Integrating Emerging Technologies on a Daily Basis with Existing Work Processes

Something that’s been on my mind a lot lately is the role of emerging technology and how to incorporate it into the documentation process. I’ve known about some of these emerging technologies for a long time but lately I’ve been thinking more about how we would actually go about implementing them on a daily basis. We all want to reach our users in the best possible medium with the most effective means. I especially feel that way about our team at Blackbaud. As a team, we’re always talking and trying to improve our processes and products (for example, see the post on our survey).

For example, I’ve been thinking about these emerging technologies…

• Blogs (how we’re going to best use our From the Doc Side blog)
• Wikis
• Client contact databases
• Latest usability trends (including how to best use results from our survey)
• Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite
• XML and Structured Authoring
• DITA
• Twitter, Facebook, and all other social networking ways to connect with other professionals and users
• User feedback in help files
• Short video demonstrations in PDFs (Adobe Captivate flash videos)
• 3D PDFs (see this example from Adobe)
• SEO (search engine optimization)
• iPhones and the trend towards mobile phone Internet use
• and the list goes on…

However, whenever my brain feels like it’s about to explode, this “but…” appears. It’s this reminder to myself that no matter how cool you become with emerging technologies you still have to do the basics well. I could write a piece of documentation and find this cool new way to make it easily accessible right when you need it most but if I don’t write the explanation very well in the first place, how helpful am I really being to you?

So no matter how much I like to learn and understand all the newest technologies and tools appearing out of nowhere on a constant basis, I want to make sure I’m still doing my basic tasks to the best of my ability.

And, along with doing the basics well, I have to remember that just because we have the power or the ability to do something amazing doesn’t make it the right decision. Just maybe, if people are asking you for a splash pool in the backyard they may not be quite ready for the ocean. Sometimes the simple solution really is the right one even if it’s not the most cutting edge.

Perhaps the answer to my solution to incorporating emerging technologies is to introduce these exciting developments in manageable small chunks and evaluate their effectiveness in an ongoing basis. I don’t want to overwhelm my users and myself when it’s possible for us to get there just not right now.

As you can see, I’m still learning this concept called patience because if I could, I would change into a superhero and improve your world in a day. I know you’re the same way too. So since we’re not getting fitted for red capes anytime soon, let’s work together on this process and see how we can do the basics well. I think if we spend time on the quality and really listen, we can incorporate emerging technologies on a realistic timeframe that’s comfortable for everyone.

What do you think? Have you put any thought to how you're going to integrate emerging technologies into your work processes?