Month: November 2012

In comedy, timing is everything, right? The same thing is true for speaking. In order to express confidence, calm and control, check your timing in the following ways:

1. Extend your eye contact. We often sweep the audience with our eyes, never landing on a person, but always moving past them. Or we lock eyes with the audience member who smiles or nods, or the person we think is about to challenge us. If your eye contact is too rapid, you can look nervous, and you will fail to make a connection. If it is too long, you can easily turn a warm connection into a staring contest. To make the most of your timing, practice moving your eye contact smoothly and slowly from one person to the next, in about two to five second intervals. (If the audience looks away before you do, chances are your eye contact is a little too intense. But most of the time, this is just about right.) Be sure you are looking each listener in the eye, or at least near the eyes.

2. Manage your rate of speech. On average, people speak at around 150-160 words per minute. But when we feel adrenaline coursing through our bodies, we seem to speed up even more, often racing to keep up with our thoughts, which always speed ahead of our words. A great way to manage rate of speech is to speak fairly quickly, but pause a little longer and a little more often. Note that when we speak from slides, we slow down to somewhere closer to 100 words per minute on average — probably too slow for most audiences. So when you are working with slides, you might want to push ahead a little bit to sound more natural.

3. Nail your presentation time. Of all the things you don’t want to do, running over your allotted time has to be near the top of the list. During rehearsals, keep track of time for each segment, so you know not only how well your material will fit the time frame, but where you might need to tighten it. Mark your speaker words with notes on where you need to be at certain checkpoints. And don’t hold the most important points for last, as these may well be the ones you need to abbreviate or skip. To be sure, get those important points in earlier, while attention is strong and your energy is peak. (Tip: to keep track of time, use a remote slide advancer with vibrate mode, or set a timer on your smart phone or tablet, silenced of course, but visible to you.)

4. Leave enough time for Q&A. A common enough problem is to speak right up to the last minute, and then ask for questions. Most audiences won’t ask many questions at this point, as the pressure is on to move on to the next meeting or event of the day. Deliberately cut your presentation by 20-25%, so that you have time for discussion during your presentation and a solid give-and-take at the end. If you have engaged the audience, and there is time for Q&A, you are much more likely to have a good exchange. If not, ask them one or two questions about their reactions or comments.

5. Take time for a good close. Many times speakers get to the end of their presentations and then run out of steam. Their adrenaline has abated, or they are just so relieved to be finished, that they end up with a weak or nonexistent close. Plan ahead so you know exactly what you plan to say in the final two minutes, and rehearse it so it is top of mind when you get to it. poor closings include “thank you for your time” and “I guess that is all I have.” You can do better. Sum up quickly key points, and end with a positive note, a restatement of your key message, and a call to action of some sort. Make it brief and positive. Take that final minute or two to reinforce all that has been said, and send your audience off with finesse and punch.

How is your timing? Do you remember to manage these critical components of a great presentation? Have you learned some great techniques for timing? We would love to hear your experiences.

This is the second part of the post ‘Getting To Know Your Technical Writing Department’. We have read what questions need to be asked regarding Projects, Writing, and Collaboration. Now we need to see how documents are reviewed, stored, what tools are used to produce the documentation, how the works are distributed and how we can make improvements.

Review – Define the review process

· Are there style guides they follow and who maintains it
· Is there a standard logo for each document?
· Who reviews their work
· Who edits their work
· How are changes reviewed
· Is there a process for reviewing, editing, and rewriting
· Estimate the turnaround time for each new revised work
· Who tests out the documents for accuracy (note by individuals, department, and project)
· How do you get feedback from users (clients, developers, SMEs, customer service, etc.,)
· How do you get feedback from content on the web

Storage – Keeping track of the documents

· Where and how are the documents stored
· Is there a schema where all legacy documents are kept
· Is there a methodology that is followed to stay organized, or is there an existing content management system that maintains new and revised documents
· Where are confidential documents stored?
· Do we index or tag our documents
· Are any processes automated

Tools – Our tool sets

· What tools do they use to produce their documentation
· Get a break down of what tools each writer uses and their expertise in them
· What tools would they like to have
· Are some of the current tools that are too challenging for some

Distribution – Distributing the documents

· Is there a process in place for distributing completed and revised documents
· Who gets the newly completed documents and how many are produced and who takes care of that process

Global – Standardizing it all

· Who are the global contacts
· How do we virtually connect with them
· Is there a process in place for ensuring that all documentation standards are met
· Where are all the terms defined so that we are all on the same page for terminology
· How are files exchanged
· How are updates made

Improvement – Empathize with your writers

· Do they have any ideas for improvement
· Do they feel overworked
· Are they writing for more than one project at a time
· How long have they worked as technical writer on particular tasks
· Do they feel stagnant and would they like to switch gears and write for some other projects

When you have reviewed all this information (I know it’s quite a lot), and have analyzed your mapping or matrix, you will be able to make adjustments where necessary. Pinpoint where your strengths and weaknesses are. As with documentation, make sure everything you need to know about the department is standardized, controlled, and structured. All this work will help you get a clearer picture of your departments’ Technical Writers functions, the departments’ performance, and where improvements are needed.