Category / Collaboration

by Will Kelly

Building the better G Suite administrator

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I’ve written about G Suite and other cloud productivity tools or a while now. Furthermore, I’ve had the chance to explore the intersection of Microsoft Office and G Suite for technical writing and user productivity.
G Suite can represent some significant cost savings for *some* organizations. It’s not going to happen by taking G Suite live and sending your enterprise users a URL. Outside of a solid implementation plan, the role of the G Suite Administrator plays a crucial role in the successful launch of G Suite.

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by Will Kelly

An alternative perspective about taking meeting minutes

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I was talking to a recruiter once who asked me how I felt about taking meeting minutes. The first thing I said was “I think meeting minutes are overrated because I’ve rarely if ever seen them consulted again by meeting participants. When is the last time you consulted meeting minutes after a meeting was over?” While we both laughed about my response, I was quite serious and didn’t know how serious I was myself until well after the call was over.

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by Will Kelly

Simple guidelines for running technical document reviews remotely

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With some clear expectations and a little planning upfront, running remote writing and document review projects can go smoothly.  Here are some lessons I learned when I was a freelancer about running remote writing and editing projects:

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by Will Kelly

Lessons learned from working as a computer book industry technical reviewer

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I was a computer book technical reviewer earlier in my career. It was a freelance gig, but I still consider the work one of the more formative chapters in my professional writing career even though it wasn’t writing work.

Computer book technical reviewers sometimes called technical editors are responsible for ensuring the technical accuracy of information technology book manuscripts. The work taught me to pay attention to technical details, which in turn went on to influence my work as a technical writer and freelance writer.

The lessons I learned include:

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by Will Kelly

Moving your team from email inboxes to online collaboration

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There is a dizzying array of online collaboration applications available today.
Even in 2017, you still have to write your own migration plan to move your team from email inboxes to an online collaboration platform.
A proper collaboration platform migration is agnostic — these tips can apply to most any cloud or on-premise collaboration

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by Will Kelly

The gentle art of project documentation control

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Managing project documents can be an underappreciated art in some organizations. It’s an area where a technical writer should take charge. I’ve seen document control of all stripes throughout my career. Document control that works. Document control that didn’t work. Even document control that caused a near staff rebellion. I’ve even seen no formal document control practices.
While compliance programs like COSO and Sarbanes Oxley require document control over project documents, it also makes good business sense.
Here are some tips for implementing document control within your project team or organization:

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by Will Kelly

4 reasons why your document reviews aren’t working

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I’ve long been a student of technical document reviews. So much so, I worked as a technical reviewer for some computer book publishers to learn more about this critical element of the technical communications. Back then I thought I could do a better job than the reviewers where I was working at the time). Editorial and technical reviews are integral parts of the technical publications process. Unfortunately, so many organizations fumble through the review cycle.

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