News & Events
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JoAnn Hackos Receives Rigo Award
JoAnn Hackos is the 2003 recipient of the prestigious Rigo Award
by the Association for Computing Machinery Special
Interest Group on Computer Documentation (ACM SIGDOC). Each year
ACM SIGDOC gives the Rigo Award to an individual who has made an
outstanding lifetime contribution to the field of user documentation.
The award will be presented at the October 2003 Conference in San Francisco.
Best Practices 2003 Conference
September 22–24, 2003
Seattle, Washington
Innovator's Forum
September 25–26, 2003
Seattle, Washington
Visit
www.infomanagementcenter.com
for more information and to register.
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Upcoming Workshops
The CIDM sponsors the following workshops.
Sign up now:
Structured
Writing for Single Sourcing
JoAnn Hackos, PhD,
September 9–10, 2003,
Columbus, OH
September 16–17, 2003,
San Jose, CA
Minimalism: Creating Manuals People Will Use
JoAnn Hackos, PhD,
August 26–27, 2003,
Montreal, Canada
October 7–8, 2003,
Lexington, KY
November 6–7, 2003,
Atlanta, GA
Managing
Your Documentation Projects
Bill Hackos, PhD
October 16–17, 2003,
Phoenix, AZ
Developing
Online Information for Help and Web-Based Delivery
JoAnn Hackos, PhD,
October 21–22, 2003,
New Orleans, LA
XML for Writers
Tina Hedlund
October 21–22, 2003,
Chicago, IL
For more information on these and other workshops,
visit the Seminars in Usable Design Web site at
www.comtech-serv.com/workshops/index.shtml
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Don't Stop Thinking about Tomorrow
JoAnn Hackos, PhD
CIDM Director
www.infomanagementcenter.com
A report in the August 4, 2002, issue of the Financial Times (FT) focused
on the "twin challenges that today's executives face—to deliver efficiency gains
while creating new sources of growth." As we all recognize, the pendulum has
swung in the past several years toward efficiency—what Peter Drucker described
30 years ago as "doing things right." Cost cutting—layoffs—outsourcing—offshoring.
All are attempts to boost profits by lowering costs at a time when higher revenues
are elusive.
Read
the article
More articles
Let's Earn Respect
Remaining Passionate in Dispassionate Times
Interpreting Requirements—The Importance of Asking Why
Plans for September's Best Practices Conference
and Forum are going well.
Registration is well ahead of both 2001 and 2002. More than 100 people will
be attending the conference, and Forum enrollment is expected to be 15 to
20 people—the ideal size for both. They will be large
enough to communicate lots of ideas but small enough so you can meet
everyone.
When you make your travel plans, be sure to leave enough time to see Seattle's
attractions. Our hotel is adjacent to the ferries that can take you to Victoria,
BC, or Friday Harbor on San Juan Island. For schedules and ticket information
visit http://victoriaclipper.com. You'll
need a whole day for these trips. Leave time to visit the Pike Place Market (Home
of the Fish!) http://pikeplacemarket.org,
within easy walking distance, and visit Pioneer Square to see old town Seattle and
other sites just a little farther away
http://cityofseattle.net.
Remember, if you haven't already ordered your copy, read Malcolm Gladwell's
The Tipping Point. It's a fascinating account of how new ideas take hold. We'll
be referring to Gladwell's basic concepts throughout the conference. We'll have
more on additional pre-reading in the next newsletter.
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Dr. JoAnn Hackos and the Center for Information-Development
Management invite you to...
Innovator's Forum
September 25–26, 2003, Seattle, Washington
You know what your people are capable of doing if you just had the support.
You have great ideas that will make technical publications relevant to the customer.
You've put together a strategic plan and laid out the metrics.
Why is it still so hard to make your change message stick?
Innovations are easy to imagine and difficult to make happen. At the Best
Practices conference, experience how fellow information managers make a difference
in their organizations:
- Learn to cope by bringing current resources to bear on solving problems.
- Help key managers and staff understand your vision.
- Identify your key team members who can help everyone understand the need for change.
- Disarm the naysayers and laggards.
Be prepared for the challenges of Tipping Point Leadership in introducing innovations
and making the changes that your team needs to succeed in tough economic times.
Join us for the most valuable management conference in your profession.
Turn your conference experience into tangible results.
- Are you excited by speakers at the conference?
- Do deadlines and demands drown out your good ideas for change as soon as you
get back to the office?
- Take this priceless opportunity to make change happen.
Join the Innovator's Workshop immediately following the Best Practices conference
to turn your ideas into reality.
Outstanding speakers, sessions, and location!
Join us at the water's edge. The Edgewater hotel overlooks Puget Sound in
downtown Seattle, Washington. It's down the hill from historic Pike Place
Market, the locale of the FISH! philosophy—last year's theme. As you prepare
to attend in 2003, read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, this year's
theme book.
For more information and to register, visit
our Web site.
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Let's Earn Respect
Bill Hackos, PhD
Vice President, Comtech Services, Inc.
I enjoyed Vesa Purho's insightful article in the July issue of the eNewsletter
and his subsequent post to the Best Practices listserv. Vesa extended the idea
of Hygiene first developed by Frederick Herzberg1 in his landmark article in the
Harvard Business Review (HBR) in 1968. Herzberg, writing about motivation, suggested
that certain environmental conditions must be met to motivate people...such as salary,
benefits, working conditions, even bonuses and other incentives. These are
necessary but not sufficient conditions for motivation. Herzberg refers to these
environmental conditions as "hygiene." In addition, people must have fulfilling,
challenging jobs in order to be truly motivated.
Read
the article
Remaining Passionate in Dispassionate Times
Palmer Pearson
Operations Director, Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
Okay, we all agree that recessions, like acid reflux, last too long. In a work
environment, plans for growth are dashed along with a personal sense of value.
Layoffs, executed in phases, ensure that Sword of Damocles will precariously hover
over our heads in a never-ending succession of hopeful financial quarters. Often
heard in hallways across the land is the sarcastic moan, "The suspense is killing
me," and it may very well be.
Read
the article
Interpreting Requirements—The Importance of Asking Why
Vesa Purho
Development Manager, Nokia
Many of us are familiar with the situation in which we have given our requirements
for a new tool or document and what we receive fulfills all those requirements but
still is more or less not what we actually wanted. There are many aspects related to
creating requirements: selecting sources of requirements and techniques for eliciting
them, creating guidelines for documenting them, and mapping the requirements to the
specification documents for traceability. But in this article, I concentrate on the
importance of asking Why?
Read
the article
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www.infomanagementcenter.com/enewsletter.shtml
The Center For Information-Development Management
The Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM) is an
organization of information-development, training, and support
managers across the United States and internationally. The CIDM
is directed by Dr. JoAnn Hackos, international leader in the management
of the design, development, and dissemination of information to
customers and employees. Under her leadership, the CIDM conducts
benchmark studies among member organizations and elsewhere, sponsors
research into information development and its management, and
gathers and disseminates results and resources through newsletters,
the Web, seminars, an annual conference, and research white papers.
The CIDM facilitates the sharing of information among the most
skilled managers in the information industry.
If you are interested in reading more in-depth articles, you
should consider subscribing to the Best Practices newsletter at
www.infomanagementcenter.com/masterindex.shtml.
©2003 by the Center for Information-Development Management. All rights reserved.
Tel. (303) 232-7586
Fax. (303) 232-0659
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