A Technical Writer needs to create a Knowledge Community. How and why we need a Knowledge Community you ask? Being a Technical Writer can be difficult when trying to obtain knowledge. Whom do you consider for contacting, where do you look. How do you decide if you should gather knowledge verbally face-to-face or in meetings, by sending out emails, or by checking past documentation (of any kind such as newsletters, marketing or training material); if there are any.
The key to creating a Knowledge Community is through collaboration. Collaboration will allow you to create plans, meet others, become more innovative, share information, learn, and more.
Creating Plans
This allows us to be more organized and efficient. Collaborate in order to set timelines, to define scopes for projects, to maintaining accuracy, to set up contingency plans, to define security issues, to define marketing strategies, and most importantly to define policies and procedures.
Meeting Others
This allows us to meet others with whom we can share our concerns, status, and information, as well as meet with others whom we thought we never needed. Collaborate to meet others either by meeting face-to-face or by catching your knowledge holders whenever an wherever you can; even at the coffee station or vending machines. Collaborating and working with colleagues allows us to meet with SMEs, developers, product managers, stakeholders, etc. to gather any new and necessary information.
Becoming More Innovative
This allows us to be more creative in developing our content as well as developing new ideas. Collaborate and use your interpersonal skills to work with colleagues to gather information to become more innovative. Collaborate with, e.g., stakeholders who have an investment or interest in the project. Use your excellent communication skills to understand your stakeholders in order to develop creative unique content, specifications, methodologies, processes, etc.
Sharing information
This allows us to work better as a team. Collaborate in order to have an exchange of knowledge. The more collaboration and information sharing we do, the more knowledgeable we become, resulting in more exposure to different thoughts and ideas. This can all lead to faster problem solving, as well as new opportunities, insights, visions, etc.
Learning
This allows us to become more knowledgeable and proficient in gathering and sharing of information. Working in groups is always better than working alone. Collaborate and use your technical and analytical skills to understand and organize complex technical information. Learning leads to more experience, skills, and positive outcomes.
Creating a Knowledge Community
Collaborating allows us to create a center or a core of communication that can be used to harness information gathering. It will allow us to bring colleagues together to share and learn, to be more confident and skilled, to define data, to improve decision making, to share experiences, for continuing education, to improve communication, etc. This Knowledge Community can be created internally or globally. This can all be done as long as collaboration exists among colleagues. It can be like a one stop shop for information.
If you have created a Knowledge Community or have had experience with one, please leave a comment. Thank you.
Gail Zack Anderson, President of Applause, Inc., has nearly 20 years experience in training and coaching. She
provides individual presentation coaching, and leads effective presentation workshops and effective trainer workshops.
Theresa Pojuner is a Documentation Specialist with over 20 years of writing experience and is skilled in many areas of documentation, for example, Style Guides, Training Manuals and Test Cases, wth a specialty n Technical Writing and Procedures.