Welcome to the TechProse Tips section. These short articles focus on communication and literacy, as well as consulting, management, and staying competitive in today’s marketplace. Feel free to download articles that interest you.  Please credit TechProse if you reuse them.

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When You Need Expert Help in a Hurry

The project deadline screams from the calendar. You look around the office and know you need more people to complete the project. If this sounds familiar, chances are you've asked yourself this question: Should I hire a full time employee or bring on a consultant for the life of the project?

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IT Leader: Rise Up and Help Your Company Adapt!

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich urges CIOs and IT professionals to become change agents or risk not actually doing their jobs.

Change insurgents must proselytize the view that people are company assets, not costs to be cut, otherwise “your organization is moving in the wrong direction."

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How to Figure Out if You're an Employer of Choice

The term "employer of choice" gets bandied about, but what does it really mean? San Francisco State professor John Sullivan has a 25-factor test to determine if you're an employer of choice.

It's easy to say that you have become an employer of choice. In reality, though, being an employer of choice is a difficult but measurable, status to obtain. Here are some ways to assess how far you have come in the employer-of-choice sweepstakes. The employer-of-choice factors are listed here in descending order of importance.

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What Is Good Business Writing?

The basic principles of good business writing are simplicity, accuracy, and clarity. As George Orwell pointed out, the purpose of bad writing is often to obscure meaning, rather than state it.

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Content Analysis

Last month we provided a brief overview of single sourcing, noting that while it is an excellent concept, the key to the success of single sourcing is investing the time and expertise to organize information appropriate to your organization's needs. This critical effort means significant work up front—which often conflicts with the demands of production schedules, not to mention budget. To create meaningful content objects, you have to stop producing content. You need to step back and analyze, organize, and categorize content in a way that works for multiple users, for now and for the future.

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An Introduction to Single Sourcing

In the twenty-five years I have been in the field of technical communications, I've seen dozens of fads come and go. There's a particular pattern I've noticed to this phenomenon, which goes something like this:

"Managing your daily workflow used to be chaotic and overwhelming. The new toolset, (insert flavor of the day-CASE tools, the paperless office, structured engineering), is designed to solve that problem. You may be a skeptic at first, but once you try (new flavor), you will be amazed at the results."

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The Best Consultants

This month's Tips is the final segment of a three-part series on working with consultants. It describes the attributes of the best consultants-and is useful for both consultants and hiring managers.

So what does it take to achieve success as a consultant, beyond the obvious qualifications of the right expertise and experience for the particular job? The following is a checklist of the qualities to look for (or emulate!):

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Working With Consultants Directly

This month's Tips is the second of a three-part article that outlines best practices for working with consultants and clients. This month focuses on tips for working with consultants directly, and the following month provides tips for being a successful consultant.

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Working With a Consulting Agency

This month's Tips is the first of a three-part article that outlines best practices for working with consultants and clients. This month focuses on how to get the best service working with consulting agencies. Next month focuses on tips for working with consultants directly, and the following month provides tips for being a successful consultant.

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Effective Report Writing

This Tip is designed for those who don't like to write reports, and should help you get started, organize information, and present it effectively.

Establishing the purpose of a document is the first step in creating any written material. Determine what you want the readers to know or do when they have finished reading.

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Wasted Words and Phrases to Avoid

It's a new year, and this month's Tips focuses on wasted words and phrases to provide an easy reference for clearer communication in 2003. We hope you find this a useful reference. Feel free to let us know anything you think should be on this list that we've missed!

After you write a sentence, look it over and ask whether there are any words you can cut without impacting the meaning. If so, start cutting, because the shorter version is usually better. Avoid words and phrases that don't add meaning to a sentence.

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Managing Email

More and more, daily work starts with email. In some ways, the availability of instant communication to one or a group of people is an enormous convenience, helping accomplish tasks efficiently. However, the sheer volume of email communication can eat away at your day, interrupting ongoing tasks, and getting in the way of what you need to do.

This month's Tips focuses on how to maximize the benefits and minimize the intrusion of email, along with some basic email etiquette and ideas on organizing past correspondence.

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E-Learning: Potential, Performance, Pitfalls

With concern about travel and budget, and a desire to maximize the training dollar, e-learning has become the medium of choice for corporate training. There are wonderful new development tools available that make it possible to create dynamic online courseware. And the ability to register, track, and communicate with geographically disbursed populations is a huge enhancement to the administration of training for large groups of individuals.

However, while the potential of e-learning is exciting, there are some disturbing trends emerging, too.

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Tips for Online Usability

The grandfather of modern film, D.W. Griffith, noted that new media tend to imitate the medium from which they emerged. Thus, the first films were single camera renderings of stage plays. It took Griffith's innovative vision to introduce multiple camera angles, fades, and zooms.

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On Time and In Budget

How many of us can say that we consistently deliver to these two metrics? And yet, it is possible. TechProse does a significant percentage of our work on a fixed price and schedule basis, with a client guarantee, and to do this successfully we have learned a lot about estimating, budgeting, and managing projects.

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The Right Staff

Several times recently, I’ve gotten questions on hiring or on working with consultants. We actually published a small booklet on working with consultants, that includes what you should expect working with individuals or with an agency, Best Practices for the IT Consulting Industry—you can download it here.

However, as this question seems to reoccur with each new budget cycle, I thought this month I’d provide a summary of some key things you can do to increase success regardless of whether you’re looking for staff or consultants.

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Out with the old...

Preparing for year-end is the perfect excuse to organize, prioritize and take stock. Especially this year, this feels like an important exercise, whether or not you are a manager. I thought I’d send my personal agenda for December, with the idea that it may spark your own ideas for this process.

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Disaster Preparedness

Preparing for unexpected events is on everyone’s mind these days. As a Californian who lives with the continuous possibility of earthquake, this is only a variation on a theme. Many people feel there is little they can do, however, whether you are part of a large corporation or an individual on you own, there are a few simple steps you can take that may make your life easier if things are not proceeding "as usual."

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Onsite vs. Offsite

Clients often require technical communications experts to work onsite. While technical writers or business analysts need to interview people, use the hardware or software, or be available for meetings, much of what they do is designing, writing, and clarifying data. The bulk of this work can be done best away from the interruptions and hubbub of a corporate office.

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Punctuation and Quotation Marks

Everyone seems to be confused about where to put punctuation when using quotation marks. Yet the rules are simple (if inconsistent).

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