I’ve simply been keeping my head in books and continuing my job working for the marketing team.
Let me share with you why I am pursuing a Masters degree and also some of the most interesting perspective about attending this program a few years after graduating with a Bachelor’s degree.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Technical Communication from New Mexico Tech, I felt I needed to take a break from spending nearly six years of my life achieving (failing and repeating courses) an education to get this Bachelor of Science degree.
I have to express this strongly: go for the Bachelor of Science degree if you are ever presented the choice between a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science. More and more often, I’m noticing that you need experience understanding with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to fully compete in the world of technical communication. I also suggest taking a few management courses so you can understand how an organization works.
With that in hand and nearly eight years after graduating from New Mexico Tech, I want to pursue showing more and more people the importance of technical communication and how it plays a role in the business and education world. Taking advantage of tuition reimbursement by my employer, this was a great opportunity to elevate my experience and add more to the field of technical communication.
For example, much of our working world is now dominated by computers and mobile devices. To design such systems requires much more than slapping on some text and creating some code. It requires a technical approach to write and develop content.
My goal with a Masters degree is to demonstrate my teaching skills as well as hone in my own approach to technical communication. My world is split between marketing, social media, web content, and content strategy. There really is a lot to go about in this field and build upon the thousands of others who have built the framework of technical communication and content strategy.
One of my plans is to publish a series that is much more focused on The Content Strategy Magazine, a new publication I created earlier in the year. Perhaps you can check it out sometime, it still is in its infancy stage.
Hope to see some of you soon on the conference trail! Until then, back to studying and working on my Masters program.
The long and winding road of the GDPR is finally here. Since May 25, 2018, your digital operations may need some tidying up to keep up in good relations with Europe.
Let’s help you not go off the rails with the GDPR.
One of the most monumental regulations to affect the internet is the GDPR. But what is it and if you own a website, how can you make sure that you are not locked out of the European Union market?
GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation.
Okay, so what does this mean? From the surface, it pertains to how businesses collect personal data and how they plan to use it.
You’ve probably seen many websites send out emails and notices about GDPR and even mailing lists asking you to re-sign up for their newsletters. They are being proactive to make sure that you have received notice about new regulation that affects their business operation.
(Continue singing Demi Lovato’s Sorry Not Sorry as you wander into the world of the GDPR).
You may argue that you are not bound by regulation in Europe in your home country and claim sovereignty, however Europe regulates the last-mile(s) (or more appropriately the last-kilometer[s]) of connection to people in Europe. If you’re not compliant with GDPR, then your website might not be available to people living in Europe. Consider losing a huge audience share because you aren’t compliant with GDPR. Think $$$. You don’t need to do much.
As far as regulation is concerned, the European Commission (EC) has a GDPR website that is extremely informative about the rules for businesses and organizations as well as rights for citizens. (I kind of think of this in a worldview where we are slowly converging digital media regulation and I welcome every bit of it–especially when we see new privacy regulations show up such as the right to be forgotten).
Think of the GDPR as a way to treat collecting and using private data in an ethical way.
From that handout, here are six headlines to consider (the seventh headline makes no sense, but I’ll explain later).
Check the personal data you collect and process, the purpose for which you do it and on which legal basis
Inform your customers, employees and other individuals when you collect their personal data
Keep the personal data for only as long as necessary
Secure the personal data you are processing
Keep documentation on your data processing activities
Make sure your sub-contractor respects the rules
Check if you are concerned by the provisions below
Check the personal data you collect and process…
On the surface, this list helps you figure out how to make sure that you are handling private information in a proper way. Given the problems with security breaches, this is great relief for your personal lives. It may make life a momentary hell for businesses, but these are easily achievable for any business.
It is not hard to get up to speed with the GDPR.
The first step is to make sure that you understand what kind of personal data you collect and process and why. For example, do you collect names, email addresses, and contact information? Perfect. What do you use it for? How do you use it? How long do you intend to keep it?
Inform your customers…when you collect their personal data…
The second step is how you tell your visitors, employees, and anyone else that you are collecting their personal data. That might be something like a statement that says “I’m collecting your personal data (like email addresses) to help my business and that I plan to use your information (such as sending you an email) in my marketing campaigns.” Other data can include something like analytics data that gathers demographic and usage information on a website that you visit. The more complex your systems are (like tracking cookies, sub-systems on a website, and remarketing efforts should be clearly explained and it can be something like: “we use tracking cookies and if you have self-identified yourself on our website through means of logging in, we might use data from that login step to market relevant information to you via email, advertisement, etc…”). Ever get that reminder email a few hours or days after browsing Amazon for an item or searching for a plane ticket on Southwest Airlines? That’s remarketing and it’s pretty damn effective (and very specific down the item or destination) to get you to make the purchase. Even ads tend to follow you on different devices or browsers are becoming more and more present.
Kind of weird…I didn’t book a ticket just yet, but Southwest insists I do so anyway.
In addition, your employees deserve to know how their data is being used. It’s as simple as being honest why, what, where, when, who, and how their data is accessed.
Keep personal data for only as long as necessary…
The third step is very important because it helps purge private data because why would you want to ever keep every piece of data forever? This steps also helps with efforts such as the right to be forgotten. As a society, we are data hoarders. Advances in data storage, business policy, liability, and the such has facilitated in this gold mine of data that in some cases is rather useless and in other cases close to a surveillance state. This also helps make sure that you have data for as long as necessary, such as if you do business with a customer. If you no longer do business with a customer for a while, why would you need to keep their information? Think of it as a nice way to Spring Clean your Rolodex. That seems like a nice thing to do anyway!
Secure the personal data you are processing…
The fourth step is to secure that personal data. Given that there have been many breaches, how are you making sure that your information is kept safe?
Are your passwords strong enough (or not used repeatedly on different systems).
Do you use two-factor authentication on sensitive systems?
Is your information security hygiene healthy?
Are you practicing Safe Security Measures?
Are you practicing Same Password Abstinence with systems that use the same login username?
Are you encrypting your data if someone steals your physical devices (laptop, USB drives, etc.)?
These may sound like punny innuendo jokes around, but information security is important! Just be smart about it so you aren’t embarrassed! If you need a good place to start, secure your passwords using a Password Manager like 1Password.
Keep documentation on your data processing activities…
The fifth step is pretty easy: just write it down. Hire a technical writer to help you document your processes. It can be as simple as this: list the systems you use for private information, what do they collect, how often, how long are they saved, and what you plan to do with that data.
Make sure your sub-contractor respects the rules…
The sixth step is serious because you use companies to process data. As a business, you rely on other tools, software, and systems to get the data you need. They in-turn have to follow the same rules you do. Consider them as your partner and if they aren’t playing nicely or get infected, you need to tell them to go away or tell them to fix their problems.
Check if you are concerned by the provisions below…
The seventh step is kind of confusing, but if you are a large organization with lots of information, you may need to appoint someone whose sole responsibility is to develop policy, guidance, and best practices to protect collected data. It may be helpful to have one person, team, or department that knows how to make sure your business is GDPR compliant. Depending on the extent of business you do in Europe, it is helpful to understand how data is handled beyond just the mass market email or tracking cookie found on a website.
What Now?
What more do you need to do to make sure you are ready for GDPR?
In conclusion, follow your country’s own data retention and regulations as well as add another layer by following the GDPR. It’s not only good for you to work these details in early on, but keep on the lookout for other countries to enable similar types of regulation. Having many more countries on the same kinds of rules helps level the playing field for using the internet. In addition, this article has general tips to get you started. I suggest if you need more specifics, consider contacting a lawyer to help you out.
You can also get some help if you need some guidance from our friends at Automattic (creators of WordPress):
With those ideas in mind, best wishes getting your company to become compliant with the GDPR! As always, be ethical with your business practices. Let’s be great players as we continue shrinking the size of the world commerce and society when we are moving forward with progress and maturity about the information services age.
I’ve been hiding a bit from the larger world of technical communication because I have been quite busy plugging away at work and continuing my master of science program at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. Unfortunately, I am not able to attend the 2018 Society for Technical Communication Summit. This was purely my own decision.
What have I been working on?
In 2017, I had quite a year of fun projects at work, hobby, and school which I am continuing to improve my craft as a technical communicator. Here’s a rundown of what I have done:
Website Usability Study (Masters Program)
Conducted a usability study for a website
Understood various usability study methods
Possible Thesis Study (Masters Program)
Developed a prospectus to investigate and define the field of content strategy
Studied how technical communication and content strategy are intertwined co-fields
CNM.edu Website Team Project
Contributed to the UI/UX initial discovery phase
Performed card sorting exercises for a specific navigation function
Conducted back-end testing on a new template
Documented new processes for content contributors
Social Media Promotions
Ran regular advertisements for enrollment
Created different ad sets based on target audiences
Analyzed advertisement results to find a baseline
Improved consistency of posting for various social media channels I manage
WordPress Maintenance + Improvements
Reverse-engineered a few websites
Migrated websites from HTTP to HTTPS
Automated certain processes to simplify WordPress maintenance
Wait…what else?
Glad you asked! (Instead, I asked myself this question). I’ve been doing some awesome new marketing tactics as my work is moving toward the world of social media. But that doesn’t mean I’m losing my roots in technical communication. I know that the social world is a fun new role which I get to practice writing FAR more efficient than normal.
Instead of writing in long swooping sentences. How can I edit and distill information in a way that is high-impact, relevant, punchy, and still maintain that voice. It is a completely different animal and I’m gonna begin learning and honing that craft. I know that social media was my first foray in the professional world of technical communication (I co-presented in 2008 in Atlanta about social media). This time, after ten years, there is so much more to learn from social media since it is becoming something we see more often instead of traditional media.
Is Traditional Media Dead?
I am not sure traditional medias are out, but they are being transformed into their digital cousins. I can’t necessarily rule out traditional media. We still have paper and it’s being duplicated by digital. Rather than dying out, there is movement to make smaller productions and reset the expectations traditional media had. Most of this happens to be the shift to mobile devices. We are having to do more with fewer resources (primarily stretching our money further) and shift to trends. The data proves it. Google it. The library did a similar transformation years ago and the places that did so are thriving in a surprisingly positive way.
