Why does web 2.0 matter?
I know I write many (and long winded) posts about web 2.0 and my little brain gets excited about all the new technologies that emerge every day. But how can I not? I am sitting mere feet from software engineers who are part of this innovative movement to change the way we use technology. I would talk about them more but we have other people around here (for example, people named Shaun) that can speak far better than me about the Infinity platform and sites like the Blackbaud Labs. So I like to learn about and talk about things in the web 2.0 world that really speak to me as a technical communicator, a geek, and an everyday girl.
If it's hard for you to picture the connection between our software, documentation, web 2.0 websites like twitter, facebook, del.icio.us, google reader, etc and concepts like social bookmarking, rss feeds, blogging (and microblogging), mashups, wikis, podcasts, and more, think of it this way. The more innovation in how people communicate with each other the more we need to innovate in software and software documentation. How much has software changed in the past twenty years. It's legend around here how in the 90's Blackbaud decided to create The Raiser's Edge on an operating system named Windows. And now, with our new Infinity platform, we are part of this exciting movement in software that's more flexible, powerful, and adaptable. And I'm not just influenced by our products, I'm influenced by the social software on the internet. You now expect to interact with software and people differently because of the applications that have emerged over the past couple years.
On our team, for example, our help file is improved on the Infinity platform. Because our technology capabilities expanded and the software our team uses to create the documentation improved, we are able to provide a more robust search engine that makes it easier for you to search for help content. Would we have been able to do that without websites like Google that changed how we expected to search for information? I'm guessing not. New emerging trends have things like folksonomies where users create the tags that identifies information they find. Someday, I hope the industry that creates software for technical communicators (for example, Adobe), can help us create documentation that enables us to include social bookmarking. Wouldn't that be cool, eh? We have lots of cool ideas on our team that we jot down and then work to make happen. Change takes time and patience (which I have little of sometimes). But, as we work on improving you're still changing. And we listen. We keep our ears and eyes open to what your needs and expectations are so when we can, we increase our capabilities to bring you the best user assistance content.
In other ways, I'm also just learning about how people need to use information in their real lives and not just in virtual communities. You expect different things from us and your software than you did ten years ago. After all, that's probably why this regular Blackbaud employee sitting in a regular, gray cube is talking to you through this blog. Chad Norman, is one of our web 2.0 gurus (if not THE guru) who is leading us on this journey to interact better with our clients. He's very encouraging but even I wonder, what the heck am I (one of approximately 1,700 employees) doing writing a blog on the company website? Even if it is weird for me, I still write because I don't want to pass by this opportunity to interact with our clients, colleagues, company leaders, and the technical communication world. It's just too inspiring and too cool to be a part of innovation.
From my perspective, I'm very excited about all of these changes. They force me to grow and they help me stay involved in the process. Just because I do sit in a gray cube, in a sea of gray cubes, doesn't mean I don't want to know how our clients work, how they make a difference, and how in whatever way I can, help make their day easier.