People to People Ambassador Program to The People’s Republic of China

Technical Communication Delegation

Linda Oestreich, STC Fellow and Delegation Leader Jenny Redfern, STC Senior MemberAlexia Idoura, STC Senior Member

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Agenda

Delegation overview, background, and goals1

Beijing2

Guilin3

Shanghai4

Conclusions—professional and personal5

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Delegation overview, background, and goals

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2008 STC delegation to China

15 professionals and 5 guests

A global and multifaceted group

USA, Canada, Belgium, and Australia/Indonesia

HP, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Molex, Accenture, American Academy of Dermatology, Acrolinx, Geomodeling, and others

Writers, trainers, managers, application developers

Computer software and hardware, health care, geophysical exploration, telecomm, nuclear exploration, and other industries

Detailed delegate list on delegate blog: http://techcommchina.livejournal.com

One of several P2P delegations in China at the time: Ground Water Specialists, Midwives, Phlebotomists, and Emergency Room Nurses

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Today's panel

Linda L. Oestreich, Delegation Leader, STC Fellow and Past President (Hewlett-Packard Company)

Jenny R. Redfern, Delegate, STC Senior Member (Sun Microsystems, Inc.)

Alexia Idoura, Delegate, STC Senior Member (Symantec Corporation)

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People to People Citizen Ambassador Program

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower founded an organization to promote world peace and understanding: People to People.

Eisenhower believed strongly in the power of the citizen ambassador. According to him, “the people want peace; indeed, I believe they want peace so badly that the governments will just have to step aside and let them have it.”

Since that time, thousands of delegates have explored fascinating destinations — from North America to Europe, Asia, Africa, the South Pacific and even Antarctica — making friends all along the way.

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Cities on our journey

Beijing

Municipality

Capital of China

Northeast

~14 million

~latitude of Denver or Baltimore

Guilin

ln the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region bordering Vietnam

<1 million/city; ~5 million in area

~ latitude of Key West, FL

Shanghai

Municipality

Southeast coast

~17 million

~ latitude of Gulfport, MS

Western influence

Financial/high tech

Pudong = Silicon Valley, The Bund = European waterfront

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On the map

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Goals of the trip

Gain a better understanding of the common interests and challenges we share with our colleagues in China

Assess the state of technical communication and content development in China

Investigate starting an STC chapter in China

(And later, investigate starting an STC China SIG)

Learn more about China to support STC’s goal of becoming a more global organization

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Beijing

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Cultural days

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From the P2P in-country briefingIn-country guides spoke at length about Chinese history and recent cultural changes.

“Dramatic changes are happening. Practice makes perfect.”

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Professional agenda: Peking University Host: Professor Lai Mao-Sheng

Department of Information Management

Formerly Dept. of Library and Info. Science

Established in 1947

One of its students invented Baidu, the Chinese version of Google

Hosted previous STC delegation, in 2002

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Professional agenda: Peking University

Presentations from profs and grad students

Research and practice of techcomm in China

Relationship between media literacy and new media use

CIO as a new role in China: turning technical information into business information

Selling IT to the organization: using understandable terminology, common language

Designing and delivering information in the new China: Digital Museum of Science and Art

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Peking University: STC presentations

Presentations from delegates

Current state of the profession in the West

Curriculum of one techcomm Masters program in the US, returning to school for a second career, working and going to school

Distance learning: Masters in techcomm

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Professor Lai’s business card

Chief Member, Council of China’s Information Association

Member, Council of the China Society for Sci-Tech Information

Chief member, Council of the Chinese Association of Information Economics

Chief Member, Council of the China Society for Sci-/Tech Journalism

Director of the National Institute for Information Resource Management (Beijing)

Consultant, Occupation Skill Testing Authority, Ministry of Labor and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China

• “We have two very different ideas about technical communications. In China, technical communications is more about communicating with the people. In the U.S., technical communications is about communicating about products in technology and business.”

“I graduated from Peking University, and have been teaching here ever since. Some years have been difficult. In the 1980s, Chinese businesses and industry began to grow, and to make attractive offers to our students. For several years, more of our graduates would go to work in industry rather than return to the university to obtain graduate degrees.”

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Chinese netizen’s top requirements

Accessibility: in China, this means making online content comprehensible to a wide audience, i.e., young people and those with less education

Content must be designed to

Entertain

Inform and communicate visually

Create interest

Be usable

Information architecture to address these needs includes

Content organization

Two levels deep

Taxonomy/tags

Behavior design

Visual design (function over form, invisible design)

Technical considerations (standards, search, content management)

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Professional agenda: Beijing Association of Science and Technology

BAST purpose

Bridge between scientists and technologists, and government

Popularize science with lay community, especially youth• Youth Science and Technology Innovation Contest

Develop international academic exchanges

Scientific think tank for local agencies

Presentations

BAST: Website to popularize science

STC: Why tech writers should develop medical information

Discussion

Popularizing science in China

Developing a digital information base

Role of professional associations in technical communication

Skills that make for successful job candidates in techcomm

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Professional agenda: Digital Industry Development Base

Beijing Cyber Recreation District (CRD)

First virtual reality interactive

economic zone

Experiencing

Entertaining

Interacting

Competing

Interesting environment – white gleaming tubular walls, meeting rooms in concentric circles, seating in modular form

Theme music!

Dotman and Dotwoman on the bathroom doors...

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Presentations at the BCRD

Overview: Hosts emphasize that the Chinese audience is more visually oriented, and Westerners are more text oriented (And the presentations demonstrated this)

Kent Taylor on technology for information quality management (Acrolinx IQ Suite)—possibly will help them write better English

DotMan: a business-focused virtual world, similar to Second Life, but more secure and user-friendly

DotMan estimates they have 150 million Avatars with 7 million online at any one time (Second Life’s figures are 10 million and 50K respectively).

They have 9 similar worlds in the pipeline

Virtual worlds are fast becoming used for business meetings, distance learning, banking, shopping, etc.

Gartner states that in 5 years, 80% of regular internet users will have a virtual world presence.

See Virtual Worlds and China

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BCRD: Tour of computer graphics companies

Computer graphics business is big in China

Outsourcing all phases of development

Great first jobs for new CE university grads

Two companies have development offices in the BCRD

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Guilin

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Cultural days

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What were the four ancient Chinese inventions?

1. Papermaking, gunpowder, printing, the compass

2. Papermaking, gunpowder, printing, the wheel

3. Papermaking, ink, printing, the compass4. Spaghetti, gunpowder, printing, the

compass

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Professional agenda: Guilin Hunter Information Industry Ltd. Corp

Guilin Hunter Information Industry Limited Corporation

Chairman and Professor of Guilin University in Dept of Electronic Sciences

Main areas of business: software outsourcing, product development (RFID), information service products

Very interested in impact of economic problems in US

Interesting thoughts about India vs. China (next slide)

Two software engineers just returned from Japan

More interested in Asian partners than the West

Hs in the logo stand for Hunter-Highway-Hero: • Honesty, information & innovation• We must find our own characteristics in the sea of information• Listed on stock exchange: strategic goals for 2015: 1000 employees & $50M

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Guilin Hunter chairman’s thoughts on advantages of India vs. China

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Professional agenda: Guilin Programmers Club

Guilin Programmers Club

Engineers are the same the world over

Not so aware of tech comm, so it might be a good educational opportunity

Very aware of importance of professional societies, though; this one sponsored by Microsoft

One asked why Americans write narrative and personal stories when he just wants step-by-step instructions

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Shanghai

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Cultural days

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Accenture Strategic Delivery Organization, Greater China

Accenture is well-known throughout the world.

One of the "Big 5" in the global consulting industry.

More than 3000 employees in China, specializing in four areas: consulting, outsourcing, solutions, and technical support.

By far most relaxed, open discussion – very little “protocol”

Similarities and differences in our culture (Why do you…?) See list on next slide

Open feel: even non-Accenture employees were invited to join us

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Discussion topics at AccentureWe made observations about the similarities and differences in our

cultures:

China's "learning from a master" culture: our mentors

How the long history affects the rate of change in China

Engaging employees—both their minds and their hearts

"Creative" and "people" work versus "logical" and "machine" work

Today’s employees are looking for the complete package--not just the salary, but benefits and the company's culture

What hiring managers look for in potential employees, and how to retain employees

Hiring professional coaches for executives

The best way to train, leading to a discussion on visual communication, and "culturally loaded icons." :-)

Copyright protection discussion, re: Microsoft's actions against piracy of its software in China. It's estimated that 50-60% of MS software is pirated; they have launched an anti-piracy tool targeting Chinese computer users to ensure they buy genuine software.

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HP Global Development China Center

Software outsourcing, the whole lifecycle (R&D through packaging)

GDCC Agenda

International collaboration, virtual teams, knowledge management

Intercultural communication and business opportunities for technical communication consultants as solution providers in China

Some miscommunication initially around techcomm, but quickly turned around when we talked to actual writers

Tour: could be any dev site anywhere. Cubes, strong focus on courting Japan

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Dr. Andy Lai, General Manager at GDCC

Requirement to improve localization and communication--forming deeper relationships with global companies represented in China.

The growth of global enterprise is expanding quickly, and scale of relationships is global (remote teams)

GDCC has 3,400 employees in China.

Growth is expected to continue for GDCC along with all economic growth in China because of low labor costs, availability of great talent, and the low cost of living in China.

A huge challenge: necessity for non-Chinese language training so that improvements can continue in stronger communication, especially at the technical levels.

Desires to improve technical writing efforts in Korean, Japanese, and English for the Chinese writers.

Discussed rapid growth of technical abilities in China with new construction and new software applications, all increasing the need for more focus on the end users of software. That end-user focus drives an increased importance of competence for [technical] writers in the localized language of the end users.

Recognizes the need of good English end-user guides and the necessity to build the skills within HP GDCC.

Applauded STC Delegation's efforts and endorsed the benefits of exchanging ideas; he hopes to work more with STC in future.

Discussed "Open Mouth," a volunteer-run language learning program based on the immersion learning method that focuses primarily on speaking.

Although English is part of the Chinese standard education curriculum, Dr. Lai said that many official English teachers in China have learned Chinese without ever hearing any native English speakers speak.

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Conclusions: professional and personal

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Our professional conclusions

Overall

Juxtaposition of old and new in every aspect of life and business

Friendliness of people

Western influence: very important, but more in certain areas

Sensory overload

Freedoms and restrictions, i.e. Internet access

Many were interested in tech comm, but few knew it as a profession

Understanding and use of tech comm varies widely

Larger US-based and -influenced companies are more sophisticated

More universities are developing programs

Small, local companies are more likely to have engineers do the writing

Most companies start by hiring English majors, often through L10N• Tech comm is not credentialed and rarely organized

Most professionals in China write and produce their own docs•The exceptions are large companies and foreign companies

Regional differences

Shanghai = most sophisticated about tech com, Guilin the least, Beijing in the middle, more traditional

Don’t underestimate China’s determination and ability to be successful – need to watch and see how the profession develops

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InfoDev in China and India: Conclusions (by Hackos/CIDM)

Organizations offshore for many reasons, not only to cut costs

Successful organizations have carefully planned their implementations

Many offshore implementations are co-located with product development

Addressing cultural differences is important to success

Organizations use on-site managers with cultural experience in both West and East

Hiring is difficult because of English skills

Organizations provide training after hiring

Successful implementations have more than six information developers at startup

Startup costs are high; ongoing costs, other than salary, are higher than domestic costs

Savings are not as high as expected, based on salary differences

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Our personal conclusions

China's size and will to succeed give it enormous momentum

China has an enormous national (internal) audience yet to be addressed by tech comm

Accessible has very different meanings

West: Content available to persons with disabilities

China: Content available to lower classes and younger people

Communication has very different meanings

West: Expressing information

China: Building relationships

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Reflections from Linda

The juxtaposition of extremely old and extremely new.

The constant ant-like activity of the construction trades everywhere you looked.

The chaotic traffic and constant near-misses.

The connection and collaboration of our delegation.

The beauty of Guilin (even in the rain).

The fun of walking in the rain.

The grandeur and history of the Great Wall.

The graciousness of our hosts.

The tenacity of the street vendors.

The etched faces of the older women in the countryside.

The toothless old man who wanted to sell two really ugly turquoise-colored Chinese lions.

The overpowering surrealism of the whole trip.

The gratitude I feel for having been part of it.

And, the knowledge that the world truly is minuscule and that we can all coexist if we only open our minds and hearts.

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Resources and suggested readings

People to People web site

Official trip journal

Delegation blog

Some interesting books and articles

Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China

China Shakes the World: A Titan's Rise and Troubled Future -- and the Challenge for America

What Does China Think?

China Modernizes: Threat to the West or Model for the Rest?

Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade

The Atlantic: “Their Own Worst Enemy,” James Fallows, November 2008.

If interested in an STC China SIG, please email Linda and let her know.

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Questions?

Thank you!

Linda Oestreich: linda.oestreich@hp.com

Jenny Redfern: Jenny.Redfern@Sun.COM

Alexia Idoura: alexia_idoura@symantec.com