Content Wranger Scott Abel’s presentation on Understanding Web 2.0 and Its Impact on Technical Communication resonates today, if anything, even more so than it did three years ago, when Abel first published his presentation on Slideshare.
Abel warns that with the advent of Web 2.0, publishing skills are easily duplicated. The challenge, he suggests, is not so much developing content, but rather efficiently managing that content, and making it accessible.
According to Abel, Web 1.0 technologies involved publishing content to websites. In this more static model, writers created content to fill these virtual places, with users inefficiently searching the “visible web,” and often failing to find information.
The Web 2.0 model brings service to the web, helping users to interact with content. Also known as the Semantic Web, Web 2.0 leverages the Internet to deliver service. Web 2.0 technologies improve “access, management, and reuse of digital content, supporting end-user goals.”
Abel explains that the XML standard RSS (Really Simple Syndication) provides structure and semantic value to content, allowing writers the ability to “write the content once and then let go of control, with the content delivered how, when, and where users want it.” Meanwhile, users can use reuse and remix content in unlimited ways. Abel observes,
Web 2.0 makes finding relevant content easy; enhanced findability combined with personalized recommendations improves relevance.
In his presentation, Abel describes multiple examples of Web 2.0 technologies, in each case asking technical communicators ”how might you use this capability to better serve your customers or improve your productivity?”
Examples include blogs for documentation, hosted software like Google docs and spreadsheets, wikis for documentation (including a wiki based on DITA), tagging, and web-based collaboration tools that support user-generated content.
Abel further describes podcasts, user-generated content, video documentation, and social networks, as additional Web 2.0 possibilities that technical communicators can integrate into their work and deliverables.
Abel concludes his presentation with an excellent slide on Web 2.0 Sites of Interest.
Three years later, now on the cusp of Web 3.0, it is more important than ever for technical communicators to find innovative answers to Abel’s question:
How might [we] use these [Web 2.0+] capabilities to better serve our customers or improve productivity?
[slideshare id=49246&doc=web-20-101-understanding-web-20-and-its-impact-on-technical-communication-10592]
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Thanks for tackling this issue, Peg. I have been preaching this gospel for nearly five years now and it’s finally catching on. I think the convergence of content technologies and the incredible impact that devices like iPhones and iPads are having on the marketplace are driving the changes. Technical communicators will get with the program or they will be replaced by people who “get it”.
This just happened at Wired Magazine where employees are now expected to be able to create content for print, the web, and mobile interactive devices — at the same time. The tools they employ at the magazine support these goals but the skill sets of some employees did not. They had to find work elsewhere.
Changing expectations of users are the reason. And, these changes are developing more rapidly every year, creating a larger gap between old school techcommers skills and the demands of the marketplace.
It will be interesting to see how our industry adapts — if it does at all.
Thanks, Scott, for dropping by. You have been the defacto leader of our profession for some time, and your vision has always inspired me (even if it seems like we are speaking into the wind…)
You’ve hit the nail on the head, on so many issues—it’s almost hard to add more. I’m hedging my bets about whether tech com can adapt, as you can see by the cross-disciplinary focus of this blog. (I’ve stopped worrying about whether I call myself a tech writer or a marketing writer…now I focus on transferable skills—content strategy, content development, and content management. Wherever those skills are in demand in the organization, that’s where I belong.)
The fundamental problem with most tech writers (present company & independents excluded) is most don’t have basic promotional skills…We’ve also failed as a discipline to make it known to others what we do, and where our expertise lies…and we’ve been too satisfied to develop content for content’s sake, without a real appreciation for how our customers find and use that content.
I’m curious, as to where you believe content developers are best “housed” in an organization? I attended a wonderful MarketingProfs seminar awhile back (before I worked for them!) on the need for a new discipline (customer experience), led by Senior Management. That’s where I think content developers belong and have a chance at thriving, from within.