Newsletter of the East Bay Chapter of STC
May/June 2004

Meeting Report: April 2004

by Becky Rude
EBSTC President-Elect

The April Fool’s jokes were abundant at the April chapter meeting, which was held on April 1st. Everyone had a good laugh, but more importantly, we also learned a great deal from Dr. Clark Quinn’s presentation on An Electronic Performance Support System and Information Consolidation.

Dr. Quinn presented a case study from his company, Knowledge Anywhere, where he is Director of User Experience. From this case study he shared “take home” lessons that we can all use.

The Case Study

Dr. Clark Quinn

Dr. Quinn’s customer is in the medical device industry and is developing a state-of-the-art machine for analyzing patient samples. The customer had traditional user documentation, online help, and training. They wanted to go one step further and create a support-driven electronic performance support system (EPSS) that provided onboard help for the machine.

Knowledge Anywhere wanted to go even further and develop an integrated performance support system (IPSS) that provides a centralized method of developing documentation, training, sales, and support materials rather than the traditional method where each area develops its own materials. Knowledge Anywhere proposed that they be the central group for creating all these materials and that they be involved in the product design and development process from the beginning.

The tenets of the Knowledge Anywhere method are:

• Using a user-centered vision integrated throughout the product development process.
• Providing centralized product information to increase company productivity.
• Adding strategic value throughout the organization.

The Take Home

Following are the lessons from this project that Dr. Quinn believes we can all use:

Understand the business

To succeed as technical communicators, we must learn what is important to executives when making decisions. Then, we must use those values in presenting our case.

Understand where you can add value

Communicate how you can improve business costs by centralizing product knowledge and using single sourcing to create all documentation, online help, and support and training materials. Make executives understand that you can greatly improve the user experience and thus increase the odds of product success.

Manage “up” about the potential

Talk to those above you in the organization chart about how things can change and how you can make that happen. Have a grand vision about the potential for change.

Manage success factors to ensure change

As communicators we must manage what we do best:

• Work to coordinate differing information sources.
• Smooth out differences in viewpoints.
• Provide team members with a broad view of the product so they understand how their piece affects the complete product.

We can also work to get involved early in the design process rather than waiting until the end when the product is nearly complete. This was a key component of Knowledge Anywhere’s method.

Leverage technology for knowledge/performance/learning integrated solutions

We must use single sourcing techniques and whatever technology works best to create the end product. Developing the best solution for a particular project requires knowledge of available technologies, not just a “one solution fits all” mindset.

Moving Up the Chain

Dr. Quinn’s central message is that as technical communicators we need to start moving up the value chain by embracing a user-centered vision integrated throughout the product development process, centralizing product information to increase company productivity, and adding strategic value throughout the organization. We’ve heard this message from many other sources throughout STC this year, but Dr. Quinn brought a real-life perspective through his case study and gave us concrete ways to achieve it.

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