Technical Communication Professionals in Southwest Michigan | Prima Communications, Inc.
Connecting information with the people who need it.
MichBio Expo – Opening Reception Tonight!
Posted on 03. Nov, 2009 by Jeremy in Business Efficiency, Documentation & Training, Prima Communications Blog
Join us at the MichBio Expo in the Radisson Plaza, downtown Kalamazoo.
In addition to providing tons of information about documentation, process mapping, and other technical wizardry, we’ll be offering attendees the opportunity to film a short video resume or personal statement that they can add to their LinkedIn profile or website.
If you’re attending the expo, stop by our booth and say hello, or give us a shout on Twitter @primatweet.
The Importance of Document Templates
Posted on 11. Aug, 2009 by Jeremy in Business Efficiency, Documentation & Training, Prima Communications Blog, Writing & Marketing
Try to imagine a house built without an architect. Now try envisioning a startup business without a business model. Lastly, try imagining a filling line or packaging center running smoothly without operating procedures or processes written, approved, and in place. What is each of these scenarios missing? Planning. Without someone drafting ideas and finalizing clear, written plans, nearly everything becomes impossible.
Documenting plans, procedures, instructions, scientific findings, tests, or simply ideas is crucial to a job well done. The way to ensure that documentation is valuable and correct every time is by designing and using templates. A document template acts as an outline to follow when developing or documenting just about anything. A good template provides many benefits, including:
- Consistency
A template ensures the same points and details are related every time. There’s no need to worry about missing information or what was done or not done previously. - Clarity
Templates remove the guesswork from documentation. Because information and details are outlined for the user, the purpose of the document is clear and concise, streamlining the documentation process. - Form
Rather than reviewing plans or procedures that all look different and contain information in varying order, templates allow for a consistency of form that enables users to know where to find what they’re looking for in every document. - Completeness
Templates ensure that all necessary information is included in a document. Each time the template is used, specific details are required to fill in the page. This makes it hard to erroneously leave something out - Efficiency
Instead of rewriting entire documents each time they’re needed, templates enable a document to be created once and then reused over and over again. The only difference from document to document is the specific information being provided. This saves valuable time and money, because employees no longer have to reinvent the wheel when they work. All they have to do is open the template and start providing the required information.
Templates help make documentation manageable, reliable, and effective, and they do so through planning. By designing a template that fulfills all of the desired needs when documenting a process, procedure, test script, or anything else, a business can realize great savings on resources. And the business itself will run a lot more smoothly.
Simplify documentation by using templates. After all, a house can be built without an architect, but would you want to live in it?
Effective Marketing Tools That Won’t Break the Bank
Posted on 23. Jul, 2009 by Jeremy in Business Efficiency, Prima Communications Blog, Writing & Marketing
These days only a handful of businesses enjoy marketing budgets that include funding for high-profile advertising such as television and radio commercials. If you’re not one of those businesses (or if you are one of those businesses and you want to save some money), there are numerous ways to market your business without resorting to BYOTPWD (Bring Your Own Toilet Paper to Work Day).
Big Software Purchases vs. Online Databases
Before you break the bank on sophisticated software that no one has a clue how to use, consider using an online database. This will save you money because a) you won’t have to hire fancy IT people that only speak IT, and, b) the online databases usually come with free technical support.
Many of the online databases can be adapted to fit the user’s needs. Whether the database is used for managing customer relations, marketing, or information management, the database can adapted to be exactly (or very close to) what you need or want.
Telemarketing vs. Bulk Server Email
Let’s face it: many people are not fond of telemarketers because they feel intruded upon and are annoyed by the phone call itself. Chances are the representative’s sales pitch is followed by the dial tone or a polite “no, thank-you.” Whichever it is, it’s not effective marketing that will yield positive results for your business.
Hiring a bulk email server is a cost effective method of marketing that will make most customers feel less intruded upon. Another added bonus for the customer is that they are free to further examine the email on their own time. There is no pressure on the customer to act right away.
Many bulk email servers can also be used in conjunction with online databases. Your contacts can be imported from the database to the bulk email server in a just few clicks.
If high dollar marketing isn’t in the budget, these are just a few ways to market your business without throwing away exorbitant amounts of money.
Social Networking Tools for Project Management
Posted on 16. Jul, 2009 by Jeremy in Business Efficiency, Prima Communications Blog
Seems like two different worlds, right? Social networking sites are for fun; project management is for plotting and planning.
Wrong.
Blogs, LinkedIn groups, and other social networking tools are great ways to keep project participants informed, to check on statuses, and to drive deadlines. I read about this and other great ideas in Douglas Tokuno’s shared Web presentation.
Check it out.
End Email Overload
Posted on 24. Jun, 2009 by Jeremy in Business Efficiency, Prima Communications Blog
Is email taking over your life? How much time per day do you spend on email? If you stop what you’re doing every time your email service pops up with its handy little new-mail window, you can lose a lot of your day.
Try to set aside small blocks of time each day to deal with your email. Stop your other activities and focus on email for however long it takes.
Try to handle each email while it is opened so you can either file or delete it during first contact. If you can avoid going back to a message, you can save hours of time every week. If you can’t deal with an email on first contact, try to develop a system to prioritize which emails get dealt with first when the time comes to handle them. The priority flags in Outlook, for example, are a great way of keeping track of messages that still need follow-up.
Most of us probably learned email just by using it, but there are classes that can teach you about email efficiency. There are also many blogs that have great email tips.