Information Age Dead..? I’m Betting Not…

web 2.0,technical writing,communication dimensions,technical communication,technical support,o’reilly

Killer analysis from Sarah at Palimpset about whether or not the Information Age is dead with the advent of wikis and other web 2.0 information delivery.

Read on: Palimpsest - The Age of… Expertise?

In the comments, Tim O’Reilly points out that the real change is in how information is gathered and distributed with “the rise of new forms of computer mediated aggregators and new forms of collective curation and communication.”

I believe that we are still firmly in the Information Age because information has not yet become a commodity product. There is, however, clearly a shift happening in how information is created and delivered.

This is important. After all, how accurate is a wiki compared to an encyclopedia? It depends on the contributors. Information cannot become a commodity until there are so many Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) that the cost ratio becomes negligible.

Technical Writer to Technical Support

I really like what Sarah said about the spread between Technical Writing and Technical Support. This gets right into the Workflow Collaboration / Online Collaboration / Web 2.0 space I’m looking into. Again from Palimpsest - The Age of… Expertise?

I think it’s helpful to look at communication dimensions:

• Traditional technical writing is one-to-many. One person/team writes, many people consume it.
• Wikis are many-to-many. Many people write; many people use the information.
• Mailing lists are many-to-one. Many people respond to one persons’ question
• Technical support is one-to-one. One person calls; one person responds.

Technical support is the most expensive option; it’s also often the most relevant. Technical writing is more efficient (because the answer to the question is provided just once), but also less personal and therefore less relevant.

I’m so… going to grab those bullet points for my next ‘online help’ customer meeting, Sarah. My Corporate Wiki article might be relevant to this spread in the Workflow Collaboration sense.

There’s a sweet spot in there that reduces customer call volume, and actually increases consumer confidence in the product. Somewhere, the majority of the people will find the answers the majority of the time and mentally rate the support system a success.

Again from Palimpsest - The Age of… Expertise?

Furthermore, the fact that people are turning to Google to find information says something deeply unflattering about product documentation, online help, and other user assistance. Why is a Google search more compelling than looking in the help?

There’s a balance that support needs to strike. A sweet spot between cost efficiency and content delivery. ASP Online has a great Technical Support Award that examines the balance found in support web sites. I’ve written in detail about previous winners of that award previously.