A collaborative writer is someone who works with at least one other person to produce a text and achieve a common purpose. Now, a group of writers can produce a lot of text. To ensure that all those pieces go together well, the team should agree on practices and tools while tracking progress throughout the phases of…
Collaborative Writing is Antifragile
Collaborative writing is a way to make a document better than if it were written by one person. Things can get better through uncertainty and seeming disorder. In his book, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb looks at human activity from this unique perspective: Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to…
Law 3. Identify the writing mandate and agree on a process
When there is writing to be done, most people expect some magic to happen. The mystique surrounding the creative process is powerful. There is no magic, though. Setting words on the page is a process and having a plan is key. Very early on in the development process, your team must capture the expectations for the project….
Law 2. Respect thy collaborators as thyself
Collaboration is about working with other people. Many hands make write work! And cupcakes have been known to make projects hum along nicely. Collaborative writing involves many different kinds of expertise, since contributions are collected from various people and sources. Often that can be a lot of fun. When things don’t go well, though, nothing will smooth the…
Writing in organizations: Gaining a competitive edge
The need to create documentation is greater than ever. There’s text for the Web, sales and promotional material, product descriptions, manuals, reports, one-pagers—most organizations are pushing out a lot of text these days. With all this production happening, you’d think the writing process was getting better, easier and more effective all the time. But is this the…