The September 8, 2010 Chapter Meeting
Technical Communicators and Their Role in Stopping Brain Drain
Interviewing is a big part of what technical communications do on the job. Technical communicators interview SMEs, users, and others, and then package what they learn to help people work more effectively. While interviewing skills are important to documentation, training, and project management, they can also play a major role in helping organizations capture and transfer knowledge as Baby Boomers move toward retirement.
During this talk, Ken Ball and Gina Gotsill will explore how technical communicators can use their interviewing skills to draw out valuable knowledge as longtime workers begin to step away. The content technical communicators create from these interviews can benefit organizations in the following ways: Ball and Gotsill will also provide an overview of the three primary generations in the workplace: Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y, and their learning preferences. Their research has shown that understanding the audience is an important first step to creating a knowledge retention program that makes sense. They will also touch on several different kinds of knowledge—explicit, implicit, and tacit, and the best ways to capture this knowledge for the organization. At the end of this session, attendees will have a better understanding of:
Speakers:
Gina Gotsill and Ken Ball
Gina Gotsill is a Gen X writer with degrees in journalism from San Francisco State University and University of California, Berkeley. She is also a fellow of the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank based in St. Petersburg, Florida. Ms. Gotsill has covered a wide range of business topics that include keeping Boomer skills in the workplace, teaching finance to non-finance professionals, and growth and change in urban and suburban business districts. Ken Ball is a Boomer and has been closely following aging in the workplace with curiosity for years. At TechProse, the consulting firm where he does business development, Ken tracks knowledge and content management, including training and documentation, for major U.S. clients. He has more than 30 years of experience in corporate sales and marketing, including years in the book publishing business, working for IDG Books, publishers of the …For Dummies computer and general reference books. He has a B.S. in Marketing-Speech Communications from Bradley University.
Date:
Times:
Location:
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
6:00 to 7:00 pm: Networking, conversation & dinner
7:00 to 7:15 pm: Announcements
7:15 to 8:30 pm: Presentation
8:30 to 9:00 pm: Conversation,
follow up on job announcements
9:00 to 9:15 pm: Clear the room; move conversations to the sidewalk
Highlands Country Club,110 Hiller Drive, Oakland, California