What’s your type? A guide for the modern professional

Once upon a time, if someone wanted to know you better, they asked for your sign. Libra. Sagittarius. Whatever.

Later, Myers-Briggs types had their day in the sun. You proudly told everyone you were an INTJ. Or an ESFP. (I told people I’m an ESPN: I watch a lot of sports.)

Today, you can use technical documentation types to let others know what makes you tick.

You don’t even have to be a technical writer to play.

You’re a policies and procedures manual if your ducks are always in a row. People might say you’re rigid. But there’s never a situation in which you don’t know exactly what to do.

You’re a chatbot if you accost everyone you meet with “Hi! Thanks for using the sidewalk today!” Your real name is Philomena, but you tell people it’s Amy.

You’re a sales brochure if you’re the flashiest, most flamboyant person at the party. If someone’s looking for depth, however, they’ll have to look elsewhere.

Content questions: Critical Thinking 101

In my first content questions piece, I cited Robert D. Kaplan’s Washington Post article, in which he describes how people use content to distort and deceive — how information becomes misinformation and then the misinformation is amplified.

Reader Mark Baker proffered this comment:

This is an old wolf in new sheep’s clothing, but there are so many wolves now, and their sheep’s clothing is such a bad fit that we can always see their paws and teeth sticking out.

I respectfully disagree.

This is not to pick on Mark, with whom — based on his subsequent comments and on other conversations we’ve had in this forum — I agree on most things. But here, at least, I think he understates the problem.

Sure, sometimes it’s easy to spot the content frauds. Just like in Cold War-era spy movies, you knew who the bad guys were because they had Russian accents.

But many wolves are better at masking their true selves. Social media, especially, makes for effective masks. It’s easy to pretend you’re something you’re not.

(It’s been 25 years since Peter Steiner’s famous “nobody knows you’re a dog” cartoon in the New Yorker. How much has really changed since then?)

Exposing the wolves

We try hard to spot the wolves behind the masks. We look for trusted allies who can curate the content we receive. And we instinctively turn toward people who resemble ourselves — our tribe.

That exposes some of the wolves, but not nearly all of them.

To expose some wolves, we need to stop judging their appearance and start judging the things they say (or write).

In other words, we need to think critically.

Content questions: a crisis of trust

We’ve been talking about content, about who gets to decide what is and isn’t appropriate, and especially about what happens to the content you publish.

A lot of it comes down to trust. Can we trust the content we encounter? How do we know? And, of course, how can we create content that people will recognize as trustworthy?

Meet the Edelman Trust Barometer. Published by the Edelman research firm, the barometer is an international study that focuses on the degree to which people trust “institutions” — defined by Edelman as government, business, media, and NGOs.

Richard Edelman (screen shot from The Battle for Truth)

I don’t think I’m off base if I interchange the term content providers for institutions. After all, the content we consume — the content on which we base our opinions and our worldview — comes predominantly from government, business, media, and NGOs. And the content you create probably falls into one of those categories.

The newest Trust Barometer finds that people’s trust in institutions — or content providers — is dropping precipitously, especially in the U.S.

In the words of CEO Richard Edelman, “the United States is enduring an unprecedented crisis of trust.” Edelman even posted a short video, titled The Battle for Truth, in which he said (emphasis mine):

• “We don’t have shared facts. Therefore, we lack rational discourse.”
• “Silence is a tax on truth, and we have to speak up.”

By speaking up, Edelman means that it’s incumbent on every institution — every content provider — to “fill the void for quality information.” Trustworthy information.

I don’t disagree with him. But I doubt that every content provider is willing or able.

What do you and I, as consumers of content, do then?

Content questions: is the human element worth a try?

At a time when the news media is under intense scrutiny, when people struggle to distinguish reliable information from “fake news” from merely biased news, how will we decide — and who will decide:

• When is content inappropriate?
• Who controls the content?
• What if content is used to deceive?

I posed these questions last week, with emphasis on the information, or the content, that we create. And I asked how we — the content creators — will shape the answers.

Answering the content conundrum

Steven Brill, interviewed on CNN on March 4, 2018

Here’s one answer, from Steven Brill, whose Wikipedia page calls him a “journalist-entrepreneur.” Brill’s new project is called NewsGuard.

NewsGuard, whose launch date has not been announced, will try to “help consumers distinguish between sites that are trying to get it right and sites that are trying to trick people.” Those are the words of Brian Stelter, who interviewed Brill for CNN’s “Reliable Sources” earlier this month.

Content questions: will we have the answers?

This is about information: who controls its flow, who uses it, and who watches you when you use it.

This is about you. Because you access information — or content — on the internet, and because you probably create it as well.

Will someone have the power to tell you what content is and is not appropriate? Who controls what happens to the content you publish? Will someone use your content to deceive or mislead?

Just this month, 3 news stories have brought these questions into sharper focus. Will we, as writing professionals, have good answers? We’d better, because I don’t know if anyone else will.

When is content inappropriate? Who decides?

Scene from a recent ad appearing on Twitter’s website and in movie theaters

On March 1, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey promised to start measuring the platform’s “health” as a first step to freeing users from trolls and propaganda. (Josh Bernoff does a great job of  breaking down the announcement.) Admitting that “we didn’t fully predict or understand the real-world negative consequences” of Twitter’s free-for-all format, Dorsey promises to get busy and fix the problem.

Can he fix it?  Can he put the lid back on Pandora’s box? It strikes me as too little, too late.

We ask the good questions

It started with a simple question. What, I asked the Hardware Test guys, are the power consumption and heat dissipation measurements for the new switch models? I needed that data for the Technical Specifications section of the user guide.

Questions and answers in Seoul, Korea (by WordPress user george2008)

To be helpful, I included with my request the chart for the existing models — my way of saying “I need numbers just like these.”

One of the Test guys looked at the chart, paused, and said, “I’m not sure these numbers are so good.”

That sparked a discussion — among 5 of us from Hardware Test, Development, and Tech Pubs — about how the data is collected: is it measured at the power source or at the switch? About how to quantify the data: should heat dissipation be expressed in wattage or in BTUs? About why our customers would want the data: to monitor lab conditions, to plan how best to deploy power supplies. or both.

(That’s right: these mechanical engineers wanted to know not just about feeds and speeds but about the customers’ requirements. Is it any wonder I’m proud to work with them?)

It happens all the time

If you’re a technical writer, you’ve seen it happen too. Your questions open the door to more questions and sometimes to whole new lines of inquiry. Your questions, many times, end up influencing the whole project for good.

Why is that?

For one thing, we’re good at asking questions. My blogging colleague Sharon Burton notes that curiosity is a hallmark of technical communicators, and curiosity often manifests itself in questions. Questions that stimulate thought, questions that force people to reach beyond pat answers, questions that no one’s asked before.

I admit that my initial question about power consumption wasn’t profound. But when the first engineer stroked his chin and paused, I was quick to draw him out, to get him to think out loud and see where the conversation would go.

We’re advocates for our readers, for our audience. We can understand all of the deep-down technical stuff the engineers understand, but we’re not satisfied until we can explain it in terms our readers will find meaningful. Sure, I want to know the amperage reading when all 24 ports are moving data at 10 gigabits a second. But what I really want to know is how a network operator can make decisions based on that information.

We’re persistent. Maybe we’re driven by our innate curiosity. Maybe by our loyalty to our audience. Probably both. Whatever it is, we persist until we have the answers we need — until we can give our readers the answers they’ll need.

Our patron saint is television’s Lieutenant Columbo, who never dazzled anyone with his brilliance but who always persisted, and who always ended up asking the right questions at the right time to crack open the case.

It’s part of our value proposition

I’m proud of the technical writer’s ability to ask good questions. I’m proud that we bring about positive changes, that we contribute value, in this way.

In the lab today, it started with a simple question. The answer turned out to be more complicated than anyone expected. But it was the right answer. It was the best answer.

I’m going to keep asking questions.