I interviewed about 12 people this year. I seem to have a knack for this — tracking people down, asking if I can interview them, getting them talking, etc.

Actually, it has taken me three conferences to get this right. Last year, at Doc Train West 2007, I didn’t have the right setup. I tried using a lavalier mic attached to the mic port of a Mac I borrowed. But I didn’t realize the Mac wasn’t reading the lavalier; it was using a built-in mic.

Then at the STC Summit in Minneapolis, I had the right equipment (a portal Zoom H4 recorder), but by and large I interviewed the wrong people in the wrong places. I did interview some presenters, but I spent too much time interviewing attendees.

This year at Doc Train West 2008, I had the right equipment and I talked to the right people in the right spaces. And it worked extremely well. I give you this advice if you ever try recording live interviews at conferences:

• Buy an H4 Zoom recorder.
• Use the built-in mics rather than an external mic.
• Interview people who are giving presentations.
• Find a quiet room where you can sit down with them.

Really the key is to interview presenters, because they automatically have something to say. They have a message they’ve been cramming and practicing. Conversations flow naturally, and they give you great content. In contrast, attendees have much less to say.

By and large interviewing is weird. I’m not a radio geek, I never did audio as a teenager. I just fell into podcasting and became a podcaster. It takes some tact and boldness to interview people at conferences. I think I learned this skill as a missionary in Venezuela — a two year period where I spent almost every hour of the day talking to people I didn’t know. Strangely, there are a ton of comparisons between being a missionary and seeking people to interview as a podcaster. You have to open your mouth, even when you’re shy. You invite them to sit down and talk with you. You have to initiate contact and be a good listener. Okay, enough of that.

But seriously, it gets even weirder because now that I work for the Church, I had “LDS Church” printed below my name on my conference tag. This only adds to the questions. One person, seeing my name tag, shared her frustrations with the FLDS situation. Another person asked if I write religious tracts. Another said he was converting all of Scientology’s documentation to XML. Several people asked if the Church has software and wondered exactly what I do.

The frequency of the last question (does the LDS Church have software?) is a little perplexing. Let’s say you work for a company with 13 million employees, scattered across the globe, speaking 100+ languages, meeting in thousands of buildings, 120+ special conference centers, with complex financial contribution system, facilities maintenance, an ambassador program with 60,000 nomadic people spread out in geographically diverse locations, with some in delicate states of health. Not to mention numerous external properties, ranches, investments, and other equities. Also include hundreds of committees, with dynamic reporting and information sharing needs. On top of all this, add a twice-yearly general conference held in one location but distributed via satellite, TV, and radio across the globe, translated almost immediately, with a web distribution and extensive resources online. Not to mention handbooks, manuals, pamphlets, and other literary materials, videos, and CDs in multiple languages. Would a company like that need any kind of software to manage all that? Heck yes! Actually, it’s a miracle that there are only 4 technical writers (and a lot of non-technical writers).

But enough of that. More on the conference. One of the incredible things about blogging is that it really does build relationships. This is especially noticeable at conferences, when you meet people whose blogs you’ve been reading and you immediately feel like you’re a close friend, even if it’s a first-time encounter. I feel I know tons of people at these conferences. I got to meet Theresa Putkey and Alan Porter for the first time, who I just recently interviewed. I met other podcast listeners. One listener (“Lisha“) sat next to me in the same session and showed me the latest podcast she’d downloaded to her computer.

Were the sessions good? As good as any. I’m not sure how it happened, but my attention span during sessions has diminished greatly. As soon as a presenter starts droning away at a long bulleted list on a PowerPoint slide, it puts me to sleep. I open up the laptop, check Gmail, Twitter, and before you know it, I’m only half there.

However, when I’m interviewing someone for a podcast, I’m completely engaged. This is because I get to direct the topic and tempo of the conversation. If the interviewee starts to go in an uninteresting direction, I ask a question that brings it back onto the main raceway.

The light bulb moment for me happened during one of these podcast interviews. I was talking with Noz Urbina, who delivered a keynote one early morning. (By the way, when I explained this light bulb moment to my wife, she had little response and later said it was somewhat obvious. Many times the groundwork behind realizations, she said, are laid by numerous experiences, brought together by a simple observation someone states. She’s right.)

Noz explained that as technical communicators integrate Web 2.0 feedback mechanisms to gather information from users — whether through comments on blogs, contributions to wikis, posts on forums, or other ways — the technical communicator transforms into a much more integral player in the user interface design, the task workflow, and the feature roadmap of the application.

Essentially, when you connect with your users in an integrated way, you become the business analyst, interaction designer, and product manager all in one. You suddenly know what the users want, what the users are experiencing. You are not just writing tech docs. Dude, you are leading the direction of the product!

And as you accrue this user experience knowledge, you begin to influence the project team in the direction they should be going. You become a leader rather than a follower. You aren’t simply one who takes directions from an exec who isn’t connected at all to the user base. The execs begins to come to you for information.

As I mentioned earlier, numerous other experiences laid the groundwork for this realization. In my current role on the User Education Team, I write tech docs, online help, quick reference guides, and role-based guides. But I also give training sessions to users, act as a point of contact when users have feature requests or problems, and take occasional support calls when users are confused.

I’ve been taking all the information I receive and channeling it back to the project leads. And I’ve noticed that I am contributing user feedback 100 to 1 (compared to what others send). I’m doing much more than simple technical writing.

As such, the term “technical writer” no longer describes what I do. Not even “technical communicator.” Right now I’d take any wacky term, just to remove the stereotype that a technical writer’s job is to “write documentation.” Information designer, content strategist, user information lead, or whatever.

My light bulb moment was to realize that web 2.0 would forever change the role of the technical writer. The more I enable user feedback and content, the more I will understand users, and the more I understand users, the more central role I’ll play in defining product roadmaps, guiding interface design, and making other key decisions.

The strange thing is, I don’t even have any Web 2.0 formats integrated in my help. I deliver static content — online help, quick reference guides, and user guides. And live training. Once I flip on the Web 2.0 switch, the amount of feedback coming in will triple or quadruple, I’m sure of it.

I also attended several sessions on wikis, including one during the Unconference. The more I listened to Stewart Mader, the more I became convinced that wikis are the way to go. I’ve decided to go in a similar direction with my help deliverables. We have SharePoint 2007 at my organization, and as bad as Microsoft products sometimes are, they got many things right with SharePoint 2007 — namely, blogs, wikis, RSS feeds, and comprehensive search.

I plan to put my documentation into a wiki format, add a product blog, and drive users to this SharePoint site for documentation. Even though Atlassian Confluence offers better wiki functionality and WordPress offers better blogging, I’m using the SharePoint platform for a number of very convincing reasons:

• My organization already has SharePoint technology, and as much as we’re open about tools, getting a non-standard technology approved and implemented has proven to be difficult.
• SharePoint’s search looks at content both in the wiki and the blog (and any other site resources). This is critical, and is the reason I’ve not formalized a blog yet — it couldn’t be integrated with the Madcap Flare webhelp I was using. Having one search that finds all help content is paramount.
• SharePoint’s wiki allows you to introduce columns (metadata) and sort by those columns. This can help keep a wiki organized and prevent it from degenerating into an “unmitigated disaster,” as another conference attendee described her company’s wiki.

Overall, usually applications either excel at blogs or wikis, but not both. You compromise with one or the other. I’m willing to compromise, and I plan to experiment with any SharePoint blog and wiki plugins I can harness to increase the functionality.

SharePoint interfaces can be radically modified, so I’ll be exploring SharePoint Designer to see just how easy that is. However, one thing Stewart said has really stuck with me:

Content is what matters most.

The wiki doesn’t have to look like a professional website to serve its purpose. As long as the content is accurate and relevant, users will benefit — even if the interface is simple.

Did I have any other conference epiphanies? Not really, but I’ll leave you with a small growing idea that I secretly enjoy even without hard evidence — bloggers are cool people. Darren Barefoot, a prominent blogger, delivered a keynote and participated on the Meet the Bloggers panel. Although I only spoke briefly with him, he seemed like a cool person, as did other bloggers I met at the conference (such as Anne Gentle, who organized an Unconference, and Sara O’Keefe, who was doing some impressive live blogging).

Dare I say that bloggers are more engaged, passionate, commonsensical people? Anyone who is engaged enough with a topic to write constantly about it usually ends up being a fun person to listen to. Their passion drives them.

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airplane photo from ecstaticist

…Much of the really appealing blog content is being generated by former “non-leaders” — those who have valid, insightful opinions, and who have become recognized in our profession through their blogs. (see comment | see Alan’s blog)

In other words, people who don’t hold high-up leadership positions are often the ones with more interesting blogs.

At first this seems a contradiction: one would think people in high-up positions would have more interesting content to share. High profile leaders are often key decision-makers, flying across the country for important meetings, working all day on proposals, acquisitions, organizational strategies, and new initiatives. Shouldn’t they be overflowing with interesting content, while the rest of us wait for them to speak?

Actually, although leaders may be privy to interesting information, many are crippled from sharing it in an edgy way because of their role. They face higher public scrutiny, may have little desire to write, and have to concern themselves with the political effects of their posts.

When corporate leaders blog, their words are scrutinized, fact-checked, quoted, and read by hundreds of people — including employees, shareholders, board members, organization members, media, the competition, and critics. The wrong tone, a biting remark, or an unfounded assertion can create a host of problems.

Consequently, many leader blogs water down their content to make it agreeable. The sanitized text lacks the edge that would make the blog successful. Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book, explains:

“Many corporate blogs are pretty boring. They’re just not going to be as edgy, generally, as a personal blog, or as the Technorati top 100 blogs, many of which are written by professional writers … .” (see “Corporate Blogging” from The Engaging Brand, an interview with Debbie Weil — podcast hosted by Anna Farmery)

I associate “edgy” with a variety of meanings — sharp, witty, critical, authentic, unrepressed, suspenseful, advantageous, clever, front-line, radical. John August, a prominent screenwriter who has worked on films such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Big Fish, defines edgy as

A term used to describe a story or writing style that is unusually unsettling, exciting, or dark. Everyone claims to want edgy material, but then they end up making generic comedies. (my bold)

An edgy blog post, then, is one that is both unsettling and exciting. It may present alternate viewpoints, make you rethink your assumptions, and even hint at a darker world view.

Because the consequences of writing unsettling, exciting, or dark views may surround the leader in controversy, leaders gravitate towards safer, more boring content.

For example, in the November 2007 STC News and Notes, president Linda Ostreich makes the following opening statement:

My first six months as president have been nothing like I had envisioned. I have learned a lot about myself, my colleagues, and the Society, and although the reality has not been like the vision, it’s been satisfying and productive.

An eye-catching intro, but can she elaborate on what she means by “nothing like I had envisioned”? Provide detail for unrealized expectations? Explain the sudden resignation of a key officer? Express her frustration for certain proposals? Convey her possibly radical opinions on other matters?

Not really. At least not without extreme tact and euphemism.

I enjoy the messages in Linda’s News and Notes, but people would be outraged if the STC president or any other leader wrote a post like this. (Not that I would consider such a diatribe an example of “edgy,” but it’s outside the bounds of any leader’s decorum.)

In another scenario, can you imagine the U.S. President, George Bush, writing a blog post that contains sloppy sentences, poor grammar, extreme right-wing positions, and thoughts that suggest he’s spent time watching the Simpsons? No, the U.S. President’s blog (if there ever is a real one), would be carefully sanitized, toned down, washed free of anything exciting, unsettling, or dark.

So much more weight rides on the blogs of leaders. Newspaper reporters can use their words as fodder. John August finds himself quoted for a “vulgar” post in the New York Times. The NY Times reporter writes,

Instead of confronting the studio executive, Mr. August returned home and wrote a vulgar blog entry about what he would have liked to say. One part of it that is printable here said: “Everyone knows the C.E.O.’s are talking out of two sides of their mouths.” (see New York Times article)

How would you like to be reading the morning newspaper and discover that your quick post the other night was quoted out of context in a major newspaper, and they called you vulgar? Everything you write can and will be used against you in the media and blogosphere.

Additionally, if you change your ideas on an issue, you’ll have to carefully crawl through old posts to update your position. Or if you state a position on an issue, readers may corner you into a more extreme position than you really hold. Darren Barefoot, a popular blogger, explains:

This is one of my frustrations with this blogging medium. If I write criticizing one aspect of a particular thing, you tend to get pigeon-holed as unilaterally opposed to the entire thing.

Beyond the problem of public scrutiny and boring content, many corporate leaders also lack writing skills in the first place. They don’t have “blogging DNA,” Weil says. (Granted, there are some exceptions, such as Jonathan Schwartzberg’s blog and Richard Edelman’s blog.) But blogging is ultimately writing, and it takes an articulate, creative person to craft interesting posts on a regular basis.

In contrast, leaders are often outgoing organizational gurus, people who know how to get things done, manage departments, create and follow through with strategies and initiatives. They’re company leaders, not writers. To think they will suddenly take to the keyboard and spend a good chunk of their time writing is nonsense, especially if writing is not their strength.

In fact, over dinner tonight my wife pointed out that many leaders may be paralyzed with fear of public humiliation about their lack of writing skills. A leader may be a brilliant speaker and a motivational coach, but when he or she tries to communicate the same ideas in writing, the words fall apart, they lack coherency and sound cliche. Leaders are highly successful people. Will they really jump head first into a text-heavy medium where they won’t excel?

While leaders might feel condemned to be boring by the weight of their role, non-leaders have free reign of expression. Non-leaders can be as edgy as they want, and their edginess gives them an advantage among readers. They’re perceived as being more true, authentic, real — all the qualities blogs require to be worthwhile.

Many people praise blogging for finally leveling the playing field: everyone has a free voice, and you don’t have to be a leader or big name to get your ideas published. But the playing field has moved beyond level — corporate leaders actually have the disadvantage. This is the era of the non-leader blog.

The only problem is that one can only stay a non-leader for short time. As the non-leader’s popularity grows, he or she may transform into the very position that would cripple his or her voice.

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credits: photo from the Onion