From Starting a Conversation: The Art of Comment Fetching:

Everyone measures the success of their blog in different ways - but when it comes to measuring engagement, comments and trackbacks are what really count.

Today’s Blogging Irony

It’s funny that the Technical Communication blog of Adobe, the market leader in just about everything written, spoken, filmed, or distributed - Well, their blog hasn’t had a comment from a user in two and a half months.

Oh, it’s got 1407 links to it in Technorati… But no comments.

Then again, I could be a bit sour because my comments on Adobe’s TechComm blog the three times I’ve made them, were either held for nine months (until I posted an image of the question on my own blog during a heated debate) and then posted like they’d always been there, or in the case of my comments last month, simply ignored.

Not very engaging. Sort of like Adobe’s current TechComm Technical Support. But that subject is so 2007.

The Adobe Captivate blog OTOH, is hot. Silke Fleischer’s got it going on, and by the metrics mentioned above, she is clearly engaging her audience. Maybe that’s why I link to it on my page and not to the TechComm.adobe.whatever.com blog.

Then again, Captivate is a very engaging product while the rest of the TCS doesn’t really push my buttons…

My blog? Oh, let’s not even go there. Every other month or so I literally get too busy to post anything. So enjoy it while it lasts…

For some support may not be a factor in their software purchase decision. For others, it counts as a pivotal decision.

Tech Support as a Core Competency

Today I’ll analyze the effects that the implementation of a successful Web 2.0 Technical Support strategy has on a corporation. As MadCap CEO Anthony Olivier stated last year, tech support wasn’t something they took lightly.

Update: I just found out Thursday that MadCap Software has won the ASP Online Support awards.

Continuing my previous Web 2.0 Tech Support case study, let’s revisit our initial external Web 2.0 participation of MadCap Software’s Technical Support and analyze the effects of their participation within the blogosphere and user groups. 

Web 2.0 Beyond The Firewall: Winning Their Hearts & Minds

I’ve already blogged about MadCap’s external Web 2.0 Tech Support efforts. It’s a strategy that has worked well for MadCap. If business can be described as warfare, almost from the very beginning there was an asymmetric war going on between Adobe and MadCap for the Technical Communication / Help Authoring Tool space.

In comparison I’ve witnessed a hardcore Product Manager / Evangelist approach to the Rich Internet Applications market in researching my Silverlight vs Flex analysis series. While that’s to be expected by career marketing staff, Tech Support Web 2.0 usage beyond the firewall is a more guerilla tactic. 

Although the battle is far from over, in most online user accounts MadCap has been declared the victor currently as far as Tech Support goes. For some users, that’s a very important part of the buying decision.

That would be the ‘winning hearts and minds’ of asymmetric warfare. This gives another example of a classic military tactical description / acronym: The OODA Loop.

From Wikipedia: It has become an important concept in both business and military strategy. According to John Boyd, decision-making occurs in a cycle of observe-orient-decide-act. [OODA]

…Boyd theorized that large organizations such as corporations, governments, or militaries possessed a hierarchy of OODA loops at tactical, grand-tactical (operational art), and strategic levels.

In addition, he stated that most effective organizations have a highly decentralized chain of command that utilizes objective-driven orders, or directive control, rather than method-driven orders in order to harness the mental capacity and creative abilities of individual commanders at each level. He argued that such a structure would create a flexible “organic whole” that would be quicker to adapt to rapidly changing situations.

An entity (either an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly than an opponent, can thereby “get inside” the opponent’s decision cycle and gain a military or business advantage.

MadCap’s gotten inside Adobe’s OODA loop regarding their customer service and if it’s a metric measured by comments from users, there is a large gap between them.

No Groupthink Allowed

In this instance, by empowering their internal staff to participate in Web 2.0 conversations throughout the internet, I observed the MadCap TS staff multiply their effectiveness.

This is because each individual acts quickly and without undue delay for review from the hierarchy. Looking again at the ‘force multiplier’ aspect from Wikipedia:

Force multiplication through technology - A small force is multiplied when a small number of units are made as effective as a much larger one.

Swarm Philosophy

Honeybees don’t ask for permission to pollinate flowers and return to the hive, they just do it. Same with what I previously blogged about MadCap’s Web 2.0 strategy.

From Wikipedia about the OODA Loop:

…Since the OODA Loop was designed to describe a single decision maker, the situation is usually much worse than shown as most business and technical decisions have a team of people observing and orienting, each bringing their own cultural traditions, genetics, experience and other information.

It is no wonder that it is here that decisions often get stuck and the OODA Loop is reduced to the stuttering sound of “OO-OO-OO” [2] 

OO-OO-OO - Adobe’s Tech Support Loop

In 2007 Adobe made two grave errors in the Technical Communication space. First, they canned the entire RoboHelp support team located in San Diego. Second, they were not quick enough to regain key support staff competency within the RoboHelp community.

MadCap quickly capitalized on this by hiring the brain trust of Adobe’s San Diego-based Tech Support and formulating a positive beyond the firewall Web 2.0 offensive. This was a strategic coup for Anthony Olivier. Yet another timely decision last year in hiring Var Galpchian after Adobe made her a free agent.

From Does Tech Support Count? Can Good Service Sell in the 21st Century? posted here in 2007:

The question is, will this create a better user experience, and therefore, a better product?

MadCap’s CEO thinks so: “We’ve made it our mission to deliver the ultimate customer experience through next-generation content solutions and a locally based, highly experienced support team that understands our users’ needs. It is a great honor to be recognized as a 2007 AeA High Tech Award finalist for our success in delivering on that goal,” said Anthony Olivier, MadCap CEO.

Although eHelp and Macromedia were both prior web support winners, Adobe is absent from this year’s 2008 ASP Online awards. Microsoft happens to be a four time winner, within the organization’s ‘Hall of Fame’. And now MadCap brings home its first ASP Online award.

With just a few of Adobe TCS staff (and not one Tech Support staffer) posting on external blogs to assist users it doesn’t seem as if the same level of trust exists within Adobe’s Technical Support staff as it does with MadCap’s Technical Support staff.

Related Articles:

• Does Tech Support Count? Can Good Service Sell in the 21st Century?
• Web 2.0 Tech Support: Part 3
• Web 2.0 Tech Support Usage On HATT Re: flare evaluation
• MadCap Software’s New Digs | More Adobe Layoffs
• Web 2.0 Tech Support (Part 1)
• Adobe and MadCap’s Cold War: Who’s the Superpower Today?
• Another Satisfied Adobe Customer…
• Company blogging 101

Continuing my previous Web 2.0 Tech Support case study, let’s look again at the example of MadCap Software’s Technical Support. It’s not only the outbound use of Web 2.0, the internal use of Web 2.0 within MadCap is prevalent and highly structured.

Of course MadCap has been able to use this capability as a force multiplier regarding support staffing. I started this discussion last year with my blog post Does Tech Support Count? Can Good Service Sell in the 21st Century? 

One of my commenters stated:

…I just don’t get why companies think that offering crappy, expensive support is a business model that will sustain customer relationships. Saving a few pennies in support will cost big bucks down the road.

But there are exceptions. Companies like Spectrum Brands (Remington shavers), Newegg, MadCap, and Versatrans - just to name a few - have outstanding support and are truly support leaders in their respective industries.

On top of that, they make great products or follow through with assistance or replacements every single time. Those companies have a bright future.

Update: Sarah O’Keefe has an excellent white paper titled Friend or Foe? Web 2.0 in Technical Communication which has a lot of overlap with my initial Tech Support / Good Service article last year. My analysis was initially inspired by Sarah’s post and her white paper is an excellent resource. Great minds think alike, Sarah.

Web 2.0 Technical Support Overview

One of my former business partners once told me that the key to any type of web commerce was giving people what they need within three clicks of their initial portal or entry point.

This kind of logical organized thinking simply reeks of competency…

Update: I just found out Thursday that MadCap Software has won the ASP Online Support awards.

Web 2.0 Tech Support: PHP-based Forums

First, PHP works quickly and is easy to search. There are ‘user forums’ out there which are awful to find information within their siloed content.

MadCap’s isn’t like that. The user community for MadCap is vocal, and I’ve said before, provides a rabid fan base for the products. These power users are the core around the community, and are global.

By giving the user a quick path to browse as a guest versus becoming involved, it eases the usability of the forums. It’s been my experience that the response level has been less than 24 hours for answers to be posted. And that’s on a weekend.

Additionally, the MadCap Tech Support staff lurk on those forums like tiger sharks around a school of bluefin tuna. If the MVPs can’t answer something well enough or fast enough there will inevitably be a request by one of the Tech Support staffers to examine the trouble closer.

By the way, the MadCap TS staff obviously enjoy including the users in the fun. Not many companies allow posting a well planned April Fools Day joke on a corporate website like this:

MadCap Ping Pong Released!

Madcap Software is proud to announce the Upcoming release of Madcap Ping Pong, With Madcap Ping Pong, your days of losing at Ping Pong are over.

The first product to provide help authors with instantaneous, controllable back spin.

This software will be the first product to have its own XML based Deflection Editor. Madcap Ping Pong skips right over the net other HATs get caught in.

Read the rest of this entry »

While I’ve been working feverishly these past two months on my NorCal project, Paul Pehrson talks about MadCap’s Blaze beta on his blog Technically Speaking » Early Review: MadCap Blaze. He specifically mentions MadCap’s new collaborative workflow tool:

If your reviewers don’t have Blaze or Flare installed, MadCap is introducing a new product called X-Edit Express — a free tool your reviewers can use to review, make suggestions and light edits, and submit back to you. All my SMEs can install X-Edit Express, and I can use Blaze/Flare to submit the file to them for editing.

They open it in X-Edit Express, do their review, and click Save. The file will show up again for me as being reviewed. I can open it to see what changes/annocations they made.

X-Edit Express isn’t available for review yet, but I’ll give you my comments on that one once I’ve had a chance to evaluate the program.

Replacement for Microsoft Word or…?

I can see Blaze being useful and complementary to Word however X-Edit pushes the envelope. Sharon has a great couple of workflow diagrams on her blogpost: Beta, beta, everywhere which show where it belongs in the workflow.

In my December 2007 MadCap corporate headquarters visit and subsequent interview of Mike Hamilton we talked about workflow and specifically about Word.

I think one of the tougher questions I asked him was whether or not it was an intent of MadCap Software to compete with Word. In my podcast program we find the relevant segment within the Hamilton podcast:

27:00 (minutes through podcast)
Mike answers the question about Word competing with Flare or Blaze. Since the MadCap –products are a complete workflow, does it compete with Word?

28:15
Getting granular about Word vs. Flare in typical generic user usage – where the breakpoint comes in.

30:15
Strategy and policy for supporting new Microsoft releases. Mike includes Internet Explorer web browser, Word, and operating system support in his answer.

Briefly, Mike answered that MadCap was not looking to create a Word replacement and that MadCap intended to work with Microsoft products as a valued Microsoft partner. My opinion is that… X-Edit was designed with a specific (ahem) industry problem in mind…

Hey SME, Don’t touch that template!

IMO, X-Edit fits well in preserving a doc template so it can’t be horked down by fatfingering.

With Sharon’s website showing the template form of X-edit and Mike’s previous statement I figure that either Word or X-Edit will be great for sourcing information and X-Edit Express wraps it up for those who don’t need to write it, just read and be heard.

Killer Application: Helping begin corporate conversations…

Ann Gentle has a complementary article about corporate conversations which IMO, is a critical application for this tool.

Imagine the Technical Support staff having a Web 2.0 window into documentation, becoming empowered to review the docs as they are published and implement troubleshooting into a software workflow.

Here’s yet another great article from Just Write Click >> Technical writers and conversations:

I had an “ah ha” moment at SXSW Interactive, when one of the social media metrics panelists Rohit Bhargava said he sees three areas or channels for measurable conversations - Public Relations, Marketing (Sales), and Customer Support.

For me, those three categories crystallized this connection: where our role as tech pubs is strongest in an organization, that’s where we might start successful conversations.

… Tech support seems the best alignment for many companies, as Charles Jeter’s follow-up points out. Tech publications that drive down support costs are another area where value proof lies.

Ann, you’re on a great thread with the conversations bit. Getting corporate cultures to open up and use Web 2.0 smartly is critical to their success against their competition.

Threat Assessment - Adobe TCS will lose even more ground…

My opinion is that Blaze coupled with X-Edit Express is what we called in the military a ‘Force Multiplier’. It’s another technological smart bomb, just like MadCap’s newly released Analyzer.

It will help the overall workflow of the Technical Communications Manager / Team Lead by allowing their subject matter experts (SMEs) to comment freely without impacting the installed software cost. This is a low (zero) cost high yield product befitting a hard look.

If this were the 1980s and the Cold War, X-Edit Express would be Star Wars or the smart bomb. As it stands, it’s just another reason not to renew the licensing on existing Adobe Acrobat Professional.

I’ll have to try it before I claim it beats the DevBlog concept, but I won’t be shocked if it kills my old workflow standby and raises the bar for MadCap’s competition.

I figure that X-Edit Express will compete with Adobe Acrobat’s reviewing workflow and will easily compete with the ‘next generation’ of Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite as Adobe moves towards true single-sourcing. 

As a free tool for reviewers it removes the requirement of a licensed copy of Adobe Acrobat for reviewing. It also swings into the single-sourcing workflow that FrameMaker so desperately needs - with a wrecking ball.

I’ll be watching Paul’s blog closely for more industry information - he’s really stepped up as an MVP in the MadCap community.

Mike, Sharon, that name has got to go…

Okay, I hate to knock MadCap, but I hate the X-Edit  / X-Edit Express name already.

On the (very) bright side this is what you get when your core competencies are user experience and programming and the brain trust won’t (waste)spend a lot of money on marketing weenies.

I’m sure the product will work excellent regardless of its name, I’m just being picky. 

My two cents: Stick with the tradition of a one or two syllable name.

Flare. Blaze. Mimic. Capture. All sound memorable. Like Rocky. Legend. Matrix. Halo. 

Besides, MadCap’s not staffed by ‘haters’. They can take a ding or two from little old me!

Related posts (some external):

• MadCap’s VP Mike Hamilton Speaks! (Dec 7th, 2007)
• DevBlog Collaboration | Your Internal Process Holy Grail
• Web 2.0: one man writes » Conversation V.I.P.s
• Technically Speaking » Early Review: MadCap Blaze
• Sharon’s MadCap Blog » Beta, beta, everywhere
• Communication from DMN » Staying on top of changes
• Just Write Click » Technical writers and conversations

Another successful example of Web 2.0 Tech Support usage as we’ve discussed earlier: HATT post 69635 Re: flare evaluation

I am nearing the end of my evaluation period with Flare (just 9 days
left!)

Here are my comments:

The MadCap (Flare) people came out of the woodwork to support me,
whereas Adobe (RoboHelp) never uttered a peep - even though I
downloaded free trials of both and have posted several times in this
group. It reminded me of the good ol’ days of Blue Sky Software
(original owners and the creators of RH) and I was delighted to learn
that MadCap is sort of a reincarnation of Blue Sky.

If you liked hearing that Regina, you should check out my blog article with pics of the new/old place and the podcast with Mike Hamilton done last December.

Continued from How This Savvy Techie Downloaded His First Virus

I got lucky. Others have had direct attacks on their sites after a trojan is installed which sniffs their passwords. I’ve got two adware programs which are a nusiance, but right now they’re isolated and cannot get out. I’ll kill them later today as I have time, and find a program that works on them better than the ones I’ve already owned.

From one victim’s words:

I spotted tvsetmp3. com in my web stats refering to one of my sites. As I’d never heard of it, and being curious, I decided to take a look.

Big mistake! the site pretends to offer porn videos but of course you need to install a special codec. Not being stupid I tried to cancel and close the browser - but it still installed a trojan - videoaccesscodecinstall.exe which I’ve now removed.

It’s hard to be your own IT/IS department

Since I had pulled the plug to the wireless router I took some time to figure out what I was dealing with.

Now to fix my system… What are my resources against tvsetupMP3?

Installed: Norton Antivirus, Norton Firewall. I don’t click on ads, and Microsoft and Google toolbar generally protect me against popups and other scummy items.

It’s the social engineering on this bug that made me click it.

I thought I was safe inside my web server’s stats program. Just like people used to think ten years ago about their email.

Norton doesn’t pick up adware it turns out. I’m sure they make another product that does, but what’s the point in that?

So I downloaded Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware. It didn’t pick it up either. Shocked I moved onwards, and tried both in Safe Mode.

Next move was to get into Safe Mode, and do all the full scans again, on a deep level (normally it only goes three levels down within .zip or .rar files, I did seven levels down).

As you can imagine, this takes a while. Normally I have two systems set up, but since my move back at Labor Day I haven’t had the core system set up. So I went offline to read some books.

I let it scan overnight, and no such luck. Next on the list was AVG. Now, I had come out of safe mode and PC Doctor had already found and isolated the malware / virus / adware programs. I was concerned because I’d also seen a download.BN virus pop up which Norton took care of.

I also went back to Lavasoft and found out that they have a specific application which takes out these types of programs. Right now they’re isolated, but I’ll have to try them right after the AVG scan, which is over 1 hour so far without finding it.

Here’s what worked for me - almost. PCTools Spyware Doctor found and isolated the nasty suckers, and didn’t let them relaunch when I restarted my system.

…but it asked me to register and pay $30 before it would dispose of them. Well, at least now I can use my browser without real concern. So it’s off to shop around and find the best I can for $30.

So I called up Joe, one of my friends who started his own computer services company and used to ask me for technical help. Our usual roles were reversed since I have been out of hardware support for years, so he’s now the onsite commando.

Joe asked, have you been thinking about formatting your system lately?

After we discussed the ‘Nuke the site from orbit’ plan of formatting the system, he told me to check AVG software out, since that was his preferred method. Since he’s in the ‘Data Plumber’ business and does daily threat removal for his clients, I’ve downloaded AVG’s adware component.

I used to use AVG years ago, and I like its slim profile rather than Norton’s heavier grip on system resources. However, and I’m not sure if this is because it’s already quarantined by PC Doctor, nothing has been found with a full scan.

Update: As it turns out, an hour and a half after a full scan, nothing found. You get what you pay for, apparently, with the free AVG and Ad-Aware software.

After 25 years of safe computing last Friday evening the social engineering behind viral transmission finally beat me. I downloaded my first ever virus on Friday night.

How on earth could I get suckered? Through my website’s statistics. I thought I was safe inside my web server’s stats program. Just like people used to think ten years ago about their email.

You’re not safe anymore. Don’t click the links within your stats.

I’ve been computing since playing snake in my preteen Commodore PET timesharing days in Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science in the early 1980s.

I owned my first Apple //e in 1983 when I was in middle school. I worked for both America Online and Gateway computers in technical support. I’ve installed Citrix systems and rolled out configurations across five hundred desktops overnight.

And now I was another malware statistic.

Bloggers and small business owners who host on your own servers: beware of the tvsetmp3 dot com address. I’m sure it’s only going to be one of many such evil backlinks we will be dealing with soon.

Stats junkie sees referral link - who’s this?

When I was looking through the referring links I found this one for tvsetmp3. com. Warning: do not hit that site! That’s why I didn’t hyperlink it.

While it looked innocuous, this is a new and innovative method to get website owners to click on links they normally wouldn’t.

I had also been experiencing problems with my Apache server’s AWStats - it wasn’t showing results for over a week on any of the domains I’ve got hosted. So now my AWStats is under my scrutiny.

So I’m wondering who tvsetmp3 is…

Of course I am looking through AWStats and get to my links from external pages section.

Bad idea. Very bad idea.

After going to this site, a blank YouTube-style window popped up, and some sort of familiar sounding player codec asked to be set up. This is where I lapsed in judgement. My tech-savvy nature had me thinking the referring link was embedded within the Flash so I accepted it.

This is where the social engineering behind the application of this adware really worked on me. After all, if someone’s referring people to my site, they’re… they’re inside my web social circle, right?

Then all sorts of hell started breaking loose.

My browser changed, and some sort of quasi-porn image popped up, with an overlay made to look like I had been redirected.

A window in poor English stated that I had the Agent.bn virus and needed to get Advanced Cleaner to get rid of it. Conveniently, all I had to do was watch my browser be taken to the Advanced Cleaner website. How nice.

Apparently the download was supposed to coerce me into buying some sort of virus / adware cleaning product. How I and WordPress community folks fixed this is detailed beneath the fold.

And this content was also found in my windows directory in a file named search_res.txt.

1. tvsetmp3.com|t|videoaccesscodecinstall%2eexe+virus+symantec|sym-priority-demote|tvsetmp3 .com|tvsetmp3 .com|t|t|Ad-Aware 2007|t|advanced+cleaner. com|advanced+cleaner+removal| Advanced Cleaner| Advanced Cleaner|AdvancedCleaner|web counter|technical communication|instant messaging security|help authoring tool|go to my pc|virgin|key+influencer|internet media|spyware|

Advanced Cleaner obviously was supposed to be my solution. I think the other search results derived from my Google or IE7 search results, you can see technical communication and help authoring tool in there

Oops. What’s the name of that truck driving school, Maverick?

Since my frustration was mounting about the total loss of time, I decided to channel my anger and blog about it, therefore make the world a better place by educating more people about the risk and how I fixed it. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in…

I had immediately severed my data connection, and while i figured out that a trojan or some other data capturing algorithm would be blocked by Norton, I was still trying to recapture my browser control and rid myself of the constantly random display of porn that was trying to persuade me first, that there was a virus, and second, that I should buy Advanced Cleaner, what the window graciously offered in order to get rid of it!

Fix the problem that they created? How sleazy is that?

The porn images were some sort of layer or .gif file and these makers of the virus probably get money off of paid click links that they send to adware security companies.

So if you download their recommended products, you take care of the adware/virus that they in fact put onto your system. How nice.

Wow. Somehow I’m not the only one who’s seen the blending and fusion of Technical Support and Technical Writing. Technical Support through Web 2.0 supplies a conversation to their users who are in desperate need of help.

Repurposing that conversation’s content provides a cornerstone for a savvy company’s knowledge base. An interesting concept for Technical Communicators to consider, along with figuring out the workflow to make life easier and not overwhelming.

Content, Technology, and Instruction - The User Assistance Triangle

I’ve always thought Technical Communication breaks into three distinct user assistance skill sets - Content, Technology, and Instruction.

Rarely have I seen those who master all three and it is difficult to imagine how many years Technical Communicators train, through independent writing along with formal college, eventually through the Masters degree level for most.

The frustration point seems to come for most in attempting to adapt to the technology that is changing much more rapidly than the English language does; providing the challenge in honing that side of the triangle.

Technology Consulting - Filling In The Knowledge Gap

Technical Communicators and Instructional Designers that I’ve had the pleasure to work with hire consultants (such as my company provides) for the Technology side. We in turn listen to what they need to accomplish and either train them directly in how to accomplish that, create the workflow for them, or do the tasks to get the job done.

Stateside Tech Support - Fashionable Yet Again

Career Technical Support technicians and engineers however, trend successfully into the Instruction and Technology elements. With a successful Knowledge Base and product usage demonstrations, the crossover into Content is complete.

A seasoned Technical Writer could easily reshape that Content and really make it shine even in is the age of wikipedia and Web 2.0 pushing Content out. 

From one man writes » Conversation V.I.P.s

I left a comment on the Cherryleaf blog, which I’ll expand on here, but the jist was that I think Technical Communicators are (can be, should be) the social web of the workplace…

…Whether we like it or not, our primary role SHOULD become information guardians. That will mean less writing, and more knowledge/information management and architecture.

It will mean a shifting of skill sets towards new areas, where there is no best practise only gut feel, and the embracing of openness.

Information will still need to be filtered, focussed and published, but once you’ve set it free, you’ll also need to nurture it as it develops. The delivery of information, naturally, becomes paramount.

We are the ONLY people (in the IT space) that can fill this role properly, and so getting a foot on the rung now will stand us in good stead.

Embracing Web 2.0, and thinking about content rather than documents is a small step but a vital one.

And my favorite part which reinforces the same threads of my entire site’s thesis:

Might the lines between technical support and technical authors start to cross over?
Yes. There are already signs that this is happening. Ultimately, a conversation friendly company won’t care WHO is doing the talking, as long as the conversation is taking place.

What we’re looking at is, in this writer/technician’s humble opinion, is the new requirement of the skill set of effective written communication within the ranks of Support Technicians. This is a change that is going to require stronger skills within the support ranks than merely answering phone calls, although that will always be part of their jobs.

Web 2.0: Making Elite Technical Support Compelling

This effective communication beyond the firewall is a competitive edge. The first-language English speaking population may actually make a comeback in Technical Support and keep their positions stateside if that edge is valid.

When it comes to your company’s Technical Support, those who can reach out with Web 2.0 and touch their audience will reap the rewards. Those elite Technician’s companies will flourish as their audience, the existing users along with the potential new customers of their services, comes to trust their judgement and in turn, trust the company who employs them.

They will become the heavy hitters among the front lines of a corporation’s marketing force simply through doing their job correctly and communicating effectively on a personal basis with those they support.

We’re seeing the beginning of a shift in thinking. Outsourcing technical support to those who cannot communicate effectively within Web 2.0’s framework doesn’t engender the same loyalty to a user community. Corporate Authenticity will play an even stronger role in customer loyalty because those who are not authentic aren’t going to play well with savvy consumers who don’t want to arbitrarily plunk down hard cash every year for ‘mandatory upgrades’. 

san diego,outsourcing,layoffs,la jolla,madcap flare,madcap feedback,madcap software,adobe robohelp,technical communication,technical writing,help authoring tools,hatt

MadCap Has Arrived: Blue Sky Ahead

This December 7th I had the opportunity to tour the new MadCap Software spaces located at 7777 Fay Avenue in downtown La Jolla.

Everybody loves La Jolla

With a great rock wall a few blocks down, my favorite secret snorkeling spot by the Cave House 3/4 of a mile away, and top surf within two miles all up and down the coast, most of the prior eHelp’ers I know are out taking advantage of the site location during their breaks or after work. Not to mention lunching at Sushi on the Rocks or fifty other four star spots.

Oh, and the La Jolla eye candy views and scenery is outstanding.

New Topic: Hey, check out the killer entry desk! Better even than at eHelp.

There’s an inside story on this furniture that’s pretty cool, but I’ll save that for another time.

Corporate Hat Trick: Happy employees, better furniture, bigger space

After getting a tour of the spaces I can honestly say that they have higher morale (if that were possible), plenty of room to grow, it didn’t break the bank, and great data connectivity. All are critical to a new company.

Moved yet actually saves money? Never play poker with Anthony O.

Rumor has it with everything acquired accounted for that the bottom line may actually have been affected POSITIVELY in this move. As I opined earlier, savvy timing by the big Three at MadCap might well have become their secret weapon.

Only Anthony (former eHelp CEO) Olivier could pull off making a dime into a quarter. I have to say I was impressed with his approach five years ago, the new office is a major coup.

That being said, it’s probably time for another San Diego Union-Tribune article on why that happened. I’m sure I couldn’t make it sound cool enough.

I was able to discuss a few things with some of the staff, both on the record and off the record.

PS: Don’t hold anything in my story against this guy, I don’t even know his name. He didn’t tell me anything. It’s just the only really decent pingpong table shot. Honest.

Well, here’s another pingpong shot of one of the Tech Support gurus. From outside the fishbowl glass. I didn’t ask him any questions either.

PS: Var, (MadCap’s Director of Technical Support) this pic was taken at lunchtime!

Adobe Lays Off Staff As MadCap Expands - Merry Christmas?!?

The big story of the day I visited MadCap I hadn’t heard until I arrived.

The San Diego Union-Tribune had just reported that Adobe was going to lay off an undetermined amount from their San Diego facility, obviously less than the last fifty employees.Talking with the MadCap staff about this new development was interesting.

Truly Bittersweet for the MadCap crew

Of course there was the professional rivalry and excitement about a competitor shedding employees, however to a person everyone I asked about it mentioned at one time or another that they were concerned about their friends who still worked there, and asked me if I knew if anyone we knew in common who was affected.

I was impressed about how they view their former eHelp’ers even as they compete with them. Everyone I spoke to was unanimous in expressing their concern for their friends and former colleagues so close to the holiday season having to now start looking for jobs.

Former eHelp’ers Scrooged

Raw Data from San Diego Union-Tribune, December 6 2007:

My thoughts:

That’s like… a reverse end of the year bonus? Of course I haven’t found out who was affected yet but ouch…

Dude, what heartless Grinch does that after an acclaimed 3rd quarter?!?

Writing’s on the wall when you have to attend midnight conference calls because the entire dev team for your product is based in Bangalore.

With gallows humor I jokingly predicted it back when the 3rd Quarter ADBE results were announced. From my analysis earlier this year:

If stock prices start slipping, where are they going to make their cuts? I am predicting that it’s now or never for RoboHelp; if they don’t perform by mid-2008, resources could be pulled off for other products that make a higher profit.

Well, I don’t know who was involved in this layoff cycle, but I do know that layoffs are great for the bottom line and Microsoft’s not releasing another Vista next year.

Even though they beat expectations by 21% a week after these layoffs, ADBE’s share price still fell. Had I been trading I would have sold the stock short and made money.

Maybe the SD office is the miner’s canary of the stock price at ADBE… Need more revenue just hatchet some more San Diegans.

This doesn’t mean that Adobe will lose money this upcoming quarter but they are tightening the belt for the next year. I’m not the only analyst (and certainly not a professional) who feels it’s going to be hard for ADBE.

So my opinion about selling ADBE short is starting to look verifiable. They can’t sustain those 3rd quarter results short of cutting back tremendously.

On the other side, cutting their RoboHelp brain trust and subject matter experts down to zero gives them little internal resources to fight off MadCap and other competitors. Maybe it is easy to be publishing software people will buy when you’re that big. Maybe innovation is really something that isn’t so critical, as long as you can copy the true innovators and out-market them.

Q: Where will Adobe’s innovation come from for their future RoboHelp / Tech Comm Suite product line?

Personally, I think this goes back to (my opinion) the unconcious Adobe strategy to offshore all assets. Eventually everyone not performing 80 hour workweeks will lose their jobs in San Diego in favor of India based talent.

Hopefully for those RoboHelp users still left, their product will continue well without a brain trust. It has for the last cycle. Not particularly impressed with the features in the RoboHelp Server 7, however it did get a mention in the podcast RJ did earlier this month.

I wish the old eHelp’ers at Adobe well, especially in not getting laid off just before Christmas.

Back to the MadCap visit

With all that said… prepare for the podcast series coming soon. Mike Hamilton gave me forty-five minutes of time and I’m still doing the editing.

Some of the podcast highlights, in no specific order:

MadCap vs Word: Is MadCap competing with Microsoft?

Blaze. Bigger than…?

MadCap’s User Community: What did you put into their food?

DITA.

Wikis in Corporations - (my viewpoint is well known).

Web 2.0 in Technical Communication.

History of 7777 Fay Avenue, the “new” (?) MadCap location.

Roadmap of what’s ahead.

More on workflow concepts & how they figure into product design.

How MadCap’s design process specifically supports their innovation (!!!)

And Mike H. puts on record MadCap’s goal of supporting Microsoft releases (such as Vista):

“Support the (Microsoft) product within thirty days of (its) release.”

“…if there’s a planned full version release it will be included in that release, otherwise existing users get a point release to support the new Microsoft version (…of Word, Vista, even Internet Explorer).”

Adobe can try to match that competitive advantage, but I doubt they will be able to withall the brains either getting canned or worrying about getting canned.

RJ Jacquez just keeps on rolling though. I’m going to start calling that guy Teflon; nothing sticks to him.

Good on ya, RJ. Glad your neck wasn’t on the block this time. According to my interview with Mike Hamilton, you and RoboHelp may have immunity from being voted off the island for quite some time.

I’m going to have to make a dinner bet with Mike about RoboHelp though. However, he’s the expert.

equities analysis,technical communication,adobe robohelp,madcap flare,San Diego

My Analysis Background

My main exposure to corporate analysis is informal and only from about ten years experience - four years in investigating property crimes and white collar crime in the late 1990s in New Mexico as a private investigator, one year working for Linsco/Private Ledger, a San Diego company which is the largest stateside independent broker-dealer and does its own in-house equities analysis. This is where I started studying for the series 7 brokerage license and my first paper trading portfolio earned 67% over nine months in 1999.

The other five years comes from direct exposure to the Help Authoring Tool field, specifically in working for two years within eHelp Corporation, and also testing competitor’s products partly within that time and also after I left eHelp. I’ve also made technical communication part of my portfolio of skills that I use to make a living.

I also had the opportunity in 2005 to work on a project with The Diffusion Group (TDG) , a direct market analysis company located in the Dallas / Fort Worth area. While TDG specializes in consumer electronics I was fortunate enough to be able to observe how market analysis is completed.

Ever wonder where Marketing gets those nifty projections and numbers from in your company? Companies like TDG provide them with it. It’s a hot field and falls into the Bleeding Edge, right past the Leading Edge of adoptable technology. They are the future-tellers, and accuracy is their game.

Bleeding Edge: Defined

As my old Novatel Wireless boss said once, you know what the bleeding edge is? It’s where you get cut up for going past the leading edge. That boss was Brad Weinert, back in 1999 when he was just a Product Manager / Tech Support department head. He’s now the CEO of Novatel Wireless and one of the most honest men I’ve worked for.

During the timespan from 1999 until the present (nine years) I’ve also maintained close ties within Blue Sky Software (BSS) until it became eHelp, then after eHelp was purchased by Macromedia, within Macromedia and Adobe. Some stayed with Adobe, some left.

This is what I called, in one post, the ‘beer and wings’ connection.

Summing up, it takes a bit of investigation, some good human intelligence, and the ability to read SEC filings to do your job right in analysis. I’m fortunate enough to have all of these plus good sources within the Technical Communication space.