Let’s work on constructive and positive approaches to spreading accessibility awareness everywhere.

This is not being cheesy and cutesy. I’m not bringing out the unicorns and rainbows, even though they can correct accessibility errors in one sprinkling of fairy dust.

The background

Somewhere at the end of 2008 or beginning of 2009, I saw Chris Heilman make a similar call. He said something about making positive changes. He proposed that we stop (negative) rants about some inaccessible something. Instead, he suggested taking constructive action. I took that to heart. I recall coming across a website for some spinal injury organization that had a useful-sounding brochure on exercises for people who had spine problems. The brochure was a PDF and it was inaccessible. I immediately wrote to them and suggested that they make the PDF accessible. I never heard from them. That didn’t stop me. Only time stops me, especially when I make such discoveries on a tangent to a tangent to what I was in the process of doing!

Since then, the marvelous volunteers in the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) have produced a sort of fairy dust. They made templates for how to contact organizations about inaccessible websites. Just brilliant. (I wrote about the efforts of EOWG and several others recently.)

Now and then, discussions pop up in social media about negative versus positive in the process of making the web truly universal and accessible. Such a discussion popped up yesterday on Twitter and jiggled the memory of Chris’ old call to action. I sent a tweet to Chris yesterday, asking about the source of such a statement. Chris’ links led to some awesome resources I had forgotten. That man has a passionate way with words on technology and accessibility. That’s why I stalk him, uh, follow him on Twitter, even though I am not a web developer. (At least I can comprehend the funny videos he shares from time to time!)

Chris Heilman’s awesome must-read articles

I may not have found the exact quote I was looking for, but I found two articles that I hope people will read and ponder.

• July 2008: The biggest barrier to accessibility and inclusive design is us
• September 2009: Finite Incatatem – my keynote at Accessibility 2.0

The Finite Incatatem has a passage I thought worth highlighting here:

Our job now is to get out of our own little world and educate the world about accessibility and the issues bad web development and design causes. We don’t do a good job with this as we always try to excuse ourselves by saying that we don’t understand technology and its ins and outs. The point is though that as someone who advocates accessibility you don’t need to know everything but all you need to do is to listen, collaborate and communicate with the right people in the right format.

Last year’s Paris Web conference had a great example of Aurelien Levy and Stephane Deschamps showing and teaching accessibility by explaining the problems using magic tricks and making people from the audience experience the issues by blindfolding them or only allowing them to use one hand to use interfaces. This is what we need to do more – bring the human aspect into our presentations and trainings instead of banging on about guidelines and laws and minute technological solutions.

Note the phrase “all you need to do is to listen, collaborate and communicate with the right people in the right format”. Note that “listen” comes first!

We must also remember that teaching is hard, as Chris states elsewhere in that speech. That is because “it not only means transferring knowledge but also changing mindsets. And that is something we have to do if we want to make this accessibility thing work.”

That’s is why communication is on par with knowing code. Changing mindsets can be just as tricky, if not more so, than wrangling HTML code in any way, shape, or form! This communication theme continues from the 2008 presentation where Chris said that “the main problem is that we just don’t talk to each other the right way. AND we communicate with the wrong means in the wrong manner.”

This shouldn’t be the case for technical communicators, right? We know how to communicate correctly, right?

While digging through Chris’ old blog posts, I read a blog post somewhere else. I think it fits nicely into this discussion. Mark Baker discusses technical communicators and respect – a respect that many think is always just out of reach. He distinguishes between one-of-them respect versus one-of-us respect. Accessibility is about removing barriers, yet many of us are quite good at building and maintaining barriers in our work. Mark’s post provides an interesting and useful little wake-up call.

Do we want to win arguments or solve a problem?

A newer post from Chris continues some of his older posts and presents a challenge for 2012. He discusses a winter of discontent for web design, but I think his points apply to those preaching accessibility regardless of whether they code, write, or design.

What about my call to action?

I don’t have a spinal injury, yet I took action when I encountered a problem on that website I mentioned previously. I was professionally aware that there was a problem, and I felt that knowledge came with a responsibility. I think more of us can do this. If in doubt, discuss the issue with friends and colleagues, or turn to the resources I mentioned at EOWG. During elections, you always hear how your vote counts. Well, the same applies here. Your accessibility efforts do count.

Other people have bigger access barriers to the web than I do. Far bigger barriers. I can sympathize with their frustration. Realizing what they experience – well, I’d be outraged and furious. Especially if I felt I was all alone with my troubles. That’s why we need to work together. We can learn from each other and support each other in this project. I’ve done my share of mocking and scorning inaccessible sites. Nothing constructive comes out of that, however.

Write to a site when you discover they lack correct (or any) alt text on images. Bit by bit, we can fix this place. Let’s do it in a constructive and positive spirit. If they fight back and resist your suggestions, use intelligence to counter that. Fight back, but with honey and constructive ideas. Be kind and polite when you vocally take your business elsewhere. You who master words – you know it can be done! Let’s do this!

PS UPDATE: Obviously, I’m giving credit to Chris for his inspiration made-to-stick a few years ago. However, the tipping point or nudge to write this comes from Jennifer Sutton. Thank you, Jennifer!

This tale popped into my mind yesterday. It came from a newsletter about a Deaf hospice care project that a friend of mine was involved in as a sign interpreter.

A Deaf man in hospice care was trying to communicate with his caregivers and was getting frustrated at not getting his message across. A social worker came to see him and formed an opinion of what the man wanted to say. That opinion was influenced by the social worker’s own opinion of what a dying person would want to say. This social worker did not know sign language, and for some reason, this was not considered a problem. The man became more agitated in his efforts to communicate, and everyone assumed that he was afraid of dying. That brought up discussions of faith and comfort and lots of abstract ideas. Finally, it was decided to send someone who actually knew sign language to see the man. And what was he trying to say?

He wanted a blanket.

Really Knowing Thy Audience

Dana Chisnell recently wrote about involving adults in designing the user experience. It is a very good and very detailed article about how to prepare for older test participants. It sounds like Dana is highlighting areas that are often overlooked. I envision test facilities that offer food and beverages with no thought for personal health issues. Offering carrot sticks or apples as a healthy alternative might even be trouble for those who wear dentures.

After reading Dana’s article, I have the impression that this is where we technical communicators risk failure – when we think about our own wishes and design accordingly. It helps to have articles like Dana Chisnell’s to keep us on the path of best practices!

We all forget best practices, especially for rarely done tasks. I know. I fell into that trap last week. I intend to make personas in my current job, but I haven’t had the time. One of my current projects involves getting more product details from a product expert. I arranged a meeting with the expert and what was the first thing he said? “I need to know the audience because that will influence my answer.” Oops. I gulped. I had temporarily lost focus. Most embarrassing.

The social worker had not forgotten the need for a sign interpreter; they had never used sign interpreters. Their focus was adjusted and they could improve conditions for all the people in the hospice for deaf people by training staff in sign language. Leaving communication to chance is too risky!

Life is an Anthropological Excursion

Don’t assume. Ask.

Some technical communicators may say that they don’t have opportunities to meet the people who use their products. Others will respond, “use social media”. I would like to point out that not everyone is using social media. (I only have anecdotal evidence for that statement.) The risk is even higher in niche areas. Maybe it never occurs to your potential audience to discuss your product on social media. To find some answers, you need to get out of the office and into the field.

One way I get into the field is keeping my mind open to input all the time. Yes, that means I think about technical communication all the time. I have friends that will testify to this while rolling their eyes. I attend local events of all kinds – tweetups, WordPress gatherings, Likemind, you name it. I talk and I listen to people with varied backgrounds. It’s an inefficient way to gather data, but that’s how life works. This puts new and different perspectives in front of me all the time. That is what keeps my mental muscles flexed and always ready to embrace new ideas. This teaches me that not everyone will speak my language and think like I do. Just explaining what my company does is an excellent exercise for me. Do I use appropriate language and am I always showing respect for my listener?

Yes, I forgot about my yet-to-be-defined persona for a moment, but I never forget the diversity of humanity. I know about that from my years of hanging out with the accessibility community in discussion lists and in social media. I think awareness of diversity is an important characteristic of technical communicators. Thinking about ways to accomodate various needs is an exciting professional challenge. However, I cannot think about this alone – not well, at least. I must ask and listen constantly. The learning will never stop.

I once faced another technical communicator who was lying in a hospital bed with tubes taped to his mouth, making it impossible for him to speak. He wanted to say something to me and tried to make signs about something. (It wasn’t sign language; he isn’t Deaf.) My technical communication antennae went out, and I thought this was the magic moment when two communicators communicated regardless of barriers. Alas, I was lost. Maybe I tried too hard. It was one of my saddest communication moments. I looked at his eyes and thought I saw “you idiot!” in them. I wonder if that dying Deaf man had the same look when he was signing to the social worker.

That experience is parked in my mental database along with the tale of the Deaf man. I’ll be more prepared for a similar situation next time, and I will fail in a new situation at another time. Asking, listening, thinking, and always learning. This helps me understand the people I am designing and writing for. If someone asks for a blanket, I’ll be able to say, “Sure, what kind?” and let the conversation flow from there.

The next Danish Ignite event takes place on March 1st. I’ll be there. Presenting. Whew! It’s a part of the Global Ignite Week.

Those of us who are presenting will follow the Ignite motto: “Enlighten us, but make it quick.”

What personal and professional passion will I share in twenty 15-second chunks?

Accessibility and inclusion.

I’m very grateful to @techwriterkai for sharing this post about the fastest way to create an Ignite presentation. Ideas are forming and I have sketches of ideas. Olivia Mitchell’s tips seem to be the perfect way to structure my snippets. Thanks, Kai!

My point of view on accessibility will be from the technical communicator’s point of view. After all, tech comms is my field. I think my information will be relevant to many of the fields connected to technical communication – usability and user experience, design, development (both software and hardware, perhaps), and more.

(By the way, with all the talk of certification in the field of technical communication, I wonder whether a successful Ignite presentation is a better certificate. I mean, you have only 5 minutes to communicate your heart out! It must be a communication IronMan. )

I have little fear of standing up in front of a crowd with the bright lights pointed right at my face. I am more concerned about getting my passion across those lights and into the minds of the audience. Accessibility and inclusion are issues that involve us all, and I plan to explain how and why. Igniting those minds is all that matters!

Unfortunately, the notes don’t show up as I thought they would. Because this presentation is not a normal presentation, the notes are crucial. I describe how to caption videos on YouTube and give a brief walk-through of the PDF accessibility checker in Adobe Acrobat. Those notes say it all, so I will have to break out those elements into blog posts, or do something that will make the notes visible. Of course, you can download a copy of the PowerPoint presentation to view my notes, but I wish the Slideshare notes worked. The message is too crucial to hide!

PS The sweat and (almost) tears came from reworking these slides 3 times! The first set became corrupted somehow and I had to re-do everything. That was so bad. Then, just as everything was finished and just before uploading to Slideshare, I managed to overwrite the slides with an older, obsolete copy. Sheer clumsiness. Sigh! I was upset about losing all the smart phrases I had prepared for my notes. I had to try and recall from memory what exactly I had written. I comforted myself with the thought of wabi-sabi. That is a phrase I have picked up from Simon Bostock after his “wabi-sabi” presentation at #tcuk10. In other words, my presentation will be unfinished. I send it out to you, dear reader, and we can continue this conversation. I didn’t need to make the polished, final version (that I thought I had in the forever vanished version) because then what would we have to talk about?

In a space of 6 days last week, I attended

• Charity Hack 2010 where participants created applications that made it easier for people to donate money to charities
• Web Accessibility London Unconference where we discussed accessibility issues in the un-conference type of conference
• Technical Communication UK conference where the tech comms tribe gathered for the usual rituals

I also dashed around London in-between some of this. Now I need to digest it all. The world isn’t a quiet, slow-moving place anymore. At least, not in my part of the world. It helps to have photographs to maintain the impressions. I dutifully recorded my experiences on Flickr:

• My Charity Hack photo set
• My a11yldn photo set (where a11yldn was the nickname and hashtag for the Web Accessibility London Unconference)
• My tcuk10 photo set (where tcuk10 was the nickname and hashtag for the Technical Communication UK conference)
• (I also have a set of dashing around London photos.)

The next task is uploading my presentations to slideshare. I gave two presentations at a11yldn, and I repeated one of them at tcuk10. I cannot permit myself to upload them without adding my notes to each slide. (Moving between different applications to make the slides mangled the notes I did have. Grrr.)

Perhaps the real task is remembering where I keep all my memories. Like the squirrel I photographed digging frantically in St. James Park to hide a gem for later enjoyment, I need to be able to retrieve those gems when I want them.

The fact is, I’m gobsmacked by all the excellent conversations I had in the past week and all the delightful people I met. I have to hold on to my hat like John Betjeman does in St. Pancras Station (his statue, that is).

I’ll just relax and let the experiences bubble around in my head. After all, they are wabi-sabi – unfinished, as Simon Bostock told us at tcuk10. My beautiful (in my opinion) photos will help to retain my memories because Simon also says, fortunately for me, that beauty is mnemonic.

Many years ago, when I worked at Computer Associates, they produced a product called CA-7/OLC. (I think that was the abbreviation.) It was an enhancement to their CA-7 software, which is still used for scheduling jobs on big old mainframe computers. The interface for CA-7 was, of course, the good old green screen – green text on a black background. The software came on – are you ready, kiddies – magnetic tapes.

CA-7/OLC was different. The demo included a large piece of hardware that played a 12-inch laserdisk. (Gee, I forget the names of all the parts after all these years.) The product was on a PC using 3.5-inch diskettes, and the laserdisk had some additional magic not possible on the PC back then.

When you ran the program, you saw the usual green-screen interface. Slightly boring, with a lot of numbers and the command line. The difference was in the Help section. You could look up something in the Help section – and bookmark relevant passages. That was revolutionary!

The real jaw-dropper was the video. You triggered the video somehow while researching some topic in the Help section. A video appeared in the upper-right corner of the monitor. This was in color! It had a talking head! The video showed a recording of a real person speaking to you about your selected topic! I think this was in the early 90s, so this was rather revolutionary, especially for a mainframe product.

CA had fun with the demo. When discussing the length of a data field, the woman in the video held out her hands to show the desired length. She smirked! To demonstrate the fact that you needed information in different languages, they had the same instructions in different languages, one of which was Valley Speak – Valspeak, as it is called in Wikipedia. OMG, it was, like, totally, amazing, you know, like? I was the only American in a room full of Danes watching this demo. I was in hysterics watching this part. It was so out of character for the usual dry, geeky mainframe products. It was a breath of fresh air.

The product was never sold. I think the main reason was that the setup was too expensive. Technology continued to develop and made the 12-inch laserdisk a dinosaur.

However, it showed us the future. It showed us interaction with a product. It showed up possible ways to use new technology. I am bit vague on some specifics, but I do remember the overall excitement so many years later. It was someone’s imagination brought to life. Breathing life into impossible or impractical projects stimulates us to make breakthroughs.

Watching the video in Alan’s blog post about our augmented future revived the memory of a demo, which is probably 20 years old. It reminds me that although there can be issues with these visions, those issues bring something tangible into the discussion that we can begin to analyse and test and evaluate. It helps us create our future.

Alan closes with this sentence:

Technical documentation is not just about the written word, it is about the communication of ideas and knowledge.

If we think like this, we will always be prepared for the future.

My latest challenge from Problogger is about promoting yesterday’s blog post. One of his suggested ways to promote yesterday’s post – do a follow-up post – made me think of something that has bugged me for a long, long time.

Why should we care about technical communication?

In some cases, the phrase reads

What is technical communication?

Oh, these questions don’t come from my head. They are questions I pick up from people I meet or articles I read or topics I encounter on discussion lists.

Those of us in the field of technical communication know that it is constantly changing and expanding and moving in new directions.

Those outside the field – well, do they even know what the field is and what it entails? Blog posts that list the benefits of technical communication don’t get read by those who don’t know they need a technical communicator!

I think we all need to do some more promotion.

1. Tell your workplace when you attend a technical communication event – webinar, conference, or even a casual gathering where the main topic is technical communication. Maybe your colleagues or your boss know that you attended these events, but offer to make a presentation in your company to a larger group of people. I know of companies who hold lunchtime meetings just for this purpose.
2. Include your job title in your communication with people outside work and introduce yourself as a technical communicator when you meet people (I tend to ooze anonymity, so this is something I need to work on much more.)
3. Flaunt your membership in STC, IEEEPCS, or other organizations for technical communication. T-shirts, bookbags, or just the name-dropping in a conversation can kick-start a discussion – and it’s up to you to keep the conversation alive!

Before I end up with another list, I think I know many people who do this sort of thing. The reason the “Why” and “What is” questions appear on my list of “puzzlements” is because I live outside the US.

Here in Denmark, I have met many people who had no clue there was such a field. Good writing skills are somewhat incorporated into many other fields. I have met many Danish engineers who were quite good at explaining complex information. I did less re-writing of their work and more straightforward editing. Or sometimes translation. I have also met people who “wrote manuals” as one of many items in their job description.

Being an invisible field means less recognition and less awareness about its value. Five years ago, the variations of the title “technical writer” did not even exist in the job bank run by the labor market authority under the Danish ministry of labor. I know because I helped to put it there. I had been laid off and could not find an appropriate job title in the online database where I had to register and add my CV (résumé). I had several English and Danish variations added to the database and wondered how people had fared before then.

My point is that we need to be much better at promoting our field of technical communication in every way we can.

My action plans? One tiny thing I can do at work is to explain exactly why I am out of the office when I prepare my out-of-office message before leaving for the STC Technical Summit in Atlanta. I will also blog about technical communication in Danish on the Webgrrls blog. (Yes, Lisa, I have not forgotten that I am way overdue to blog there! )

1. End Users Need Documentation
2. Technical Communicators Look at the Product with a User Perspective
3. Technical Communicators Help with Quality Assurance
4. Having Quality Documentation Reflects Positively on Your Organization
5. Documentation Provides a Record
6. Documentation Saves on Support Costs
7. Technical Writers Have a Versatile Skill Set

He added four more reasons after posting the first seven.

1. Technical Communicators’ Information Gathering Gets the Team to Think Critically
2. Technical Communicators Are Specifically Trained
3. Technical Communicators Lighten the Load
4. Technical Communicators Can Provide Training and Support

These are Ben’s 11 reasons in brief. Read the articles to learn the story behind each link.

I like Ben’s reasons, but I wanted to test whether I could add my own – brief – interpretation to his reasons.

1. End Users Need Documentation – Our work provides the missing link between the product or service and the user, enhancing the experience.
2. Technical Communicators Look at the Product with a User Perspective – We are the user’s advocate.
3. Technical Communicators Help with Quality Assurance – We (should) live, breathe, and think quality!
4. Having Quality Documentation Reflects Positively on Your Organization – Our quality adds or increases value for everyone.
5. Documentation Provides a Record – We are vital piece in that entire compliance/regulations/requirements picture.
6. Documentation Saves on Support Costs – When the documentation helps the user figure out the problem on their own, thereby avoiding any irritation caused by calling support – well, I told you we added value!
7. Technical Writers Have a Versatile Skill Set – Many workplaces discover that if anyone knows the answer, it’s the technical communicator – the challenges we face over time contribute to an impressive amount of knowledge that frequently covers all situations.
8. Technical Communicators’ Information Gathering Gets the Team to Think Critically – We ask questions. All the time.
9. Technical Communicators Are Specifically Trained – We are professionals.
10. Technical Communicators Lighten the Load – Give the qualified professionals the jobs!
11. Technical Communicators Can Provide Training and Support – Because our work takes us to the many corners of the product or service, we have the potential to provide training and support.

I’d also like to add that documentation here is anything that communicates information about the product or service to the user. Because technical documentation can be so many things, these examples cover the classic manual, online help, user interface text, videos, podcasts, illustrations, design, and whatever else might be a way to communicate information.

This list can actually be extended and branch in other directions. That is the true versatility of technical communication. The names of the special interest groups (SIGs) in STC can give you an idea of how varied and versatile we are, and still there is more magic that we can do. I leave that to other blog posts on other days and perhaps by other bloggers. Maybe you?

Hat tip til Tom Johnson for posting these links at Writer River. By the way, this post comes from something I started to work on a long time ago. Hurray for drafts in WordPress! It came in very handy for Problogger’s Day 2 challenge to write a list post!

If you are not sure, here are some examples of people within the technical communication field:

Accessibility analysts, content developers, documentation specialists, indexers, information architects, information designers, instructional designers, localization specialists, policies and procedures specialists, researchers, teachers, technical illustrators, technical writers, technical editors, translators, usability and human factors professionals, visual designers, and Web designers and developers. The list goes on.

Why I am writing to technical communicators? There has never been a more important time for us to stay connected and work together to advance our careers and profession.

One valuable way to stay connected is through an organization like STC, the Society for Technical Communication.

As I state on my site, I belong to STC, and I am quite active in STC. I feel that my STC membership has been a real boost to my career, and I would like to see more technical communciators experience the same great benefits.

• I have gained a network of colleagues and experts that I can call upon for advice or feedback.
• The continuing education at the annual conference and the live Web seminars increase my professional knowledge and skills, and continue to strengthen my value to my employer. (My membership played a positive role in getting me my current job!)
• Participation in the virtual communities of STC fosters that network and keeps me abreast of job opportunities near and far, as well as continually exposing me to new ideas and thoughts, which helps me to grow as a professional technical communicator and as a person.
• I know I can count on the members of my SIGs (special interest groups) for their knowledge and opinion on changing technologies, techniques, and tools. There are 21 SIGs in STC and I belong to 6 of them.
• I can develop skills of leadership, management, strategy, and planning – to name just a few – through participation in STC leadership, whether it be as webmaster, manager, treasurer, and so on. Currently, I am a co-manager of the AccessAbility SIG, webmaster for the Europe SIG, as well as the STC Advocate. Maybe that sounds like a lot? That is why I am encouraging you to join in the fun and share the experience!

STC is conducting a membership drive right now. You can join for the year 2009 and get the final two months of 2008 for free!

Do you still want to hear more about STC? Read our powerful story. Browse through the benefits of membership. Call the STC Member Services staff at +1 (703) 522-4114 with any questions you may have. Ask me questions in the comments field here on the blog.

When you sign up for your membership, and you are a brand-new, never-before-an-STC-member, put my name in the box that asks who referred you, as well as the SIG that will receive credit. I don’t really care whether you put my name in the box, but do add the name of a SIG that you will join so that they can benefit from our current membership campaign. I love my SIGs so I feel a bit torn in my loyalties. The AccessAbility SIG and the Europe SIG are the tiniest of these groups (but they have dreams and ambitions to share with you!), so I would encourage support for them. Seriously, investigate the SIGs and find the ones that suit your needs; then give them your support immediately by naming them on your membership form.

For me, paying dues is one of the best investments I make each year for my professional development. I do not use my blog for advertising, but I feel justified in helping others discover the value of a professional society that can support them throughout their career.

I hope that you will join us very soon.

Regards,

Karen

For the short answer, go to what is probably the most famous wiki, Wikipedia, to get a quick explanation of a blog and a wiki that goes a bit beyond my “just websites” explanation.

That’s all there is to it. Bye.

Well… there is a bit more.

The longer answer

Blogs and wikis can take writing for a website, or web publishing, to a new level. You are probably familiar with a website that just sits there, providing you with the same information day after day, with slight changes over time. Perhaps you find sites like that when you are looking for a plumber or a restaurant. Such a site informs, but you cannot interact with the site itself. You just receive information, but you cannot send any information back to that site. Blogs and wikis have changed that. They brought in some interaction as you’ll see elsewhere in this post. When you start exploring the possibilities of interacting with readers and users of the blog or wiki, it is probably safest to say: the sky’s the limit.

The longer answer becomes: why. Why use a blog or wiki? Let’s look at each of them separately for a moment.

The blog…

The term blog comes from weblog, that is, a log on the web. (Think of a ship captain’s log.) If you wrote a diary, which is how many perceive a blog, you would open to page 1 and move on through the diary in a linear fashion. Someone who picked it up to read would find your oldest entries at the beginning of the book and your newest entries at the end of the book.
Because of the way a blog is published on the web, your newest entries are displayed first. That would be like reading your diary backwards. The idea is that if you follow the musings in a blog on a regular basis, you would always have the newest entry – the latest news – first.

Blogs allow you to have a dialog. There is a place to leave comments for the author so you can let her know how you feel about the topic, or perhaps build on an idea or an issue raised in the blog post that the author then comments on, which you then comment on…

The advantage of the authoring tools designed for bloggers is that you need no technical knowledge. Well, you need to know how to navigate a computer, basic stuff, but you don’t need to know coding of any kind. You can just write. You compose your material, taking all the time you want, and then you push a button when you want to show your work to the world. There are more advanced tools and many opportunities to make blog modifications that would satisfy any geek, but being a geek is not a requirement to begin blogging.

As you dive deeper into the world of blogging, you can expand your knowledge of blogging more and more. I have a personal partiality for WordPress and WordPress.com, but there are many other tools for blog novices, such as Blogger.

The wiki…

So what are wikis? Again, websites. The difference is in the collaboration. Wikis are often thought of as collaboration tools.

Imagine you and your friends working on a whiteboard. You write a sentence. A friend adds another sentence. Someone else corrects a spelling error you made. Yet another person erases the first two sentences and produces a new sentence that contains the essence of the old sentence. Kind of tedious, right? Well, electronically, it is much different.

You all have access to this wiki. You post a paragraph, and together with your friends, or colleagues, you add, substract, and rewrite the text until you have a result that all of you are satisfied with. A wiki is then a website with multiple authors. Wikis are often used in companies for internal collaboration. It spreads the burden of maintaining information to all participants.

Of course, this multiple author setup could lead to utter chaos in some cases, so you have style guides and guidelines based on what the wiki is used for. I also argue that before utter chaos sets in, a technical communicator/writer/editor be employed to maintain the quality of the content. Again, depending on what the wiki is used for. If it is simply for brainstorming, the content changes are too rapid and too frequent to worry about appearances. Just make sure editing in firmly in place before any publishing outside the brainstorming group! (Job opportunity, anyone?)

Where are they?

Everywhere. So let’s just look at the world of technical communication.

Wikis and blogs are peacefully invading the world of technical communication. They provide a great opportunity to learn about these new-fangled applications without veering away from a passion for a specific aspect of technical communication.

Some technical communication sites that use a wiki or a blog are:

• The Technical Editing SIG (blog)
• The Information Design and Information Architecture SIG (blog)
• The Suncoast STC Chapter (blog)
• The Washington, D.C. STC Chapter (blog)
• The Carolina STC Chapter (wiki), whose newsletter section is quite nice, especially from a maintenance point of view.

You can find even more blogs related to technical communication over at this wiki (!), which I blogged about previously.

Why?

The title of my favorite technical communication blog has a great message: I’d rather be writing. With the wonderful and free tools that are available for building a wiki or a blog, you can concentrate on writing. Tom Johnson, the man behind this blog, is an example of someone who started poking around this new-fangled toy and got wildly carried away – much to everyone’s benefit! I am very grateful for the many fruitful discussions I had with Tom when I was starting out in the blogosphere.

All volunteer organizations face the challenge of recruiting volunteers, especially the really knowledgeable volunteers. Perhaps you get a superduper expert for maintaining your website, and then they retire after serving the community for a while. What if there are no superduper successor experts around – or what if they don’t have the time?

Tools for making wikis and blogs tend to have large support communities filled with members who love the application and love sharing their knowledge. This lowers the bar without lowering the quality: you can get someone to volunteer who may not be an expert but who is happy to lend a hand and who is always interested in poking around something new. The support community for that tool are your, well, support. Simple blogging tools let that person experience success, which should fuel a continued interest in working in that role as web editor, webmaster, or whatever title you use, and not running away screaming.

Like Tom, they might begin to explore the application more closely while doing their community a service, and end up expanding their personal horizons and their employment potential.

And there is a little bit more!

Some sites to get you started with the concept of blogging or “wiki-ing” (naw, it’s just called using a wiki) are:

• “Lorelle on WordPress” and her blog entry about what to do with your new blog. She is a fountain of wisdom for all newbies – and experts, too. This link can get you started, but remember to bookmark her page or subscribe to her words of wisdom.
• From a quick glance, this blogger looks like he has a nice overview of in his article “what is a blog“. It is just one part of his blogging tips for beginners. If you get serious about blogging, this is another site to pay attention to.
• PBS has a blog where you can also find a good explanation about blogs geared to educators.
• For the visually minded, here’s a short video that explains wikis.
• Here’s a longer explanation about using wikis for projects from O’Reilly (the publishers).
• Finally, an explanation about wikis from Sitepoint.

They can help you form the answer you need for your why question. Do you want dialog, or collaboration, or both, or something more than that? Or is having your website just sit there still the best solution for you?