How to Build Solutions and Influence People

2011 Doc Award Winners

By Amanda Cross
Thursday, January 12, 2012

A couple weeks ago, the ExactTarget Documentation Department presented the second annual Documentation Awards. These awards recognize ExactTarget employees and clients who have gone above and beyond in their efforts to make ExactTarget's documentation offerings better for everyone.
2011 ExactTarget Doc Awards banner

So, today I'd like to recognize the winners of the 2011 Documentation Awards:

First up, we'd like to honor Tammy Hughes of the Global Support organization. Like many in the Global Support organization, Tammy is active in cluing the documentation team in when something in the documentation is unclear or incorrect, but...

Birthday Messages – the good and the bad

By Amanda Cross
Thursday, November 17, 2011

My birthday was recently, and even though I no longer have roller skating parties or blow out candles, my favorite companies still send me their well wishes, and sometimes even gifts.

Some of them were very good gifts. A couple restaurants whose rewards programs I belong to sent me certificates for a free entree any time this month. A couple stores sent me straight-up $10 gift cards. These moves cost the company a little, but since I'm not likely to spend just $10 any time I'm buying myself a gift, it's likely that they'll actually make something on the bargain.

You don't have to spend at all,... Read More »

Content Rules!

By Amanda Cross
Friday, September 16, 2011

This morning at Connections 2011, I checked out the Content Rules presentation by C.C. Chapman and Ann Handley, authors of the book Content Rules, available on Amazon.

This presentation was part of the "author track." I thought it sounded interesting not only because I, too, am a type of "author" but also because I figure that the people who think of themselves as "authors" and "content creators" would also be the people using the documentation. And those are folks I'm particularly interested in hearing what they have to say.

This presentation was rapid-fire good stuff. They...Read More »

#et11 Social Media Lounge

By Amanda Cross
Wednesday, September 14, 2011

On the third floor of the JW Marriott in Indianapolis, among the hustle and bustle of Connections 2011 attendees arriving to the Hoosier state from the airport, is a little oasis of social media consumption.

Folks are taking a break with their mobile devices to check in, contribute to the Twitter feed, and just generally feel connected. At Connections. Imagine that!

Drop in if you're attending this year. The chairs are comfy.

Read More »

Socializing Your Communications: Technical and Otherwise

By Amanda Cross
Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Society for Technical Communication Live Web Seminars

On June 22, Adam Evans and I will participate in a live web seminar with the Society for Technical Communication. The seminar is called "Socializing Documentation: Giving Your Work a Face."

Though this seminar is targeted at technical communicators, it talks about challenges that everyone in business communication--including marketing communication--is facing right now: transparency in corporate communication, customer demanding one-to-one interactions, and engaging your customers using social media.

At ExactTarget, we advocate joining the conversation about your brand that is going on all the...Read More »

ExactTarget to Present at Women Working in Technology Conference

By Amanda Cross
Monday, April 18, 2011

On Friday, April 22, the Sheraton Indianapolis City Centre will play host to the Women Working in Technology Conference. This is an annual conference presented by the Center for Information and Communication Sciences (CICS) and the College of Communication, Information and Media at Ball State University.

And I'm pleased to say that I get the chance to participate in a panel that will be speaking at the conference.

I have attended the WWiT conference every year since its inception, even back when that required driving up to Muncie for the day to attend on Ball State's campus. It's such an honor...Read More »

Looking Back on 2010 in Documentation

By Amanda Cross
Tuesday, December 21, 2010

December is the time for reflection on the last 12 months and the creation of resolutions for the new year, and ExactTarget Documentation is no exception.

The Doc team has had a lot to celebrate this year. Each person on the team has achieved at least one year of tenure now, and we’re starting to roll. We officially made the Documentation Wiki the primary documentation resource, including having the Help button in the application point to it, and it has grown from 2500 visitors a month to over 11,000.

We introduced the feedback form on each page of the wiki, allowing readers to report problems,...Read More »

(Actually) Frequently Asked Questions

By Amanda Cross
Friday, November 12, 2010

It seems like most people have a pet peeve or two about language or usage. Misuse of "unique" (That's the most unique thing I've ever seen!) and "literally" (My head literally exploded when I heard the news.) top the list, but your pickier linguistic types get pretty ruffled when people mix up "to," "two," and "too," or "there," "their," and "they're."

Personally, I try to keep a level head about language usage, but there is one thing that still gets under my skin when it's misused: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

For one thing, many FAQs are more like data sheets containing data points that...Read More »

Printing Your Documentation

By Amanda Cross
Wednesday, October 20, 2010

The Documentation Wiki is a great tool to access doc for a product whose functionality grows as quickly as ExactTarget application's does. We publish new and updated pages every week, and every page in the wiki is put in a writer's queue for review every six months. Every day 1,000-1,200 people get the most current product information from the Documentation Wiki.

Even so, we still get requests for PDF and printed content. Internally, we avoid PDFs because of the risk of an old copy being distributed, and we avoid printed copies because we'd kill entire forests in the effort. I don't know...Read More »

About This Documentation

By Amanda Cross
Friday, September 10, 2010

I'm excited that today my team, Documentation, is beginning our concerted blogging effort. It's not that we like to talk about the stuff we're working on (well, it's not just that). We're excited to have another avenue to hook our users up with resources to make the best use of our email software, text messaging tools, Twitter marketing, and all the other online and social marketing tools that ExactTarget has to offer.

If it also helps prospective users in their product research, all the better, which gets to an important aspect of our documentation -- its open availability -- but I'll come...Read More »

Study Implies Best Practices for Social Marketing

By Amanda Cross
Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The Nielsen Norman Group has done a study on people's behavior when they consume marketing messages over social media. They specifically looked at how people interact with RSS feeds, as well as social networking sites like Facebook.

Challenges implied by this study:

Finding the balance of posting often enough to be noticed--you're message has to be recent or no one will see it--and posting too much--people don't want marketing messages to crowd out their personal messages.
Using the correct tone--people expect a different tone in social settings...except for some companies.
Knowing what to...

Email System Process Term of the Day: Asynchronous, Scheduled, and Real-Time

By Amanda Cross
Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Your email marketing messages don't have to be processed right away. Different timing is appropriate for different tasks, and in some cases the ExactTarget application gives you the control to choose how--and when--your system does its work.

Asynchronous
An asynchronous process is a process that runs “behind the scenes” while you continue to use the interface to perform other tasks. You receive an email or other alert that the process is complete so that you can view the results.

For example, if you start an asynchronous report, the report runs while you continue working. When the report is...Read More »

Across the Pond

By Amanda Cross
Wednesday, October 21, 2009

I can hardly believe I work in a multi-national company.

I mean, I've worked in multi-national companies before--my last company had an office in Exeter, England--but I wasn't there when it happened. Back then, it just meant that I had to come into the office early to get one phone calls with them and learn to drop the serial comma when I edited their documents. Now, it means I have actual friends there who will show me around if I ever get a chance to visit.

ExactTarget expanded into England via the acquisition of Keymail Marketing, already an established partner in Europe. Our application...Read More »