Tech comm, content strategy, and coaching

Earlier in the year, I was chatting with Sharon Burton. As an aside to our knitting-focused discussion, I asked her what new services we should offer.

The answer came back immediately:

“Coaching?”

So with many thanks to Sharon, we are offering coaching to managers, directors, and executives with responsibility for technical content, localization, and/or content strategy.

Leading a content or localization team can be lonely. Your peer managers don’t understand your job function, and your staff doesn’t understand the management challenges. Our goal, as coaches, is to provide a confidential setting in which to discuss management problems, strategic decisions, and new ideas.

Over the last 20 years, we have worked with many managers who were confident in their leadership abilities but needed support in understanding content teams. When your background is in HR, QA, or engineering, it often seems that the content creators are speaking another language. (And some staff members aren’t shy about pointing out your lack of front-line experience in technical communication as a reason that they should get to do things Their Way.)

Tilikum Crossing, Portland, Oregon // flickr: Twelvizm

Coaching can help you bridge the gap by filling in the technical expertise so that you can understand what your content team should be doing.

We are still finalizing the coaching offering, which will launch officially in January 2017, but there are a few things you can do today:

• If you’d like to sign up immediately, we have an early-bird program, which will offer a discounted rate for coaching through the end of 2016. Contact us to get more information.
• For more details, read the coaching services page.
• If you’d like to provide some feedback and help shape the program, we have a very short survey. Or you can just leave a comment on this post.

Thank you!