Category Archives: techcomm

  • 0

Bridge Building: Establishing Communications Processes

Category:Communications Processes,Infosec Communicator,Leadchange,Lessons Learned,techcomm,Uncategorized Tags : 

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This past fall we had the privilege of visiting Pont du Gard, a Roman bridge and aqueduct in Languedoc in the south of France. Although built primarily without mortar (except for the top course of blocks), Pont du Gard has endured for more than 2000 years, despite frequent spring floods.

The Pont du Gard aqueduct/bridge was built to provide clean water for the town of Nimes. Its builders understood the importance of building a structure that took into account the factors that would affect the bridge. They understood at least some of the pressures that would bear on that structure. They built the bridge accordingly. Its builders designed it to endure.

Geographical map of the aqueduct of the Pont d...

Geographical map of the aqueduct of the Pont du Gard. Map created using data from OpenStreetMap. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, this blog is about communications. What does the Pont du Gard have to do with communications?

Much of my role as a technical communicator has been to build processes that enable the flow of good communication. I’ve had to factor in the context (pressures that will bear on the structure) in which I was building those processes. Those communications processes are the bridges (aqueducts) that I build. In distributed organizations, well built communications bridges are critical to the health of the organizations.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to talk about bridge building.  First, I’ll discuss my initial attempts at architecting communications processes for a Fortune 500 organization that had outsourced key support processes in the midst of a major software/hardware infrastructure transformation. Next, I’ll discuss communications processes I’ve built in my role as an information security practitioner in higher education. Finally, I’ll talk about my current work to build a sustainable communications bridge that enables clear communications between a central organization and its distributed communities, ensures the concerns of those distributed communities are heard, and facilitates best practice sharing among those communities.

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  • 17

Twitter Use at #STC12 Summit

Category:EDUCAUSE,Infosec Communicator,Social Networking,STC,Summit,techcomm,Uncategorized

For the two year anniversary of this blog, we’ll review Twitter use at the STC Summit conference. Twitter use among attendees continues to grow dramatically. Although this post only looks at tweets during the dates of the Summit (May 19-24), use of the #stc12 hashtag began months before the conference and continues today.

Methodology

Unlike previous years where I put a great deal of manual effort into compiling the tweets by pulling from my #stc10 and #stc11 RSS feed, this year I’ve relied on the suggestions and work of colleagues Kevin Cuddihy of STC and Karen Mardahl. Thanks also to Rick Sapir for his suggestion to use twdocs.com to collect the tweets.

Graphical Portrayals of #STC12 Information

Kevin Cuddihy published a Wordle of the most commonly used tweets at the conference in his Summit Blog post. Here’s the Wordle he compiled:

As Kevin has noted, you can see that a good amount of the Wordle is composed of usernames.

Karen Mardahl (@kmdk) uses The Archivist to compile an analysis of the tweets. The two graphics and lists below are taken from her archive.

Top Twelve Twitter Handles (% Total Tweets)

  1. 10.68% by arnoldburian (Arnold Burian)
  2. 7.45% AndreaJWenger (Andrea Wenger)
  3. 6.12% dccd (David Caruso)
  4. 5.67% rjhoughton (Rachel Houghton)
  5. 5.54% seanb_us (Sean Bean)
  6. 5.19% viqui_dill (Viqui Dill)
  7. 4.39% ninjawritermama (Sarah Baca)
  8. 4.08% phylisebanner (Phylise Banner)
  9. 4.03% ricksapir (Rick Sapir)
  10. 3.99% benwoelk (Ben Woelk)
  11. 3.95% Paul_UserAid (Paul Mueller)
  12. 3.90% MKGee (MaryKay Greuneberg)

Selected Key Words (occurrences)

  1. STC12
  2. Techcomm
  3. Content
  4. Summit
  5. @AMP;
  6. Thanks
  7. STC
  8. Session
  9. Chicago
  10. STCorg
  11. Need
  12. It’s

Observations

This year saw a number of new people “leading the way” with tweets. (Some of the usual suspects were quite busy behind the scenes, contributing to their drop in tweets. Of course, it’s also possible they were doing F2F networking!)

The week previous to #STC12, I attended the EDUCAUSE Security Professionals Conference (#sec12). The tweets at #stc12 far outnumbered those at #sec12. In my experience, security professionals are reticent about using social media. That may have been a factor in the difference.

If any of you are interested in doing a more thorough analysis of Twitter use at #stc12, let me know and I’ll send you Kevin’s document containing more than 500 pages and 87K words!

Let’s hear from you!

Did you tweet during Summit? How long have you been tweeting? What do you tweet about? Do you tweet more during conferences?

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Making Information Security Fun

Category:Facebook,Higher Education,Information Security,Infosec Communicator,Internet Safety,Presentations,Social Networking,STC,STC Rochester,techcomm Tags : 

I shared this presentation at the October program meeting of the Rochester Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. The presentation demonstrates how the Information Security Office at the Rochester Institute of Technology used marketing techniques to reinforce key messages to raise awareness around information security concerns such as phishing.

To see more about how we’re using blogging to raise awareness in a specific academic course, visit the RIT Cyber Self Defense blog.

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  • 11

Unpacking My Takeaways from #STC11

Category:Infosec Communicator,STC,STC Rochester,Summit,techcomm,Uncategorized Tags : 

Open SuitcaseIt’s been a little less than two weeks since the Society for Technical Communication Summit in Sacramento ended. Summit was an intensive four day immersion in the multifaceted profession of technical communications. I wanted to share what I found really important about the event, before the memories fade. I’ll start unpacking my takeaways here and in future posts.

I hope you’ll take the opportunity to discuss what I’m unpacking and share what you unpacked when you got home by commenting on this post!

Here’s my Top Ten list of takeways:

  1. The strength (and pride) of STC lies in its communities. Over the last few years there have been questions about the value that geographic chapters provide in an era when people are increasingly connected online. The Pacesetter Awards show that innovation comes from the grassroots level, whether from a geographic chapter or SIG. Some of the communities have done outstanding work in building and documenting solutions that can be applied across STC. For example, the Carolina chapter broke new ground in providing webinars for their geographically diverse membership and in partnering with Southeastern Michigan and Rochester to co-deliver online content.
  2. Relationships between communities bear fruit. STC recognized several chapters and SIGs with Community Achievement Awards and Pacesetter Awards. What I found interesting about the communities receiving the awards was that key leaders of these communities consulted with, counseled, mentored, and exchanged ideas with each  other. These awards aren’t a competition. The recipients found ways to build each other up during the year. My conversations with community leaders during the year sparked much of what the Rochester chapter accomplished and helped us move forward in unanticipated ways.
  3. STC will continue to move forward as it provides value, although with an increasingly new base. Although I believe membership is down slightly from last year, STC is operating in the black and is continuing to add new members. (Personally, I believe the tide has turned.) The launch of key initiatives such as certification and MySTC should have a continuing impact as we move forward.
  4. Twitter played (and will continue to play) a key role at Summit. Twitter was used in two chief ways at Summit: to tweet and retweet session content and to facilitate face-to-face networking opportunities. The Twitter stream using the #stc11 hashtag provided an easy way to find out what was happening. There were more than 5000 tweets associated with the #stc11 hashtag in less than a week. That’s a lot of communication.
  5. There are some really committed and capable people in and moving into community leadership. I’m very impressed with the earnestness and ability of the people I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with during Leadership Day and afterwards. I’ve only gotten to know the leadership of Toronto, Philadelphia, Carolina, and Southeastern Michigan at all well. What I’m seeing in those chapters is encouraging and demonstrates a desire to serve their members and to  strengthen STC as a whole. They’re not in it for their own glory. They’re in it to make us better.
  6. Leadership Day provides a foundation of knowledge and, more importantly, connections for new community leaders. I can’t overstress the importance of Leadership Day for the new and current leaders. Last year, I found the sessions explaining the intricacies of community leadership for new leaders absolutely critical to moving our chapter forward. This year I was able to participate in the progressions where community leaders shared their insights for success (and their struggles), providing sparks for new ideas and solutions for overcoming common, but vexing issues we face. Although I didn’t know it at the time, the connections I made at Leadership Day last year became my chief contacts in discussing issues and opportunities at the community level.
  7. MySTC can play a key role in strengthening community. MySTC provides a social networking platform on which members (and invitees) can share ideas, “friend” each other, create discussion and task groups, share photos and videos, and CONNECT with other members. We’re still figuring out how to use it. It’s not perfect, but it’s really great to have an easy way to connect with members outside and inside our current communities. The innovators among us will jump in and determine ways for us to work collaboratively.
  8. The vote on student membership rights at the business meeting was profound. Student members of STC were never enfranchised to vote in international elections, although their rights varied at the community level. The business meeting saw discussion and a vote on a proposed amendment to give them the vote. The proponents for student voting rights spoke passionately when presenting their arguments for passage of the student voting amendment. Opponents, although fewer, were articulate in their defense of the status quo. The amendment required a two-thirds vote of the members present. The amendment passed handily and the atmosphere in the room was charged. I did not expect the feeling of accomplishment we had when the amendment was approved.
  9. Certification may help the profession, especially by providing credentials for technical communicators who do not have degrees that relate clearly to the profession. I have degrees in anthropology, church history, and am ABD on my PhD in early modern European history. This is not obvious preparation for a career in technical communications. I was concerned about credentials so that I could get past initial screenings. Certification can provide credentials for those of us who have “non-standard” educational backgrounds.
  10. The content of the sessions at Summit was great. Isn’t it interesting that the content at Summit was the last thing I listed in my top ten? I enjoyed (and learned something in) almost all of the sessions I attended. However, for me the chief benefit of the conference was establishing and strengthening connections. These people are my techcomm tribe. They get it.
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[twitter-follow screen_name=’benwoelk’ show_count=’yes’]


  • 2

How Much Does Facebook Know About You? The Two Facebook Dogs Revisited

Category:Facebook,Information Security,Infosec Communicator,Internet Safety,Privacy,techcomm,Uncategorized Tags : 
I attended RIT’s Faculty Institute for Teaching and Learning this week. Mark Greenfield, SUNY Buffalo, delivered a keynote on “Born to be Wired: Technology, Communication, and the Millennial Generation.” There was a lot of useful content, and I encourage you to follow Mark Greenfield on Twitter (@markgr) and check out his resources posted on Delicious.
Among the many things Mark discussed was the ongoing issue of Facebook privacy settings and how difficulty they are to administer properly. He shared Rob Cottingham’s recent Noise to Signal Cartoon with us.


Noise to Signal Cartoon

Rob Cottingham had done an earlier cartoon on the subject as well:

Rob Cottingham was inspired by the famous Peter Steiner cartoon.

Does any of this matter to you?

How much do you worry about how Facebook handles your information? When you post on Facebook, do you think about who might have access to your information? Have you given up on protecting your privacy online?

I can only wonder what the next cartoon will be.

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