The launch of Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft’s new collaboration tool suite that includes SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Lync Online, Office 2010 Web Apps, and Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus brought a lot of headlines because anything cloud is hot right now. Nevertheless, project management features were absent from the marketing push unless you knew where to look.
The recent news that French IT company Atos is banning internal email is probably still making collaboration tool vendors and productivity pundits salivate especially if this bold move prompts some other companies to follow suit.
It got me thinking about how such a potential move would help or hinder technical writer communications. Email is certainly part of the DNA of many organizations (especially the United States federal government and large corporations.)
In the first place, technical writers shouldn’t be tied to one communications format over another but banning email in an organization is going to be a game changer for many so this is another reason to stay conversant on other communications tools because even on an experimental level, this change is bound to happen again.
As much as Microsoft SharePoint can help an organization and their business processes, it is also one of the most misunderstood applications and platforms out there. Working with SharePoint in commercial and federal government environments has reaffirmed this perception of mine time and time again and I even consider myself a strong proponent of the product. Much of the SharePoint body of knowledge available in print and online is directed towards power users, administrators, and developers. I think this is a real disservice to SharePoint as a platform and productivity tool because its gospel often sputters on the road to reaching the end users who have to use and often need it (whether they know it or not).
As a technical writer, I am a believer in online collaboration. A collaboration platform includes document versioning, document security, and an audit trail that can benefit just about any organization’s document development life cycle. However, the fact that remains that too often is “Johnny can’t collaborate.” Online collaboration starts off with the best of intentions but seems to collapse like a house of cards when it hits a technical, political, or business process snag.
Platforms like SharePoint, Office 365, and productivity applications like Microsoft Office 2010 and even Adobe Acrobat enable project teams to collaborate on their documents online without having to email back and forth.
Here are some reasons why organizations can’t collaborate.
I’ve been following the run up to the Beta roll out of Microsoft Office365 and can say that Microsoft has indeed spoken in the web office arena. Their first salvo of the Office 365 Beta stays true to form to the Microsoft playbook of studying a market and its players before making its delayed entrance into a new market.
Office 365 Beta delivers Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Lync Online plus an external facing web site all within the cloud ideal for Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs) or even freelancers/independent consultants who have outgrown the backend infrastructure their local ISP provides.
Unlike its competitor, Google Apps for Business, Microsoft Office 365 does require some software to be installed locally, which should be no big thing for smaller organizations. Setting up the local clients was simple and users who maintain their own home PCs and email clients should have no problems.
Two of my favorite professional reading topics lately have been Microsoft SharePoint and the iPad. I am staying abreast of SharePoint technologies because my current contract is due to end in July and documenting a major SharePoint implementation is still high up there on my “technical writer bucket list”. I am a big iPad user and enjoy following its advances into the corporate enterprise.
Many of my previous technical writing assignments placed me in organizations that had formerly placed little or no effort in technical documentation and needed to have technical documentation in place to support a major technology initiative, product launch, or a major audit.
One of the things I always try to do is to attack a new technical writing effort methodically – either at the client’s direction or behind the scenes – because I like a smooth running writing project.
Here is a high-level overview of the elements in my technical documentation development process:
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