the clean up. Why? Because the governance of the project and the maintenance thereafter was not clearly established, and it becomes a case of “it’s not my job,” but no one else is stepping up.

The best thing is to see things for what they are, even if you aren’t in charge of the project, and be proactive in making a plan so that the cleanup is minimal at best. A good example of that is something happened in my day today. The team that does the content maintenance from another division of my company–essentially my counterparts from that division–met with my manager and I to discuss how we plan to deal with tracking and maintaining content requests that will result after a big overhaul that’s happening in our company. We were ensuring our processes aligned with best practices, but also determining how we could ensure that there would be no stepping of toes or acting in a way that would be seen as out of bounds. In other words, we made a decision together to devise some governance for ourselves. It was empowering. I was really thrilled with the outcome of the short meeting. It was clear that we were all thinking along the same lines, and it was just a matter of figuring out the nuances that we could smooth out.

Governance might be seen at implementing rules and restrictions. It’s not that at all. It’s about establishing boundaries and responsibilities to ensure that the content for your organization remains a valuable asset to all those who consume that content.

What are your thoughts? Include your comments below.

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Rest in Power, STC

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

I know it’s been about a minute (ha!) since I’ve written here, but it seemed appropriate under the circumstances to write this.

Last week, I thought I was having a heart attack–a REAL heart attack. My chest hurt, my heart was racing at a million miles an hour, I was having some difficulty breathing, and when I had a head-rush for no reason, I knew something was wrong. With a family history of heart disease, I didn’t want to take any chances. I had my husband take me to the doctor, and she determined that I was experiencing a panic attack. Well, I guess I’m glad it was a panic attack and not an actual heart attack!

But why?

Today, the world figured out a big part of what has been contributing to my stress for a while now. The STC announced that it had shut its doors and is filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy. I was one of those people who had to make that decision. While it was not my decision alone, I know that those on the STC Executive Council and Board are also feeling this stress and sadness as well. While it sounds cliché, believe me when I say that this decision was not made lightly and was very difficult. It was a build-up of years of issues coming to a head despite many best efforts to reverse those issues, and rather than depending on unpredictable “hope” that it would get better, it was the right decision to stop everything. Otherwise, an already bad situation was only going to get worse, and that would not be fair to anyone–the members, or those on the future Board trying to keep things afloat.

While I could go into deeper details of the last seven months as I experienced them as Board Vice-President and what led to this, I won’t. It’s not worth it at this point. Maybe if I ever meet you in person over a drink or lunch, I could tell you the story, but not here.

Rather, I want to use this to express how I’m mourning this loss. I’ve been reading comments from all over the world about the announcement, and trying to help others through this as best as I can.

As someone who started a new career in her forties, STC was introduced to me when I decided to go back to school. I joined as a graduate student, and haven’t left since that time. While I haven’t been a member as long as many people that I know, I can honestly say that STC has been my chosen family. I’ve made a lot of professional connections with people I consider my mentors. The knowledge I’ve gained with my association with STC has been tremendous. It took my knowledge and experience in tech comm to the next level to make my career what it is today. Heck, I don’t know that I would have the job I have now without my STC connection, as that was a “preferred” qualification when I applied.

I’ve also formed many friendships with my colleagues over the years. There’s a large group of technical communicators who I met through STC that are my “touch base” people–they are the ones I don’t have to mask my autism for and can totally be myself. That says a lot. These are friendships I hope to sustain for many years to come through social media and other means, because these people do mean a lot to me, and I might not see them as often now since we won’t have STC to connect us the same way.

So, for me to be one of the main people to push for this closing because it was the right thing to do? This was like taking a loved one off of life support to let them pass on. No one really wants that beloved person to go, but you don’t want to prolong any suffering either. That’s what this feels like for me, and I know it’s felt that way for a lot of longtime STC members and associates.

I’ve been grateful that most of the messages I’ve read or received were of support for the decision. Most people are sad, but they understand that this was not an easy thing to do, and that it’s for the best. It does comfort me that other people can attest to the knowledge and energy that the organization had, which brought some of the best of the best in technical communication out there, and that STC helped with their careers, too.

For myself, it’s disappointing that I’ll never have the chance to apply to be an Associate Fellow or Fellow. But I’m not alone–several people applied for those honors this year, and that’s not even going to be fulfilled now for them either. If things were in a better state, I could have been in line to be the Board President. Well, I got pretty close with being Vice-President, so there’s that. I am grateful that I’m one of the few people who has received the STC President’s Award–that’s nothing to sneeze at. So many people contributed to the long-term success of the organization but will not be able to reap the benefits anymore, which is a hard pill to swallow. But it is what it is.

A lot of us are mourning for this big loss. And it is a loss. I wrote about the benefits of belonging to STC plenty of times over the course of the years on this blog. Sure, there are other organizations that we can explore and join, and other avenues for gaining knowledge, education, and certifications. But STC was truly a different kind of organization. I’ve never felt more supported by any other organization like this in my life. Everyone wanted you to do well. Everyone encouraged you to learn, discuss, and innovate. The genuine kindness and support were unmatched. The STC alumni are incomparable in these respects, and I hope that this will continue as we connect in other ways and carry this legacy forward.

I do want to give an extra special shoutout to two people in this whole thing.

First, to Tim Esposito, the Immediate Past President of STC. Tim and I go way back from trenches of the STC Philadelphia Metro Chapter. While he’s been in STC longer than me, he always encouraged me to step up, has been an incredible mentor, one of my biggest cheerleaders, and a great friend and confidant. I can’t thank him enough, and so glad that we’ve moved up the ranks together (usually with me on your coat tails). Sir, I salute you.

The other person is Liz Herman, the current STC President. So much of this entire process has been on her shoulders, and I couldn’t let her bear this whole thing alone. She did so much of the heavy lifting, and we owe her a debt of gratitude for her grace and leadership under pressure. (This is an understatement.) I’m glad we were able to work together and support each other through this process, and we’re going down like Thelma and Louise–together!

There are so many other people to name, but I don’t know that I could remember or fit them all in. You know who you are. Thank you all for supporting my journey as I’ve become a better technical communicator, teaching me how to fight against imposter syndrome at my weakest moments, and helping me learn how to be a leader. You have my eternal gratitude.

The Society for Technical Communication had a 72-year run. We all contributed to making it a good run while we could. The organization will be sorely missed by many, and definitely by me.

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Is Apple AI having an identity crisis?

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

Today, 18 March 2024, I found this post on LinkedIn.com which briefly discusses that Apple is considering using Gemini AI from Google for their products.
Apple mulls Gemini for iPhones

Hey Apple, I’m really confused by this. You came out with Siri eons ago. In fact, between my own experiences between Google’s Alexa and Siri, while neither is perfect, Siri had always been the better voice bot. Siri’s been out longer, and has had a longer opportunity to build an LLM based on alllllll the conversations that people have had with Siri for more than a decade, easily. So how is it that Alexa, which generally does not perform as well and hasn’t been out as long, and that which I’m guessing is the foundation (or at least partial foundation) of Gemini, and you’re going with THEIR tool?

I’m a bit disappointed. This is truly Apple dropping the ball, as they say. Okay, sure, so there isn’t going to be an Apple car and there will be more focus on making CarPlay work harder. (I could use that, for sure.) But to think about defaulting to Google? No. I mean, at least look at what Microsoft is doing with their Open AI acquisition, or some other one. I don’t trust Google with so much of this. They’ve always been a little loosey-goosey with products and launches. You know you have the people–or can get the people–to help you out with this. You have the right infrastructure and a great foundation with Siri. Why stop now?

(Sorry, not sorry, Cortana, if you feel left out. Also a missed opportunity, but maybe you’re a CoPilot now or have a new identity that’s not Bing.)

What do you think? Do you think it’s a good thing or a not so good thing that Apple is looking at Gemini as its AI resource tool. Like I said, I’m not in favor of it. Post your thoughts below.

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Is a membership into a professional society worthwhile?

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

Yesterday was a gray, blustery Saturday, where it would’ve been easier to stay in bed, drink some hot tea, and curl up with a good book. Instead, I was actually happy to go out in the horrible weather, because I was meeting up with a fellow STC member who lives about an hour’s drive away from me here in New Jersey. Over the years, we’ve become good friends, and we always have a good time together when we do get together. I ventured out to meet up with her for lunch, and we talked for almost 4 hours (and could’ve talked longer).

Why should you care about that? Well, one of the things that the STC friend and I talked about was that STC has a unique culture that if you choose to get involved and embed yourself into the Society, you not only reap the benefits of learning professional skills, and networking with others, but there’s a real sense of support in STC. My friend mentioned that she’s been involved in other professional communities, and very often, it’s more about one-upmanship amongst the members, volunteers, and leaders. While you can make connections, it’s every person for themselves. My friend commented that one of the reasons she’s been in the STC for so long (and she and I started with STC within a year or two of each other, coincidentally), was that the sentiment of “every person for themselves” really wasn’t present in this community. The general vibe truly was one of consistent support for each other and for the Society.

I have to agree with her! Since I truly started getting more and more involved with the Society, I’ve had nothing but support as I’ve ventured along. The members are genuinely friendly overall, and the passion they have for technical communication is palpable. Almost everyone I’ve met is a tech comm geek. Conversations are passionate about content strategy, proper grammar, UX writing, technical writing, and nowadays, conversations about AI. When I entered this profession, I figured it was going to be people who were rather dry because of the type of work we do. I’ve found that the opposite is true, and my friend commented the same. We noted that technical writers are not boring or strictly the grammar police (okay, we ARE the grammar police), but rather we are a lively group with creative tendencies. When you look at the outside hobbies of most of the people we know, there are artists of all mediums (we do have the Tech Comm Knitting Cabal, after all), musicians, actors, food and libation connoisseurs, people who participate in historical societies, and other fascinating hobbies. Don’t let the concept of most technical writers being introverts fool you! (I mean, many are, but not around other technical communicators.) All those interests aside, these are generally not mean-spirited people.

Why is this important? Speaking only for myself, I can say that in all these years that I’ve been involved with STC, I’ve been allowed to take calculated risks and test the waters when I want to try out my project management and leadership skills. As a contractor, one never really gets the opportunity to show or grow in those skills because you aren’t somewhere for very long or you’re in a position–or rather not in a position–to be able to learn how to take the reins of a project because you are a temporary worker. As an STC volunteer, I’ve had so many opportunities to gain experience as a community leader when it couldn’t happen professionally due to my being a contractor. At the same time, one of the things I’ve learned at STC is that a) you can’t exactly terminate a volunteer (it’s very difficult), but b) it’s also a safe place to make mistakes for the same reason. You can try again, and you have the support of your fellow community members who want you to succeed.

My friend noted the same thing for herself. She’s held various community positions, and at one point, we ever worked together on a committee. While we have our home state/location in common, we come from very different backgrounds and experiences, and we both were able to see how we could bring our collective strengths to the table. I think she was the first chairperson I met of any kind who clearly understood and always tried to put forth that she understood that our volunteering wasn’t our job, and that we did have lives outside of STC and she respected that. That was a great example for me to follow, especially since I always wanted people to understand that I was giving all I could within my bandwidth. That said, she and I also agreed that you get out of STC what you put in, and that as a volunteer, if you make the commitment to do something, you really need to do you best to stick with it and not sign up for something just to have your name on the committee roster.

The one thing that we also noted–which isn’t always possible–is that member try to make the trip to the STC Summit if they can–at least once. We’re a global organization, so it’s nice to be able to put actual humans with names and photos and videos of people we’ve met online over time. You also meet a lot of new people in the process, too. This not only builds up your professional network, but so many of the people I’ve met have become my friends.

Due to the nature of my job and my responsibilities at home, I really don’t get out much, despite what people things of me as an extrovert. But I was thinking of all the people who I’m hoping to get together with this year outside of Summit, and they are all STC people. These are all people who have my back, and I have theirs. And that’s saying something on my part, because I don’t throw my support to people lightly. You have to earn that right and trust from me. These are people that I’ve learned to respect and learn from, as well as have a good giggle with sometimes. Even yesterday with this friend, we talked about STC things, technical communication things, and things simply going on with our lives, like trivia contests and travel.

STC, through all the ups and downs that have gone on in recent years, is my “home”. It’s been there to support what I do, and connected me with others who are as passionate about tech comm as I am. I don’t feel alone. I feel empowered. When I didn’t have a job, my STC community was there for me to help me move forward. My friend and I talked about “company culture” and how many companies will talk the talk but don’t always walk the walk–that it’s more lip service or propaganda than actual “family”. I mean, it’s your employer, not your actual family. STC feels different in that it IS family in a sense. It’s a positive “company culture” that is real, and as a Board Director now, I work with others who are as passionate as I am to keep that culture and community going as the world and the world of tech comm transforms. It’s a constant.

So, have I been assimilated? Yes. Resistance is futile for me.

Have you experienced either the good–or not so good with an association that you are affiliated with? Include your comments below.

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Tech Comm is safe from AI

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom
Hoshi Sato, the 1st Comms Officer for the Enterprise.
She did not rely on AI alone, and was Uhura’s idol.
(I also named my car “Hoshi” in her honor.)

I know, I know. I definitely don’t write here as often as I used to–not by a longshot. But, that’s actually a good thing. It means that I’m doing a lot to keep busy. Between work, STC volunteering, and dealing with an ornery young autistic adult, my bandwidth is usually taken up. My job is helping me flex my tech comm muscles often, as does my STC volunteering.

Of course, I’m sure you’re looking at the title of this post and thinking, “What? Is she nuts? Why would she think that with all the chatter going on these days with AI?”

First of all, if you’ve read this blog long enough or even gotten to know me personally, you know I’m already nuts. I’ve been thinking about this since everyone got excited (for better or worse) about tools like ChatGPT and the like. My last entry was even done using ChatGPT and answered this question.

Yet, since it’s constantly being questioned and such, I feel even more strongly that we in the tech comm industry are fairly safe for now. To begin with, these AI tools are still in their infancy. Sure, they are very good, but there are problems with them, namely that they pull from all sources, which means that they can pull from sources that provide fake or incorrect information. Until that’s sorted, you have humans who can make that distinction. Next, it will be a long time until the writing is superior to human writing–or at least trained, GOOD writing. Again, ChatGPT is an mediocre writer and the writing passes as acceptable. But it’s just that…acceptable.

But for me, the real test was when I had to try out a tool that I was advised to try. The company had recently acquired the tool, and felt it would be good for the tasks I do for writing knowledge articles for our knowledge base. WELL, let me tell you, it was eye-opening in the sense that it actually proved that my human brain was better than the AI tool. Here’s why: the tool is set up to write newsletters, not knowledge articles, in a short, concise way with special formatting so that it would be a quick yet informative and comprehensive read for anyone reading the content. Fair enough. The principles behind the tool were based on a formatting technique that the company also adopted and that my team adapted as we saw fit.

I tested this tool using one of our longest, most complicated articles that was in the traditional long-form format. Surely, if this tool was all that and a bag of chips, it would be the equivalent of a slaughterhouse, slashing my sentences and paragraphs with virtual red ink everywhere in the test article showing where numerous corrections were. Instead, it made a few suggestions for sections that I could put in bold for emphasis (not a dealbreaker) and maybe a few spots for more concise wording (some were appropriate, some were not). Overall, though, it did not impress. After working with the new formatting technique without the tool for so long over the past 6 months, I found that I was better able to apply the new formatting technique than the tool was. The tool was useless for me. Now, this isn’t to say that for the average, untrained writer who wrote newsletters that this tool wouldn’t be appropriate. For that purpose, it had its benefits. But for what I do, it was a no-go. I could actually do a better job. Even my manager who tested the tool as well agreed that it wasn’t helpful for writing knowledge articles, and we humans (or at least she and I) could do a better job.

It got me to thinking…what AI tools do we already have at hand that help us improve our writing? We’ve had at least two that I can think of off the top of my head. First is one that I use all the time–the Editor tool in Word. Other word processing tools have similar functions, but the idea that it will tell you if you are using concise language, formal language, bad grammar, provide word counts, etc. is already AI helping us do a better job. Another one is also Grammarly. While I haven’t used this tool much, it uses AI to provide you with suggestions. I have read (I can’t remember where, though) that Grammarly also pulls from sites without permissions, so that’s not cool AI, even if it’s helpful for some people to improve their writing. In other words, many of us have been using some form of AI to help tighten up what we already know and help us improve to be better writers.

I also remember the words of a panelist at this past year’s STC Summit who responded to a question about AI. She’s deep in doing translations in a manufacturing industry, and she said that when machine translations first came out, translation specialists like herself were worried that they would be replaced. That was twenty-ish years ago. While machine translation has improved, it has definitely NOT replaced human intervention in the translation. Machines can’t distinguish context–which is a huge part of translation and language, and it can’t attest for culture and other language localization. To me, that was a powerful idea. Experiencing the tool that we were experimenting with at work reinforced it for me.

And if you want me to bring in the geek me, look at Star Trek. We still have Hoshi Sato and Nyota Uhura, two of the most famous Star Trek communications/translators, and even they can’t always get all of it through the translators perfectly every time. How many times has someone like Geordi LaForge or Data asked the computer to provide a calculation or provide something in the Holodeck, and it’s like talking to Siri or Alexa who doesn’t get it on the first (or second or third) try to understand what we need unless we get super explicit in our request?

So, we’re safe. If anything, AI might change how we do things, but it might make our life a little easier to do the initial “lifting”, but not the full refinement. Like machine translation, it can get most of the translation correct, but you still need a human to ensure that the message is actually correct.