atw: Re: Audience Analysis
- From: "Michelle Hallett" <michelle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:48:47 +1100
Christine:
This is part of what I was trying to suggest might warrant research. The
corporate world is accustomed to thinking of itself and leading edge, when,
in fact, there is this whole new internet-based real world running in
parallel to corporate that has developed some processes and technologies far
in advance of some of those being used in the corporate world. Possibly the
only people aware of these would be their Web SEO staff, and one wonders if
they are senior enough to filter the changes occurring back into their
organizations (presuming they care).
Michelle:
It is my experience that the corporate world is not leading edge, despite
what individuals there may think. It's also unlikely they could ever be the
leading edge, it's too risky to the bottom line. New technologies are
usually tested by smaller companies and people doing it out of interest.
It's up to us, as TWs to bring these ideas to the attention of an
organization and explain how it would benefit said organization. That's how
a forum such as this could benefit, it provides a place to develop and
explore the implications of new ideas. If we can keep from insulting each
others' brain waves, thinking patterns and Myers-Briggs personality types.
Christine:
There are two issues here. One is that permanent staff or project staff
have to wade up through the management structure, and by dint of personality
alone, may be allowed a voice.
The other is that recruiters are often wholly and totally ignorant of what
we do, and as they filter initial applications for roles, they present
people for the jobs based on no understanding. This means that sometimes
the wrong people tend to get the jobs and so do not represent our profession
well.
Michelle:
I agree with a lot of this. I do think that recruiters are often just
representatives of the employer. They make their money by providing the
employer with what they ask for. That said, I think that we can also work
with recruiters and show them how they can convince the employer that the
writing skill is more important than the subject matter knowledge. There are
some job ads that read: Required, good communication skills, Highly
regarded, subject matter skills.
By the by, I have no experience with SAP so I don't bother responding to
those ads. Which makes your point.
Christine:
How do we fix this? I'm getting bored with writing modifiers everywhere
when any moron should be able to grasp that I am speculating based on
observation.
Michelle:
No more modifiers for me! Bring on the insults. For reference, my last Myers
Briggs test result was INFP.
Michelle
_____
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christine Kent
Sent: Saturday, 21 November 2009 2:53 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Audience Analysis
I clearly need to look some more at Google tools (thanks for the link,
Peter).
Ditto, thanks.
Christine, I think the corporate environment has not realized (sorry,
English US keeps reasserting itself on my Outlook) the need to collect this
data.
This is part of what I was trying to suggest might warrant research. The
corporate world is accustomed to thinking of itself and leading edge, when,
in fact, there is this whole new internet-based real world running in
parallel to corporate that has developed some processes and technologies far
in advance of some of those being used in the corporate world. Possibly the
only people aware of these would be their Web SEO staff, and one wonders if
they are senior enough to filter the changes occurring back into their
organizations (presuming they care).
A lot of job ads still want a writer with a background in engineering or IT,
which indicates to me that many out there think writing is still a
'transparent' skill. By this I mean that it is believed that writing is
nothing more than what we learned to do at school (and some are better at it
than others).
Yes, trying getting an SAP job if you have not had 5 years in that
particular module. They often have no grasp that knowledge of the module is
not the critical skill brought by the writer (it is useful but not
critical).
We should be acting as advocates for writing as a professional skill and
recommending to the management that this type of data should be collected to
make the tools we produce more effective and better for the customer.
Unfortunately very few of us are high enough in the company structure to
have this kind of influence and I think many of us still think of ourselves
as primarily engineers or IT professionals.
There are two issues here. One is that permanent staff or project staff
have to wade up through the management structure, and by dint of personality
alone, may be allowed a voice.
The other is that recruiters are often wholly and totally ignorant of what
we do, and as they filter initial applications for roles, they present
people for the jobs based on no understanding. This means that sometimes
the wrong people tend to get the jobs and so do not represent our profession
well.
I realize I'm straying into declarative speech here so I should emphasize
that this is my opinion.
How do we fix this? I'm getting bored with writing modifiers everywhere
when any moron should be able to grasp that I am speculating based on
observation.
Christine
_____
From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Christine Kent
Sent: Saturday, 21 November 2009 11:22 AM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: Audience Analysis
Structure may not always be the answer, but looking at the usage patterns
that work is a complex issue.
From time to time, I suggest in online docs that we set up some scripts to
check hits on various parts of the documentation set. It'd be interesting
to see which bits get read, which get ignored etc.. And that should
presumably inform ideas on online doc structures. Never seem to quite get
anywhere with that one, though.
This is another area where the on-line world has taken off without us. It
is routine to set something such as Google Analytics to track hits to your
pages, entry from and exit to data, etc. This lets you review the
effectiveness (usually from a marketing or sales perspective) of each page.
You can determine how the page was found (from a Google search, from a
related web page, from a friendly link), the geographic location of the
reader, data about their technical capacity etc, how long they stayed on the
page, and whether the reader exited the page to another page on the site or
left the site altogether. This gives you pretty much all the data you need
to determine if a particular page is serving it's stated purpose.
I have not worked in a corporate environment for over three years now, but I
gather, from what you are saying, that corporate has not started collecting
this data. Does anyone work in an environment that does, and does anyone
analyse either information delivery or training from this perspective.
Interesting topic (to me).
Christine
-PeterM
peterm_5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I like a man who grins when he fights. - Winston Churchill
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