User docs including wiki and user forums only accessible to customers

[Gina Fevrier]

I'm not sure if the Content Strategy SIG is the proper place for this
question, but I'll start here. I read recently that if you don't put
your user docs on the Web and make sure they're searchable, you may
lose control of your brand, and users will create their own sites for
your products. (I believe Rahel Bailie presented this during an STC
event.) A company I know recently decided to make their user docs and
knowledgebase only available for customers with a serial number. They
didn't show up in a Google search before, but at least non-customers
(prospects) could get to the docs. One of their products has an
independent user forum that was started by a customer. The other is
owned by the company but on Yahoo. Can anyone talk about the
advantages and disadvantages of making your user docs private vs
public ? I like Adobe's public model where social media is on their
Web site, but searchable by all users with a browser. You have to
have a user name and password to post to the forum, but anyone can
search.

[Rahel Bailie]

This is exactly the right place to discuss this. I'm sure if you discussed this on the other CS google group, you'd get some excellent perspectives as well.

I did present that during an STC event. Companies sometimes try to hide their docs because (a) they want to charge for that information (b) they are embarrassed about what people are saying about their products, (c) someone internally thought it was a good idea and that person has the power to call the shots, or (d) they're still lodged in 20th century thinking about information exchange. The only rationale I could see is if the information being exchanged is somehow secret or would expose the question-posers to public risk or humiliation by virtue of posting.

It's not surprising that someone started a forum. Look at what happened with help for Apple products. The internet is littered with examples of people who started their own Apple support page because they couldn't find the information freely online. That might work for Apple, but most orgs aren't in a situation where closing information off breeds brand loyalty. People often want to see information about a product before they buy - using a dating metaphor, people want to see what the marriage will be like before they get engaged. Or they may not know their serial number. Or they tried to engage in the closed forum but didn't get a helpful response, so they're looking elsewhere. Or the navigation/search is so bad that they decide to do a general Google search to see what comes up.

Is this the type of information you wanted to know, or am I off base?

Rahel

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[Destry Wion]

Agree with Rahel.

We are now in the age of user- and community-generated content, and
whether it's written by experts or not, it will be written if the
"source" documentation is not available or easy to use. That could
easily undermine a brand, or at least a lot of time and effort that
went into the source documentation to begin with. Think of it like
"first to market." It's no different with documentation these days.
People use what they find first, and they expect it to be readily
available (read as FREE). The more accessible and pleasing it is, the
more popular it will be.

I think there's another--perhaps more relevant--question companies
need to start asking themselves: Should user- and community generated
content become part of the documentation process? Should it become
part of the branding and dialog with audience? After having really
assessed their audience and content strategy objectives, the answer
could be yes. A lot of big companies are starting to do this already.

I would point out Anne Gentle's book, Conversation and Community: The
Social Web for Documentation [1]; it covers this notion exactly. I'm
working on a review of that book now that will be posted at STC
France. There's a few other reviews online now too. Tom Johnson has
one, I think.

[1] - http://xmlpress.net/publications/conversation-community/

-dw

-------------------------------------
Destry Wion

Web Manager
stcfrance.org
@stcfrance (Twitter)

Program Chair,
Content Strategy Forum 2010 - Paris
confe...@stcfrance.org

wion.com
@Wion (Twitter)
-------------------------------------

[Kristi Leach]

What about for expensive, complex products for niche markets--say, clinical information systems? So far, the idea of putting our documentation out where competitors could get a hold of it is completely out of the question for us, and that seems pretty standard for the industry, from what I've seen. I wonder if our users would really want to get information about using our products from unaffiliated sites, since patient safety sometimes depends on that information being correct.

Still, we are researching ways to use user-generated content. We've got user forums and a knowledge base, both of which require a login and membership. We’re looking to make better use of those, plus add some other features.

Do you think it's possible to user-generated content "halfway?" Even if the docs won't be totally searchable anytime soon, aren't there some things we can do besides opening all our content to Google?

--

[Gina Fevrier]

Yes, both tech writers here have purchased and read Anne Gentle's book
(which was excellent, BTW). We've communicated with Anne and I also
purchased her audio presentation on wikis for documentation
http://justwriteclick.com/store/wikis-for-technical-documentation-a-writers-role-in-web-20/

We would like to convert our user docs that are currently in Flare and
RoboHelp to the Confluence Wiki, and are getting ready to pilot the
wiki. We believe it will be easier to collaborate with our internal
and external customers with the wiki.

On Nov 23, 5:44 pm, Destry Wion <destry.w...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Agree with Rahel.
>
> We are now in the age of user- and community-generated content, and
> whether it's written by experts or not, it will be written if the
> "source" documentation is not available or easy to use. That could
> easily undermine a brand, or at least a lot of time and effort that
> went into the source documentation to begin with. Think of it like
> "first to market." It's no different with documentation these days.
> People use what they find first, and they expect it to be readily
> available (read as FREE). The more accessible and pleasing it is, the
> more popular it will be.
>
> I think there's another--perhaps more relevant--question companies
> need to start asking themselves: Should user- and community generated
> content become part of the documentation process? Should it become
> part of the branding and dialog with audience? After having really
> assessed their audience and content strategy objectives, the answer
> could be yes. A lot of big companies are starting to do this already.
>
> I would point out Anne Gentle's book, Conversation and Community: The
> Social Web for Documentation [1]; it covers this notion exactly. I'm
> working on a review of that book now that will be posted at STC
> France. There's a few other reviews online now too. Tom Johnson has
> one, I think.
>

> [1] -http://xmlpress.net/publications/conversation-community/

>
> -dw
>
> -------------------------------------
> Destry Wion
>
> Web Manager
> stcfrance.org
> @stcfrance (Twitter)
>
> Program Chair,
> Content Strategy Forum 2010 - Paris

> confere...@stcfrance.org
>
> wion.com
> @Wion (Twitter)
> -------------------------------------

[Gina Fevrier]

The company's competitors also have their user docs on a password-
protected site, and it is a niche market although there are tens of
thousands of customers.

> [1] -http://xmlpress.net/publications/conversation-community/

>
> -dw
>
> -------------------------------------
> Destry Wion
>
> Web Manager
> stcfrance.org
> @stcfrance (Twitter)
>
> Program Chair,
> Content Strategy Forum 2010 - Paris

> confere...@stcfrance.org

>
> wion.com
> @Wion (Twitter)
> -------------------------------------
>
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[Gina Fevrier]

I'm glad this is the correct place to post the question. So in answer
to Kristi's question about what else can we do besides opening our
docs to Google, and the company's management requires the docs to be
behind a user name and password, it seems in order to provide social
media, a wiki and user forums could be provided on the company's Web
site. It just won't be public. I think customers will still create
their own social media unless the company does a stellar job on their
own site.

> On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 1:12 PM, Gina Fevrier <ginafromta...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
> > I'm not sure if the Content Strategy SIG is the proper place for this
> > question, but I'll start here.  I read recently that if you don't put
> > your user docs on the Web and make sure they're searchable, you may
> > lose control of your brand, and users will create their own sites for
> > your products.   (I believe Rahel Bailie presented this during an STC
> > event.)  A company I know recently decided to make their user docs and
> > knowledgebase only available for customers with a serial number.  They
> > didn't show up in a Google search before, but at least non-customers
> > (prospects) could get to the docs.  One of their products has an
> > independent user forum that was started by a customer.  The other is
> > owned by the company but on Yahoo.   Can anyone talk about the
> > advantages and disadvantages of making your user docs private vs
> > public ? I like Adobe's public model where social media is on their
> > Web site, but searchable by all users with a browser.  You have to
> > have a user name and password to post to the forum, but anyone can
> > search.
>
> > --
>
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "STC Content Strategy SIG" group.
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> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

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> > .

> > For more options, visit this group at

[Kristi Leach]

Your questions in the previous email were good, too. It's probably not correct to think of it as a niche market. I tend to assume that other professions don't turn to the web as quickly as tech comm does for tool information, and while there may be some smidgeon of truth to that, it's not something I've spent much time checking out. Now I'm curious.

From trying to find comparable docs when we've had design discussions, we don't find access to competitor docs.

It would be great to make our content all searchable, once the user got past the login point.

-----Original Message-----
From: Gina Fevrier [mailto:ginafr...@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 12:11 PM
To: STC Content Strategy SIG
Subject: [STC-CS] Re: User docs including wiki and user forums only accessible to customers

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[Anne Gentle]

I'm enjoying this discussion and appreciate you mentioning my book,
Destry - thanks. I've talked with Gina on email about the particulars
of locking content behind a login, but apparently the value
proposition of having linkable content (with links being the currency
of the web today) is not higher than some trust or control value that
the company holds.

I have a hard time finding research backing any claims that you could
take up the corporate chain that would weigh the scales towards the
other value proposition (that linkable content contains a currency you
want to collect rather than a liability or risk you want to mitigate).
One interesting one I've seen quoted lately in community management
circles is that Cisco reported in 2004 that "43 percent of visits to
online support forums are in lieu of opening a support case through
standard methods." (from
http://www.smallcompanybigimage.com/5-business-goals-an-online-customer-community-can-help-you-achieve/)
From that study you might be able to talk about cost controlling
support interactions by "freeing" the content. Also, on useit.com,
Jakob Neilson has an alertbox about trustworthy websites -
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990307.html. In a way, your company may
be saying that they want the content to seem "trusted" and requiring a
login may help with that perception. Your Confluence wiki will have
levels of login permissions, naturally, so you might start with
internal users having the most permissions and external users having
limited permissions (comments and/or ratings only, maybe.) Anyway,
think about your goals with the wiki, and if you can't reach a goal
due to limitations on permissions, keep questioning the lockdown on
content. :)

Side note - I'd love to see a study that states a threshold of the
number customers that typically start their own "support" or "help"
sites - think it's in the tens of thousands? :)

Hope that's helpful - it's a tough business case to make in lots of
corporate cultures.
Anne

> > >http://groups.google.com/group/stc-cs?hl=.-Hide quoted text -

[Gina Fevrier]

Anne,

 

Thank you so much for the reply and especially the Cisco reference.  If we could prove somehow that putting our user docs behind a user name and password might cause more support calls, management might be willing to make our docs publicly available again.  I still like Adobe's model of free access to anyone, but requiring a login to post.  I'm planning on cross-posting this with the STC Usability SIG as well.  Maybe they know of some studies we can cite.

 

Gina Fevrier