My Doctor the Telephone
Where Patient is King/Queen/Parliament
One segment of the healthcare market expecting continued explosive growth is telehealth—so reports Arundhati Parmar in MedCity News. Parmar cited IMS Research which projects 55 percent growth in telemedicine in 2013. Telemedicine covers a wide swath of care, of course: from a simple phone call to email and web-based approaches to a variety of technologies employed in diagnosis and follow-up for everything from minor ailments to chronic and acute care.
Telehealth is inherently interesting for the medical device community in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro. Each of the big three medical device companies markets some variation on telehealth—especially focused on implanted pacemakers, defibrillators and cardiac resynchronization devices. But in some ways we are quite behind in considering the preferences and patterns of patient communication. For too many years our community has focused on marketing to physicians. But perhaps 2013 will be the year our community wakes to the fact we must talk simply and effectively with a much, much wider group of audiences. As patients continue to grasp the nuances of the power to choose, they will choose to engage with companies with whom they can develop relationships. They will demand clear and succinct information that doesn’t condescend. The days of doing whatever the physician says are quickly coming to an end.
Brand will be an even bigger deal when the patient is king.
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Taking Technical Communication Personally (Shop Talk #5)
Guest Post from Rich Bosshardt
[I invited Rich Bosshardt to respond to the question of what fulfillment looks like for a professional writer. Rich has talked about technical writing in a few of my classes and intrigued us with a note about the psychology of technical writing. He’s writing from the perspective of a working technical writer, and this is his second response.]
People who aren’t familiar with technical communication may be surprised to learn what it really takes to be a good technical writer. Having product knowledge, authoring and illustration skills, some mechanical and/or technical inclination, and a command of (simplified and instructional) language are all necessary. But there is one key ingredient without which one cannot experience ongoing motivation, success, and fulfillment in this field: the personal touch.
There is a psychology to technical writing. Anticipating and appropriately responding to the (rational and irrational) thoughts and behaviors of people is a vital skill in the toolkit of a good technical writer. One might initially think that the technical writer spends hour upon hour in isolation while hunched over a computer monitor in a corporate cubicle farm or a spare bedroom (i. e., the home office). But in reality, a technical writer must keep in mind those who use the product or service (external customers) and regularly interact with those who help create the product (internal customers).
My external customers are the end users who purchase, assemble, operate, maintain, and store the products about which I write. My internal customers are team members, including subject matter experts, who are typically engineers and designers; and reviewers, who represent the engineering, customer service, legal, safety, test, and marketing departments.
External Customers
As an advocate for my external customer, I try to keep these two primary questions in mind as I go about my work: (1) How will the reader use (or misuse) the product about which I am writing? (2) How will the reader interact with the instructions and illustrations that I create?
But there are more questions that help put me in the position of my readers: What educational background and reading ability do my readers have? Are they mechanical? Do they have the proper tools to perform the procedure? When do they do the work themselves and when do they call a dealer for help?
To answer these questions, we rely in part on user testing and feedback from our end users. In user testing, we have had fellow employees from other departments who are unfamiliar with a product perform procedures by following a set of instructions that I prepared. The results of those tests have led to new insights as to how one might approach and engage the product, which enables me to write a more effective set of instructions. But busy schedules and workloads often prohibit us from conducting more than an occasional user test. Feedback from real end users is valuable, but it is rare as well.
Internal Customers
Though the technical writer is an advocate for the end user, the final product serves many more masters than merely the end user. The publication that results is a compromise of multiple interests. The subject matter expert wants to showcase the product features or have the writer insert an instruction to cover for a minor design flaw that is otherwise too costly to change; the market manager wants to sell the reader accessories for the product; the legal and safety representatives want to protect the company from liability by inserting page after page of safety admonitions; and the customer care representative wants a rewritten procedure because his or her department has received more than the usual number of customer complaints.
Being the writer but not the owner of the publication, how do I then chart a course for completing the project through the cacophony of the differing requirements of my external customers? And how do I produce an intelligible and helpful work that ultimately meets the needs of my internal customers?
Satisfaction by Means of Service
Serving my internal and external customers well brings satisfaction, and serving both types of customers simultaneously requires that I keep both my goal and the manner in which I achieve that goal in mind. The goal of my work requires that I continually keep my external customers in mind; it guides me in what I should be doing in my work: to serve valued end users by helping them understand the product and have a safe and positive experience whenever they interact with it. The manner by which I achieve that goal requires that I continually keep my internal customers in mind; it guides me in how I should be doing my work: to serve and show respect to valued team members who create the product (the subject of my writing). It may include serving and showing respect to those who may neither respect me nor my profession.
I serve my external customers best by making their needs the goal of my work; I serve my internal customers best by addressing their needs in the manner in which I work to achieve my goal. How I perform my work, no matter what it is, makes all the difference. It is when I serve in the spirit of Christ, the Servant of Servants, that I find satisfaction in my work, whatever and wherever that may be.
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CEOs Who Blog
Training your CEO to blog
Not every CEO is a born monologuist—but many are cut from that cloth. Training your CEO to blog means helping her or him get comfortable with the notion she or he will be joining a conversation, not delivering a sermon.
- In a conversation, self-revelation is the norm. We tell things about ourselves as a way to foster relationship.
- In a conversation, we tell what is remarkable. We talk about those things that catch our attention because we think the people we are in conversation with might also find it interesting.
That’s the tone your CEO needs when blogging: a personal voice connecting bigger things that are going on out in the world, bigger things that say something about the mission of your company or organization, but delivered in a personal tone.
This takes time. For many if not most CEOs, it takes too much time to blog. But the potential benefits are that customers and potential customers will join into the relationship building. Authentic relationship building will be a big part of commerce going forward—so it is worth your CEO’s attention.
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Image credit: via 2headedsnake
If By Yes
What we grow when we sow “Yes”
For the past three weeks I’ve not been able to escape the orbit of an old story. It’s a story that tells what happens when one takes a stance of extreme listening. I’ve not been able to escape the story because it has a lot of moving parts that defy easy categories—just like real life. The story refuses to be reduced, which is great because I’m trying to be rid of my old reductionist tendencies.
The story has a woman on the rise and a man on the decline. The product of the woman on the rise was a boy who demonstrated what can happen when one is committed to extreme listening. The story has a narrator who seemed to know more than any narrator has a right to know. And then there was someone standing behind the narrator who could control all things but chose not to.
Right now I’m focused on the son of the woman. This man had a way of listening and agreeing that looked like progress for him and actually pivoted a nation. The man was known far and wide (so the story goes) as one who told truth—because the stuff he said happened out in the world. He was sort of a walking speech-act performative generator.
I’m grappling to understand what seems to be movement between generations—a movement of willingness to listen. That sounds crazy, right? Because we are all responsible for ourselves, yes? Genetic stuff is only physical, only the stuff we inherit. And yet…the social norms, the expectations, the ways we approach life, much of this is nurture rather than nature, so movement of attitudes between generations could apply. Much as I am horrified by North Korea’s policy of imprisoning political prisoners for three generations, it is true we transmit all sorts of ways to think and be through our families.
The woman demonstrated deep listening. Her son demonstrated even deeper listening. The woman’s son learned to say yes to certain risky opportunities that presented. He practiced saying yes. His “Yes” affected wider and wider circles of people around him, as these opportunities became actions out in the world, actions which changed history.
Of course we don’t say yes to everything. Not every opportunity that presents deserves a “Yes.” But some do. Some opportunities need a “Yes” from us, and those around us need us to say “Yes.”
There is a quote that connects our “Yes” with what follows. It’s from the oddly interesting book Pricing on Purpose by Ronald J. Baker. It’s long but worth the effort (bold emphasis mine):
Because economies are governed by thoughts, they reflect not the laws of matter but the laws of mind. One crucial law of mind is that belief precedes knowledge. New knowledge does not come without a leap of hypothesis, a projection by the intuitive sense. The logic of creativity is “leap before you look.” You cannot fully see anything new from an old place…. It is the leap, not the look, that generates the crucial information; the leap through time and space, beyond the swarm of observable fact, that opens up the vista of discovery.
–George Gilder, Wealth and Poverty, 1993. Quote from Baker, Ronald J. Pricing on Purpose (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2006) 15
So. If some small, long forgotten voice speaks up reminding you of something you once treasured, consider saying yes.
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Image credit: 2headedsnake
College Majors to Avoid + Rebuttal
And back to the work itself
Good design often has this effect on me: it makes me want to find and do the work I am meant to find and do. Moving quickly through the many architecture or art or photography blogs out there also reminds me of what vision looks like when carried out. Vision alters our perceptions of the physical world and sometimes alters the physical world itself. And that is no small thing.
Yesterday I found myself in disagreement with the Burnt-Out Adjunct (whose too-infrequent posts I eagerly await and enjoy) who wrote that liberal arts studies should be more corollary than central to a college degree. Pisspoorprof was reflecting on another of these “ten worst” articles that pop up from time to time. This time it was Yahoo! Education touting the Four Foolish Majors to Avoid if you are trying to reboot your career.
Liberal arts degrees were the #1 opportunity killer with philosophy a close #2 opportunity killer. By the way, I cannot help but note that the entire article is an advertisement for the continuing services of Yahoo! Education.
As a holder of an undergrad degree in philosophy I both agree and disagree.
- Yes: no one hires a college grad to resolve deep-seated teleology questions (one does that on one’s own time). But to his credit, the VP at Honeywell who gave the OK to hire me (lo these many years ago) did question my stance on freedom vs. determinism.
- No: How about granting a bit of perspective? We need people who can think outside the present job parameters. And we desperately need people to challenge those parameters. Educating people to acquiesce by default is not what we need (though it is a short-term path to cash). Liberal Arts (and especially philosophy, let me say) can help this happen. Yes that sounds like the standard line from any college admissions staff says. Yes it is what professors say as they pass each other in the hallowed halls. No you don’t need a college degree to challenge the system, make a million bucks, make a difference or be homeless.
But studying things that don’t make money has a way of making us more conscious of all that is going on around us. Will it eventually make money? Maybe. Maybe not. But we need people with larger vision who can paint or write or photograph or build a different way of looking at things—however that happens.
What do you think?
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Image credit: Studio Lindfors via 2headedsnake
When Transcendence Goes Missing
One more glimpse into North Korea
Jason asked about how Shin Dong-Hyuk in Escape from Camp 14 kept his sanity: was there any talk of faith in the book? There was, though it was at the far end of the story, after Shin made his way to California. There he was helped by a family who welcomed him into meals and daily life and helped him understand the give and take of trusting family relationships. So indoctrinated was Shin in the North Korean prison camp system of snitching on others and assuming no one (including parents and family) would look out for him, that he had a very hard time with ordinary relationships.
Early on in the story, Shin’s attention is focused on survival. The entire nation is focused on just getting to the slimmest subsistence level of caloric intake, which was especially true of the political prison system. In one story, a child who found five or six kernels of corn in a fold of clothing and quickly ate them was soundly beaten by the prison guard/teacher. That’s the level of desperation. In this setting, there was little room for anything behind always scanning for rats or bugs to eat. And since Shin was born in the political prison, the only faith presented was a faith in finding hidden problems with others that could be reported to guards in exchange for slightly better treatment. Shin knew nothing of God and was entirely focused on staying alive.
It’s an ugly story.
Shin did come to a faith in God after living with this family in California. Blaine Harden, the journalist who did such an excellent job assembling and telling Shin’s story, struggled with how Shin retold stories of escape after he came to faith: he started to see how God was involved back then. Harden is right in pointing out Shin knew nothing of God at the time (of his imprisonment). It seemed to Harden Shin was adding in new elements in the retelling. But for me, as a person of faith, I can understand how Shin looked back and saw connections he did not notice earlier.
But Harden’s story is not a story of faith in God. It is a brutal story of survival.
Did I mention this book is worth reading? There is a long waiting list at our local library.
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Image credit: Bousure via 2headedsnake
Ten Ways Fulfillment Mingles with Professional Writing (Shop Talk #4)
Life’s not about poetry. Or is it?
I’ve been posting in response to a query from an English student who wondered about finding fulfillment as a professional writer. How can we compare writing poems and short stories and novels to writing for companies or ad agencies or other firms or organizations seeking help to communicate? She asks a good question which we all struggle to answer all our lives. See a few responses here: Shop Talk: The Collision of Craft, Faith and Service
When I teach professional writing classes at Northwestern College, I like to invite Rich Bosshardt, who writes for a well-known local manufacturer, to talk with the class. Like many of us, Rich’s route to writing was circuitous: from mover of boxes to telemarketer to carpenter to chemical compounder to university research lab technician—plus about ten other jobs. Along the way he earned a Master’s in New Testament, so his thoughts about work and writing have a theological bent, which I appreciate. In response to my request, Rich rattled off ten things about writing for a living and offered to explicate one more:
- We could learn a lesson on career fulfillment from Joseph, the son of Jacob and the great administrator in Genesis.
- How do you work through when the honeymoon of being hired is over and passion for the work is long gone, but the bills keep coming?
- My career has been an unintentional path; I didn’t enjoy writing and knew nothing about technical writing until I was over 30 years old.
- Why shouldn’t we be passionate about what we do for a living? Whom would you rather hire—the passionate worker or the dispassionate one? You can raise the competence of a mediocre worker who is passionate about the work and therefore wants to improve, but the dispassionate worker? Let him or her go; you’re doing both of you a favor.
- Luther had great insights about one’s vocation, raising the legitimacy and importance of “common” work and sparking the Protestant work ethic.
- There is joy in doing work of the best quality that you can and in a manner that marks you as a person who has character, thereby earning the respect and admiration (stated or unstated) by others. Good (both competent and ethical) workers do eventually get noticed by those who work with them, and these good workers will find themselves happily employed.
- I thank God for the “little things” at work, e. g., that I’m working inside in a temperature-controlled environment on a frigid winter day or a hot, humid summer day.
- Relationships can make all the difference; being part of a caring and talented team can turn drudgery into joy because you enjoy the relationship regardless of the circumstances.
- There is a psychology to technical writing; good writers should think about at least two things: (1) how people will use the product that they are writing about; and (2) how people will interact with the instructions and illustrations that you create.
- “And God saw that it was very good.” There is a satisfaction (and fulfillment) in a job well done, no matter what job it is, great or small.
I like Rich’s list and think it gets at the tensions of creating versus making a living versus making meaning every day. Rich’s vocational path also reminds me of Parker Palmer’s wonderful “Let Your Life Speak,” which is all about taking the time to notice what you enjoy. Palmer’s book is one to own and read annually.
I’d like to hear more from Rich on Number 9: the psychology of technical writing.
What would you like to hear more about? What would you add or subtract?
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Image credit: 2headedsnake
North Korea Death Watch
Is there an app for that?
One-third of the nation is chronically malnourished. Hundreds of thousands are in political prison camps. Some are born, live (meagerly) and die in political prison camps under Kim Jong Il/Un/Whatever’s three-generation policy (lock up the family that disagrees with the party line for three generations). This I saw through the story of Shin Dong-Hyuk’s Escape from Camp 14. I defy you to read this book and not come away thinking the entire nation is a prison camp—and absolutely corrupt—focused on supporting the lifestyle and many mansions of Kim Jong Il/Un/Whatever (and a few party elites. Very few).
Amazingly, this is happening right now. Today. This instant. This isn’t something in the past. See the prison camps for yourself.
But how long will we see the prison camps? As Kim Jong Un continues to starve and beat the North Korean population, how long will it be before loyalists hide evidence of these camps? Probably the population is already digging their own graves and praying to fall in.
Surely there is an app that can track the square feet of these prison camps and help the world watch as Kim Jong Un tries to hide their criminal record.
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Minneapolis Celebrates Winter: City of Lakes Loppet
What’s not to love about an urban cross-country ski festival?
Earlier that day: dozens of trucks parked on Long Lake for an ice-fishing contest.
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conversation is an engine 