Malcolm Davison makes the case that through clearer web communication with our audiences - both internally and externally - it’s possible to cut the workload for front line staff, resulting in huge financial savings. He explores why bureaucratic text is so hard to eradicate - and describes the motivational and practical benefits experienced when commonsense finally prevails.

Source: writingfortheweb.tumblr.com Posted by MDavison 180 days, 13 hours, 44 minutes ago

It is important for intranets to be well governed with a clear strategy and prioritised plans for improvements, linking information sites together.

But without publishers being able to write clear, usable and concise information that people can view, use, share, etc, it will fail.

You have an opportunity to meet Malcolm Davison and find out how good Malcolm is as he's running 1 day web content courses in London and Edinburgh.

Source: intranet-pioneer.com Posted by markmorrell 251 days, 15 hours, 29 minutes ago

Everyone knows that intranets are a great way to collect and distribute information and content. But what types of content should the intranet distribute, and how does the content add value to an organization?

Research from the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) shows the most valuable intranets make it easier for employees to do their jobs.

Every organization has hundreds of decisions to make about the way it operates. These decisions combine together to form business activities and policies, and ultimately determine whether an organization will succeed. The most efficient way to disperse these practices is through an intranet.

An effective intranet is like the brain of an entire organization. It describes how a company functions and ensures that all employees sing from the same hymn book.

The following list of nine types of intranet content will help you carry out business tasks more effectively. Use this checklist to make sure your intranet is capturing and delivering content that will add value.

Source: www.ragan.com Posted by admin 265 days, 6 hours, 19 minutes ago

Where does your site’s best content come from? If you don’t know or if you’re producing it, there could be a problem. Diversifying your content’s sources is key to providing content that represents different perspectives about relevant topics. As well, by diversifying sources you can help facilitate a collaborative workflow.

But how can you begin to get others to create and share content? If your company already has an intranet or uses social collaboration tools such as Yammer for communicating, that’s a great start. You can simply put out an All Points Bulletin for specific content. However, if your company has a culture that isn’t yet conducive to sharing information with others, you might have to start with basic strategies.

Source: www.cmswire.com Posted by JennyWilliams 431 days, 12 hours, 13 minutes ago

'Content strategy' is a crucial concept in communications, but isn’t as arcane or abstract as you might fear.

Content strategy is about generating communications, information and reference materials that actually apply to what your company is trying to achieve.

It’s about meeting the needs of the audience and helping people get things done.

Source: kilobox.net Posted by bee 504 days, 5 hours, 29 minutes ago

Over the past few weeks Atlassian's Technical Writing Team published a series of posts about how you can use a wiki for technical writing.

Their posts cover the complete process from authoring your technical documentation, to collaborating and reviewing drafts, publishing online and options for importing and exporting to different formats, including DITA and XML.

Source: blogs.atlassian.com Posted by support 537 days, 4 hours, 39 minutes ago

When I hear about corporate intranets and how they are perceived by the users, it is clear that some do really well while some struggle. Most are somewhat successful and gradually improving which is good.

I recently conducted an intranet survey in my company and much to my surprise our intranet was perceived as both ’useful’ and ’important’ while the overall satisfaction was below average. Why was that?

I looked through the survey results and it made me think that we had to re-focus. Our challenges were not that people didn’t use it – they did, but seemingly in spite.

Source: connaxions.wordpress.com Posted by bee 567 days, 10 hours, 26 minutes ago

Links are signposts. They are promises to the customer. They must tell customers where they are going and what they will get when they get there.

The essential problem with the Frequently Asked Question is that it is not useful or helpful. In Ireland it is mandatory to pay an annual license for your TV. I've just moved house so I need to find out how this affects my license. I go to the TV licensing website and am presented two choices: General FAQs and Online Service FAQs.

At least I know what FAQ means. However, I have found that many ordinary people have no idea. It's a real IT term and is completely foreign to millions of people.

Source: www.gerrymcgovern.com Posted by support 639 days, 6 hours, 14 minutes ago

I’ve spoken about rules of writing and communication best (good?) practices; kilobox communiqué is all about internal communication practice ideas.

But while there are golden rules to adhere to, the impact of our communications comes from shaping the message for the intended audience. It’s simple really; we just have to focus on what our readers need to do, rather than what our manager wants us to tell people.

Internal Communications, as a department, is not a postbox; we’re aligned to the company strategy and working in a very real sense to create value and efficiencies.

Source: kilobox.net Posted by bee 676 days, 17 hours, 34 minutes ago

The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) held its world conference in Canada this month and as I was unable to go I’ve been reading as much as I can about what went on across the pond.

A couple of sites I’ve come across have highlighted the seven crucial communication roles that were discussed at the conference.

You can read their original posts here and here. Steve Crescenzo, principal of Crescenzo Communications in the US, cautioned that if communicators don’t take these changes into account, they “run the risk of becoming irrelevant in their organisations”.

Source: www.rachallen.com Posted by support 708 days, 6 hours, 4 minutes ago