Between the Lines, newsletter of the Southwestern Ohio Chapter of STC, has a feature in the November, 2007 issue on “Wikis and informal learning,” with an account of a workplace learning strategy involving use of a wiki and other web services. Links in the article lead to additional ideas.
The ISO 9001 and 9004 quality standards are scheduled to be released one month apart, in 2009. The ISO 9001 standard has is expected to be published in July 2009, with publication of the the updated ISO 9004 standard in August 2009.
“Chopping the errors” in The Business Journal of the Triad (North Carolina) area reports work at the NC Baptist Hpsital to use Six Sigma methods to expand treatment without adding staff.
by Ann L. Wiley, STC Fellow, QPI SIG Founder
Hospitals have a range of activities focused on ensuring and improving safety, efficiency, effectiveness, timeliness, access, and satisfaction. A quality management system ensures comprehensive and integrated effort leading to desired results. Such a system is highly dependent on data, reporting, documentation, and continual learning. This article describes selecting and implementing a quality management system in a hospital and includes the following: (more…)
by Sharon Lynn, Manager QPI SIG
Does anyone have an opinion or an interest in discussing or solving this problem?
What if my company built a power plant 20 years ago for X Company and now they come to us and say they want up to update the facility?
We don’t know where to find the plans for that 20-year-old plant. In addition, X Company was bought out by another company and now goes by another name.
What can we do today to prevent this from happening 20 years from now? How do we store information today (CADD and Word and other files) so that we can retrieve it 20 years from now?
Also, are there other questions like this that we might discuss this year?
Our resources for CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) include work by QPI SIG member Don Butterfield and two basic references. This has been reposted from a May, 2006 entry. To add information please leave a comment. (more…)
by Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, Inc., http://www.thecontentwrangler.com
Note: Scott posted this information on the Single Sourcing SIG email list in September, 2006 in response to a question about content management systems appropriate for pharmaceutical and medical device companies. It appears here by permission.
Content management requirements in life sciences are not anything like requirements for the average technical communication project. The life sciences company’s risk tolerance, current content life cycle processes, and much more determine the appropriate approach and control. (more…)
WritersUA has published its 2006 Skills and Technologies Survey results. For the first time, quality assurance is in the top ten skills.
The November, 2006 issue of the STC UK Chapter newsletter has an article by Andrew Marlow, “Quality Assessment,” on several levels of measurement of quality in technical documentation.
On August 18, 2006, Kaye Adkins, Associate Professor of English/Technical Communication at Missouri Western State University, asked the Policies and Procedures SIG email list of STC for advice about what skills the students in the senior-level course titled “Technical Documentation and Editing” should learn to prepare them for writing policies and procedures, and what she could do in the course that would prepare students for the job market. What workplace and writing issues should students be introduced to?
Chris Whalley, member of the Puget Sound chapter and the Policies and Procedures and Single Sourcing SIGs replied. (more…)
According to Managed Care Weekly Digest, August 14, 2006, the AQA alliance (formerly Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance) and the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA), have formed a new national Quality Alliance Steering Committee to improve measurement of quality in health care. (more…)
Business Week Online has published a list of the best product ideas of 2006, with a slide show of 108 of the these designated best ideas.
Highlights include Sun Microsystems User Centered Design Group’s Design Strategy for the the x4100 family of rack-mounted servers, and a small tent that opens in two seconds–someone throws it in the air and it lands ready to use. Tear down takes 15 seconds.
There are innovative products for people who are blind, and many other designs as well.
by Amy S. Friend BB, CQM, Senior Member Rochester Chapter STC
This is part 2 of a series: Revel in Your Discomfort: Living With Change. An earlier version of these articles was published in the Proof Sheet newsletter of the Rochester Chapter of STC, beginning in November, 1996.
In Part 1 I wrote about Tannenbaum’s Change Continuum. Robert Tannenbaum explains that every change is perceived as either superficial, incremental, continuous, or transformational. Two different people may perceive (or classify) the same change differently depending on their experience, gender, ethnic background, or other personal history. How we experience change has more to do with us than with the change. This month’s article will focus more on the personal side of change. (more…)
Recently STC members have informally recommended the following resources.
The Art of Constructive Confrontation by Hoover and DiSilvestro
(http://www.constructiveconfrontation.com/)
The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management by Eric Verzuh
Fundamentals of Project Management by James P. Lewis
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge 3rd ed., published by the Project Management Institute (PMI)
Managing Information Technology Projects by Dick Billows GCA (http://www.4PM.com)
Managing Your Documentation Projects by JoAnn Hackos
Project Management Jump Start by Kim Heldman
Project Management Memory Jogger from GOAL QPC
The Project Office by Thomas R. Block and J. Davidson Frame
In the current posted issue of the The Rockley Bulletin, Ann Rockley reviews Document Engineering: Analyzing and Designing Documents for Business Informatics and Web Services (ISBN-10:0-262-07261-0; The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts), by Robert Glushko and Tim McGrath. The summary states that the authors “explore the document as an interface to business and provide a common sense approach to modeling both documents and services for information exchange.
“Their message is clear: To succeed in the 21st century global economy, companies need to ‘fundamentally rethink what they do and how they do it.’ And what better place to start than with the document?”"
Visit the The Rockley Bulletin to read the whole article.
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