Microcontent and what it Means for Communication and Technical Writing

The simplest definition of microcontent is text, image, or video content that can be consumed in 10-30 seconds. In 1998 Jakob Nielsen Originally defined microcontent as small groups of words a person can skim to understand the idea of the content on a Web page. This can include headlines, page titles, subject lines and email subjects included on a page or displayed on a search results page. microcontent is popular in marketing, social media, technical writing, and communication. The difference lies in structuring and creating microcontent for these disciplines.

According to Mike Hamilton of MadCap Software, “Microcontent must be short/concise, easily consumable and stand-alone”. Stand-alone content can be understood on its own without needing surrounding content to clarify its meaning. When content can stand alone it is reusable which is key for microcontent.

Microcontent is a paradigm shift, we must change our mind set for how we create content. We must understand that it is more than text, it is content that has meaning, purpose, and a job. When we create the content with an eye for conciseness, ability to be consumed, and information that can stand-alone and then focus on its delivery and use, we unlock new possibilities

The following are possible uses for Microcontent:

  1. Knowledge and job aids: Sales Prospecting assets, Pre-call Prep Tools
  2. Marketing and selling content: Conversation aids, preview videos
  3. Content source: Common phrases, common research or facts, and links to internal/external web reference articles.
  4. Search Engine Creation: Knowledge base, online help.
  5. Chatbot: Conversation design elements

The short phrase structure of microcontent lends well to for searches. Once the content is created a best practice would be to always make sure it is searchable. When content is created, it very quickly grows in volume and without a way to search the content can become less usable. You have to be able to find it.

MadCap Software has built a microcontent editor into its latest release of Madcap Flare 2019. This industry first allows content to be marked as microcontent or new microcontent be created then used in chatbots and to enhance help and knowledge base search results.

Whether you are creating social media posts and are addressing an audience with a short attention span or quick steps for job aids, this content can shrink while offering growth in engagement with customers, users and employees.

 

References

https://www.brafton.com/blog/creation/microcontent-what-is-it-and-why-do-you-need-it/

https://www.google.com/search?q=who+coined+the+phrase+microcontent&rlz=1C1GCEU_enUS819US819&oq=who+coined+the+phrase+microcontent&aqs=chrome..69i57.7491j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcontent

https://marketinginsidergroup.com/content-marketing/micro-content-important-content-type-dont-manage/

 

 

The Face of the Workforce in the age of AI

 

As communicators and technical writers, we are always living with change. Changes to messaging, changes to our tools, changes to industry and the workplace. What will that mean for our future as we navigate Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution?

Pittsburgh business owner George Parks spends a large part of his day driving between meetings when his peers are slowing down or entered retirement decades earlier. Entering the Pittsburgh workforce in the early 1950s, he is familiar with how technology, business, the workforce, and  a city can change. He has a standard invitation to meet and talk about business and industry, “Let me take you out for a milkshake.”

George entered the workforce in 1952 as a grass cutter “at St. Mary’s Sharps Hill,” he says with pride. Referring to is St. Mary’s Sharpsburg Cemetery in Pittsburgh, he was 13 years old. Within three years he was setting memorial stones in that cemetery. As a Shaler High School graduate of 1957 he continued working at the cemetery during weekends and summers.

After completing his education at the University of Pittsburgh in Mechanical Engineering he began working in business. Computers were being incorporated into industry at this time. General Electric (GE) had created a computer what was partitioned, or had a hard drive separate from other segments of the hard drive allowing users to divide a task into logical sections. The computer used linear programming, a mathematical calculation, was used to determine the least cost rate of materials for different ores used in the production of steel. “The computer could put the formula together, but there was not enough memory. $1 million for a computer to do the math. GE partitioned it out to the core and multiple computers,” he said.

Sitting across the table from George is like taking a walk back in time. He has seen so much in his life and has seen so much change. He seems energized by the amount and speed of change where others may be exhausted by it. Each business he bought or started has fueled the next, each more technical; Westinghouse Security System, Hipwell Manufacturing (flashlights). Today his latest venture has him delving into Artificial Intelligence (AI) software.

George offers insights into what business owners need to know; how to identify opportunities for incorporating AI to grow their business and what workers need to do to keep themselves marketable in an AI workforce. Will workers be replaced by robots? According to George, no. “ IOT -Internet of Things will be an 18 billion industry within the next 10 years. AI will help make workers perform their jobs more efficiently and with less errors.” Parks says. The power is where AI works with human intervention rather than in replacing workers. An artificial intelligence sturdy by Pwc Global estimates $15.7 trillion contribution to the global economy by 2030 from AI.

Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 is the name for the trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing. This is also known as the fourth industrial revolution. What makes this revolution different from the other revolutions is that this is where humans meet the cyber world; where technology is not distinct from people. Computers were introduced in the third industrial revolution, but in but in this phase, everything gets integrated and smart-automated. Much of Industry 4.0 technology is invisible such as artificial intelligence and powerful algorithms. It is an immersive experience in computing to the point that computing will disappear into the background and take minimal effort to control. We will not see the effort of the computing, but the result.

According to George Parks, “AI is expensive now because of the cost to create the algorithm to handle the data load.” His latest company Emergtech is developing AI software to measure acceleration, temperature, and the open/close of automatic doors. We place a sensor on the door to measure these functions, the sensor talks to the cloud and gives a service warning to the inspector. Now inspectors can only identify issues when they are already on-site, often for routine maintenance. Once they leave they will return for the next scheduled maintenance or when they are called for a broken door.” The sensor is constantly monitoring the door and evaluating performance against performance metrics set by the American Association of Automatic Door Manufacturer (AADAM). When a door performs below these standards, the software gives a service warning which alerts the inspector.

Automation enables productivity

On February 11, President Trump signed an executive order on Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence. The order recognizes “The United States is the world leader in AI research and development (R&D) and deployment,: and that “Continued American leadership in AI is of paramount importance.” The order describes a multi-pronged approach to U.S. policy on AI; driving breakthroughs, development of technical standards, support AI research, foster public trust in AI technologies, and training the workforce. “The United States must train current and future generations of American workers with the skills to develop and apply AI technologies to prepare them for today’s economy and jobs of the future,” the order states.

With his new business George anticipates the new technology to increase demand for inspectors. With the automated inspection, workers can complete the inspection in have the time and will spend less time on emergency service calls. “They will be on a more regulated schedule, have a better lifestyle. This is a cost savings for the manufacturer and will make techs more money because they need to be more technical.”

The more doors that can be inspected, the more will be installed. “There are 5 million automatic doors in the United States which open and close 50 billion times per year. Only 200,000 of these doors have annual inspections. This software will allow all doors to be inspected by the sensor. The doors will be safer, will be maintenance rather than repairs. It costs less to maintain a door than to repair a door.” Says Parks.

Artificial Intelligence is not restricted to high-tech industries; but at the intersection of people and machines. The retail and food industries are beginning to incorporate the technology. In March of 2017 McDonald’s published its Velocity Growth Plan. The plan aims to retain current customers, regain lost customers, and to encourage occasional diners to visit more often. How the plan will accomplish this is through interacting with customers digitally, offering delivery service, and “Elevating the customer experience in the restaurants through technology and the restaurant teams who bring it to life,” as the growth strategy states.

In August 2018, McDonalds announced that the company and franchisees will invest $3 billion to upgrade stores by 2020. Approximately 360 restaurants in Pennsylvania will be among those modernized at a cost of $266 million. These upgrades include self-ordering kiosks, table delivery using RFID table numbers, and curbside pickup.

The McDonald’s on Route 228 in Cranberry Township was closed for remodeling and reopened in October 2018. The remodel included kiosks for ordering and table service for completed orders. According to team member Beverly Cope, “It’s really a preference to use or not the kiosk. It is best to come when we are not busy and take your time with it.”

McDonald’s uses data from their mobile ordering app to determine customer intelligence about which locations customers are visiting, when they are there, what they are ordering, and even how often customers use the drive through instead of entering the restaurant. This data is used to make recommendations when ordering on the app. It is also used to change the selections on the kiosks based on time of day and the weather.

With the kiosks and online ordering less staff could be scheduled for each shift, reducing labor costs for franchisees while reducing order error rates. A reduction in staff has not happened at the Cranberry Township McDonald’s, “We are so understaffed, we should have two in the dining room helping with kiosks,” according to team member Beverly Cope.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported expected growth of 14% between 2016 and 2026 for food and Beverage Service and Related Workers. With this growth additional fast-food restaurants are projected to open. With potentially less staff per shift at each restaurant, but more restaurants open, the workforce is projected to grow.

The future of work

Industry 4.0 poses many questions for workers and working conditions. The greatest of these is the displacement of physical labor by robots or machines. Will there be hundreds of positions eliminated by machines? Will there be new positions to fill that require new skill sets? Through the historical record of industrial revolutions, we see that new technology or method of production expands economic ability and fosters differentiation of employee labor skills.

AI is not a technology of the future. It is here and is shaping our lives as business owners, consumers, and workers. Early indications show that AI will not replace workers but will replace tasks. The percentage of a worker’s daily tasks replaced by AI will vary by industry and by role. As AI is integrated further the workforce workers need to transition to be more technical to be able to work with the AI to accomplish their work. How jobs are performed will change and workers must adapt to close the skills gap created by the new technology.

“We don’t know so our best defense is to be prepared” – Eliezer Yudkowsky

 

 

 

Computer Talk: Incorporating Speech Recognition Software into Daily Tasks

Getting more done in less time. That is a typical mantra for technical writers and communicators. Perhaps you have expressed needing an extra hand; your voice could be that extra hand. Using speech recognition software allows you to control your computer with simple voice commands. Microsoft does not promote it much, but newer Windows versions contain Windows Speech Recognition preinstalled.

Enabling Speech Recognition

  1. In the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen, click the search.
  2. Type Speech Recognition.
  3. Click Windows Speech Recognition It will open a window where you can select microphone type.
  4. Click Next.
  5. You will be prompted to read a sentence for the software to recognize your voice. click Next when ready.
  6. After reading, click Next.
  7. Select other necessary options such as document review, and speech recognition enabled on startup. Click Next after each option to advance through the wizard.
  8. Once completed, the status box appears. You can use this to switch Voice Recognition on and off.

Using Speech Recognition

To start, say “start listening”.  Once enabled you can use it to open applications such as Word, notepad, or a new email. Once an email or document is open, just start talking to dictate text.

You can also tell the computer to open the command line box, restart or shutdown. When you want to stop, say “stop listening”.

Yes you can even use it to play Solitaire!

 

Here’s a Notepad file created entirely using speech recognition:

These are the words used to create it:

  • Start listening
  • Open Notepad
  • Hello notepad
  • comma
  • press enter
  • today’s reminders are
  • colon
  • press enter
  • press tab
  • business writing exercise one
  • press enter
  • press tab
  • promote blog articles
  • press enter
  • press tab
  • request degree review for graduation
  • press enter
  • press file
  • press save
  • home
  • to do list
  • backspace
  • delete
  • save
  • stop listening

This is a technology worth exploring. As communicators and technical writers we must keep our skills fresh and always evaluate new technology to add to our tool set.

How to Become a Writing Tutor: A Passion and Necessity in Today’s Culture

The following has been adapted from my final paper for PWR 616: Technical Writing.

Tutoring isn’t simply editing a paper for someone according to your own personal preferences about writing. It’s giving others the skills to analyze their own writing and not be afraid of it. Other significant aspects of tutoring are having empathy for the person you’re tutoring and being able to encourage them while also critiquing their work and thought processes.

A tutoring session is a space for students to learn without judgement. Wrong answers aren’t wrong, they’re just not headed in the right direction. These answers can be led onto a better path by suggestions and allowing the student time to think through a solution. A tutoring session is a guiding force in a student’s life amidst chaos of school, sports, and other extra-curricular activities.

Tutoring is not something that should be taken lightly or jumped into without the proper training.

Things that do not qualify you to be a writing tutor include:

•Being an English major in college
•Taking a literature class that you enjoyed in college
•Writing a book
•Your love of writing
•A Shakespeare tattoo

Things that can qualify you to be a writing tutor include:

•Previous experience, such as in a Writing Center or as a teaching assistant for a writing course
•Proof of proficiency in writing (test scores, grades, any awards or distinctions)
•A teaching degree
•Completion of a writing tutoring class—many colleges require these classes for their tutors
•FBI and Child Abuse Clearances
•An understanding of learning styles
•A passion to help others learn and succeed

A balance of empathy and boundaries is necessary for writing tutors. While you may be the first person a student sees after a trying day at school, offering support while not becoming unhealthily involved in your student’s personal life can provide healthy lines for you and the student.

Be careful not to veer in the opposite direction. Not getting involved in a student’s life doesn’t mean you can’t empathize with them. It can be helpful to share that you also had tutoring during your academic career, or that certain subjects don’t “click” with you.

Vulnerability and allowing your student to see you as a person can help. The same idea should be true for your attitude towards your students. They are people dealing with their own lives at school and at home.

Now we’ve got the empathy and skills needed to become a writing tutor. Let’s sprinkle in a dash of descriptive approaches as well. While prescriptive versus descriptive approaches are usually terms applied to linguistic studies, they also apply to writing tutoring.

A prescriptive approach “describes when people focus on talking about how a language should or ought to be used,” while a descriptive approach “focuses on describing the language as it is used, not saying how it should be used,” (Reynolds, Amy).

In other words, a prescriptive approach is like a prescription. It’s a set of solid, inflexible rules about language and how it should be used when writing. Prescriptions can’t be altered without serious consequences, just as prescriptive rules of language incur lost points and lead to dejected students.

A descriptive approach to language and writing allows for more creativity. Language can be putty in a student’s hands. Taking a descriptive approach to language, and ultimately writing, allows students to get their words down on paper and start the writing process. If students are too worried about grammar rules, where commas go, and properly formatting a paper, they may never begin their assignment. Loosening those binds frees up mind space and lets creativity flow.

As an undecided undergraduate at Bloomsburg University, finding the English major and becoming a writing tutor were beneficial points in my college career. Taking the required writing tutoring course and other linguistic courses as an undergraduate led the way to me becoming a writing fellow in charge of an entire class of developmental writing students.

The fellowing experience was a significant reason I was hired as an independently contracted writing tutor, who later became a communications coordinator and freelance writing tutor. While these are all sources of my professional growth, tutoring also helped me find my place at college and in the world. Returning to campus after an extended leave was scary. The writing center, my colleagues, and training courses were not. Working as an independently contracted tutor gave me a twinkle of light in a dim world where I hated my full-time job and needed a creative, reassuring outlet for my passion.

As David Wood says in his research, “tutoring is an outgrowth of helping. Helping is an innate human propensity—we’re born to help. When people … see somebody else doing something that they themselves can do, and see them getting frustrated by not being able to do it, then there’s a perceptual invitation to get involved. Some of us feel the invitation very strongly,” which sums up how I feel about tutoring. I R.S.V.P. to that invitation immediately. I love helping students see their potential, and being present for the confidence they gain after mastering a new concept.

The Power of Personal Branding

5,000 brand messages per day, that is the how many the average person is exposed to daily. With all that noise, there are some bands that are recognized the most; Google, IBM, Walmart, Visa, Ebay, FedEx, 3M, and Coca-Cola to name a few. The logos for these companies are ubiquitous – they are everywhere. But what else do they have in common? They are some combination of simple, consistent, and unmistakable. This is what makes them work. Branding is more than just a logo, it is also the message and everywhere it is delivered.

Companies use branding to identify and distinguish themselves and their products from other companies and products. Once the brand message is established, all departments (leadership, sales, and support) and corporate culture can live the message attributed to the brand. Understanding company branding is easy, but have you ever personally branded yourself? If branding works for companies it can work for a person too.

People can use branding to uniquely identify themselves from other applicants, employees, or students. Personal branding allows us to quantify our value, live our value, and then show our value so that others can see it. Once you personally brand yourself you can focus your activities on furthering your brand.

Reasons for personal branding:

  1. Improving your recognition – The more interesting people find you, the more willing they are to connect with you at social events or on social networking sites such as LinkedIn. Your brand is a part of that recognition.
  2. Adding meaning – The process of developing your personal brand helps to develop who you are. Your personal brand is what makes you unique. When you live that meaning, you are more confident and those you meet will react positively.
  3. Accelerating your career – Personal branding is all about connections and relationships. These are the same things that will put you in the right place at the right time for potential jobs, recognition awards, and contracts. Be sure to focus your personal brand to a target audience. Maybe you have set your sights on working for a specific company. Be sure your brand aligns with the company and then live your brand.

Like any other content marketing strategy, content is king, and you are in charge of the content. You are creating a digital footprint that tells all the right things when another person or company is evaluating whether they want to work with you. This is a strategy, not a one-time thing. Building a personal band takes time. The benefits of the new relationships you will build or a new job you are offered as a result can benefit your career exponentially.

Check out these examples of personal branding:

10 Amazing Individual Websites & Useful Personal Branding Examples

8 AMAZING PERSONAL BRANDING EXAMPLES YOU CAN LEARN FROM TODAY

Kylie Garner Blog – Personal Branding Examples

Student Spotlight: Lorrie McConnell

Lorrie McConnell is a student of the Master of Professional of Professional Writing (MPW) program at Chatham University and a Technical Documentation Designer within the Education team for Netsmart Technologies, living in Pittsburgh. A few decades removed from her undergraduate Business Administration degree from Slippery Rock University, she enrolled in Chatham’s MPW program in the Spring of 2017 and is expected to graduate Summer of 2019.

After completing her undergraduate degree, she worked in banking for a few years until accepting a position with a Pittsburgh based higher education software company. This was her introduction to technical writing. While her undergraduate degree taught her to think, she had to teach herself to write on the job. With the company’s products in the higher education space, Lorrie always wanted to pursue an advanced degree, but life was happening.

Eighteen years into her career she decided now was the time. With her daily work being remote (her Netsmart office is in Missouri), she wanted an online program in which she could still visit the campus. A review of the MPW program with both it’s Technical Writing and Web Content Development concentrations proved to be a great fit. These classes would allow her to balance her self-taught skills with writing industry best practices.

Each of the classes she has taken translates seamlessly to work she performs on a daily basis. Lorrie said, “I have been reading a bit about relevance. My writing needs to be relevant for my industry and clients. I am pleasantly surprised each time my coursework directly relates to a project I am completing at work or a request from a customer.”

Lorrie’s advice for individuals considering the MPW program is that it has so much to offer for non-writers as well as career writers. The projects within the classes allow learners to select the subject matter. For instance, if your comfort zone is education, nursing, or technology, you can apply the writing principles discussed in the class to that subject matter.

“The best thing about the MPW Program at Chatham University is the more I read and study, the more my mind opens. I have new inspirations all the time for better ways to approach my work as well as new ideas for how to deliver content to my end users. These inspirations would not have happened without the MPW program.”