Webcasts—Boon or Bust?

In each issue of Tieline, a representative of the twenty-one STC special interest groups (SIGs) shares wisdom, hints, and lessons learned. Each is free to focus on a different aspect of facilitating STC communities—whether those communities are based on subject matter or geographic location. Currently, SIG leaders are exploring various collaborative tools and management styles to benefit their members and recruit new volunteers and leaders.

As designer, author, and artist Edwin Schlossberg says, "True interactivity is not about clicking on icons or downloading files; it’s about encouraging communication." SIG leaders are working on just that. We hope that some of the information in this series will be applicable and helpful to other STC community leaders as well.

Judith M. Herr, STC SIG Advocate

As technical communicators in a global economy, our coworkers may be across the country or around the globe. While time and distance present logistical challenges to effective teamwork, cultural differences may further test our communications skills. As practitioners steeped in the practice of analyzing our audience, clarifying technical requirements, and determining the optimum medium for technical communication, we can help our virtual, remote, and diverse teams negotiate this path. As leaders of virtual and geographic communities, we can apply these skills strategically to promote collaboration and communication among our members.

Virtual and off-site teams are not new; STC literature is rife with pertinent guidance (see Suggested Readings). As noted by M. Katherine Brown and others, the literature on managing virtual teams and projects across cultures and locations is primarily theoretical and not integrated with information about collaborative tools such as wikis, blogs, and project dashboards. The authors advocate choosing the best situational tool, based on team and team members’ needs.

Potential Challenges of Webcasts

When the notion of culture broadens to include functional ability (blind and deaf culture, individuals with age-related disabilities), our sensitivity to diverse needs and our awareness of assistive technologies can facilitate effective team communication. Consider the prevalence of Webcasts as a means of reaching across borders and time zones to communicate with team members. Through this efficient use of technology, valuable information can be distributed in real-time. This channel may, however, be challenging for some users:

Small video images, taking up a portion of a monitor, may be too small for lip-reading individuals to understand the speaker.
If audio is of poor quality, or if there are multiple speakers, hearing-impaired individuals may have difficulty filtering the voices.
Nonnative speakers may have difficulty understanding the message, particularly if the speaker is not sensitive to vocabulary and colloquialisms.
Individuals with cognitive impairments may struggle with the rate of information delivery.
If slides are integrated in the view, low-vision individuals may be unable to resize the fonts or colors in the slides.
Slides embedded as images may be unreadable for screen-reading technologies used by the blind.

So how can technical communicators advocate for appropriate collaboration tools to meet the needs of virtual, remote, and diverse team members? Just ask. While employees may be reticent to complain about a communication channel that does not meet their needs, when asked about fitness for purpose, they may volunteer insights. Even the most brilliant information becomes devalued when provided through an underused channel.

A Case Study

Consider the case of SAS Institute, Inc., the largest privately held software company. With its world headquarters in Cary, North Carolina, SAS research and development (R&D) has virtual teams spread across continents and time zones. Noting the increased dependence on Webcasts and podcasts to convey strategic, time-critical business information internally, the SAS R&D communication team anonymously surveyed global team members to assess the effectiveness of the medium. In particular, it asked nonnative English speakers whether they were able to follow and understand the speakers in a given Webcast. Respondents were also asked how helpful they would find subtitles in English or their local language, a voice-over in their local language, or written transcripts in either English or their local language.

As with most surveys, the R&D communication team got some surprising responses:

Some team locations, including in India, were content with the English-only audio and transcript.
Some European teams—previously thought to be satisfied with English-only audio—confessed to never listening to the Webcast but rather waiting for their managers’ distillations.
Respondents who very much wanted an English transcript of Webcasts included hard-of hearing employees, not identified by human resources as people with disabilities, and employees who wanted the freedom to download and read the transcript from a mobile device while traveling (there is no need to be online for archival playback).

The responses have helped SAS R&D justify the time and cost of creating transcripts and judiciously translating key communications. Moreover, Web- and podcast transcripts will be posted to blogs to prompt interactive discussion of contents. Transcript content becomes searchable text from the intranet, crucial communications are recorded for on-demand playback, and the necessary slides made available for download. This measure enables:

Hearing or cognitively impaired individuals to pause and play back portions of the audio or video as needed
Low-vision individuals to adjust the font and size of slides and attachments for optimal viewing

Meeting the Needs of Diverse Participants

In STC members’ efforts to tell our powerful story, we must also tell how technical communicators add value to the business. As in the case of SAS R&D, the technical communication team guided internal corporate communication strategy in its choice of delivery technology and ensuring that internal customers’ information needs were being met. In like fashion, technical communicators participating in virtual and remote teams can bring to their groups’ communications awareness of logistical and cultural challenges and sensitivity to the information needs of diverse participants. If your STC community includes members in different time zones or locations (as most SIGs do), then consider what combination of communication methods and tools best fits your community members’ needs. For Webcasts, plan to archive the video, provide slides for download ahead of time, and deliver a transcript promptly. If you are the speaker in a pod- or Webcast, practice speaking clearly and enunciating and be mindful of colloquialisms and other language that may not be readily understood by nonnative speakers.

Suggested Readings

Ames, Andrea. “A California Yankee in Raj Jahan’s Country.” Intercom (May 2006): 26–29.

Archee, Raymond K. “Computer-Mediated Communication: Online Intercultural Communication.” Intercom (September/October 2003): 40–41.

Bailey, Elizabeth. “Communication Tools and Techniques for Virtual Teams.” Presentation at the Technical Communication Summit (STC’s 54th Annual Conference), 2007.

Barnum, Carol M., and Huilin Li. “Chinese and American Technical Communication: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Differences.” Technical Communication 53, no. 2 (May 2006): 143–166.

Brown, M. Katherine, Brenda Huettner, and Char James-Tanny. Managing Virtual Teams: Getting the Most from Wikis, Blogs, and Other Collaborative Tools. Wordware Publishing: Plano, TX, 2007.

De Warren, Marie-Anne, and John Mulligan. “Managing Large Localization Projects with Virtual Teams around the Globe.” Society for Technical Communication 46th Annual Conference Proceedings, Cincinnati, OH, 1999.

Doulton, Melanie. “Working in Global Teams.” Intercom (May 2007): 20–22.

Fisher, Kimball, and Mareen Duncan Fisher. The Distance Manager: A Hands-On Guide to Managing Off-Site Employees and Virtual Teams. McGraw-Hill: New York, NY, 2001.

Flammia, Madelyn, Yvonne Cleary, and Darina Slattery. “Bibliography on Virtual Teams.” Presentation at the Technical Communication Summit (STC’s 54th Annual Conference), 2007.

Hart, Geoffrey J. S. “Is Intercultural Communication a Moot Point?” Intercom (May 2007): 26–27.

———. “Sensitivity to Other Cultures.” Intercom (May 2006): 6–8.

Hoefling, Trina. Working Virtually: Managing People for Successful Virtual Teams and Organizations. Stylus Publishing: Sterling, VA, 2001.

Kratts, Aimee. “Running a Successful International Teleconference.” Intercom (May 2001): 18–19.

Legg, Kathy A. “Long-Distance Teams: Facing the Challenges.” Intercom (May 2004): 14–15.

Martin, Brian. “Business Lessons, Italian Style.” Intercom (May 2006): 33–35.

Pejovic, Jan, and Marie-Louise Desfray Beaujouan. “Trans-Atlantic Roundtable: Observations from Europe and the U.S. on International Communication.” Intercom (May 2006): 10–13.

Robey, Daniel, Huoy Min Khoo, and Carolyn Powers. “Situated Learning in Cross-functional Virtual Teams.” Technical Communication 47, no. 1 (February 2000): 51–66.

St. Amant, Kirk R. “Communication in International Virtual Offices.” Intercom (April 2003): 27–28.

———. “Humor, Credibility, and International Exchanges.” Intercom (May 2001): 8–9.

———. “Identity and International Online Communication.” Intercom (April 2001): 16–17.

———. “Presentation for International Audiences.” Intercom (May 2005): 13–15.

———. “Resources and Strategies for Successful International Communication.” Intercom (September/October 2000): 12–14.

Lisa Pappas is an accessibility analyst with SAS Institute, where she authored the institute’s accessibility white paper Universal Design: A Commitment to Accessible Software. She works with software testers to identify and prioritize accessibility issues, with development teams to address issues found, and with sales to complete accessibility checklists used in procurement. She is comanager of the AccessAbility SIG. An associate fellow and senior member of STC, she has received several STC awards including Distinguished Technical Communication in the International Online Communication Competition (1999).

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