TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
RE: Real World Advantages of Office / Word 2007 and Windows 7
Subject:RE: Real World Advantages of Office / Word 2007 and Windows 7 From:Ben Davies <bdavies -at- imris -dot- com> To:William Sherman <bsherman77 -at- embarqmail -dot- com>, "techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 8 May 2012 17:58:41 +0000
"I agree, but what company do you work for that actually offers, or requires, decent training?"
You just hit the nail on the head. Often companies don't provide training because everyone thinks they already know how to use Microsoft Word. I would never rely on a third party organization or webinar, or online video to provide training for templates that I developed. It would be customized Word training developed and delivered by me, to the people who would be using what I designed. This was actually part of my implementation plan, because the company I work for already tried rolling out templates (before I got here) without providing training (assumed everyone would know what to do), and it blew up pretty quickly into a big garbage bag full of inconsistent corrupt documents what use Body Text (or normal) + two million other inline styles for absolutely everything.
I thought there would be resistance to training. Even the company trainer here disagreed it was necessary and tried her hardest to prevent it from happening. WHAT?! She went so far as to put restrictions on how long I could train people, what I could say, etc.. it got to the point where I had to take a step back and have a philosophical conversation with her about the importance of ensuring employees know how to use the tools they are provided, why I was doing this in the first place, and how not providing training will make the whole project a huge waste of time as we would basically be repeating what had already failed.
I delivered training to a small test group, and surprisingly, they were literally begging for more. They had NO IDEA that Word worked like that!! They really liked the "behind the scenes" part of the training I provided that explained how styles worked and why it is necessary to use them, and what happens when you don't, and how working with text and copying and pasting content will be much easier if you use styles consistently. Now I have a small group of template advocates who are slowly spreading the word about the importance of styles, which is slowly creating a culture of people who actually care about how they use Microsoft Word.
This email has been scanned by the IMRIS Email Security System
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help. Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need.
Try Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days.
