Saturday
Feb212009
PDF = "Keep your comments to yourself, fartknocker." -- 6 things you're probably doing to alienate friends and co-workers when you publish documents
Saturday, February 21, 2009 at 7:57AM
I was working on a document the other day that was going to be reviewed by a number of colleagues at work. I normally write in a plain text editor (Coda, by Panic Software. Great kids.) But because of where I'd started the document, I had to export to PDF and send it out.
I typed up the email to send out the PDF, soliciting, obviously, comments and suggestions from the receiving group. And I realized I was basically sending out an in-process document bound up in the electronic equivalent of a sealed plastic clamshell. I was asking for feedback, but by publishing in an (essentially) uneditable form, I was saying "If you have changes, you'll have to email, IM, text or phone ME. Then we can talk about your changes. Maybe I'll find them valid. Maybe I'll edit your face." In a lot of ways it felt like a real copydick move. And it really wasn't intended to be.
Thus, #1 of my list of 6 things that you might be (un/intentionally) doing to alienate friends and co-workers when you publish documents. And I'll be the first to admit to every single one of these.
>>You publish PDFs for documents still in discussion. Yeah, I know that Adobe Acrobat has mark-up tools. Using them like trying to knit wearing mittens. And whether or not the recipient's copy of Acrobat is set up to handle, open, etc. the comments people have put in place is anyone's guess. Remedy: Don't publish working docs as PDFs. Ever.
>>You fail to attach the documents under discussion once a long email chain begins, assuming all involved have saved the attached document. This is a tough one for me to remember sometimes. In a document destined to make the rounds within a large work group, hitting REPLY is fine. However, hitting REPLY without making sure the doc in question is attached almost guarantees that someone will want to weigh in late in the process, go to open the document, and not have it attached. Remedy: Attach the document that is not a PDF the first time every time.
>>You ask respondents to reply/mark-up in a format of your choosing rather than theirs. Asking recipients to "just turn on Track Changes and do your thing" is like telling them to make markups with crayons and leave the pages on your desk overnight. You have no way of really knowing that everyone's changes made it into the final version. And with Microsoft Word especially, that Accept/Reject Changes thing is iffy at best, greatly increasing the chances that the comment you received from Packaging mocking the client's request for information will make it into the document. Remedy: When you attach the document that is not a PDF and send it around for review, consider suggesting they print a paper copy (sacrelige!) to mark on.
>> You publish from the beta of some word processing app you've just started using. Yay for the bleeding edge. And yes, at some point, the real-time 3D collaboration in hyperspace module of GroupWriter will revolutionize the way that groups co-write. But the fact that your doc will require a decoder plug-in available for free download from a domain ending in .it is just un-necessary. Remedy: Write the document that is not a PDF that you want to have reviewed and commented upon to the lowest common denominator -- even if that means figuring out something that can be read by Lotus Notes by Jim in Procurement.
>> You publish to an online collaborative space that requires your friends and co-workers to register, sign in, or otherwise qualify themselves to read your document. Even Google Docs, which has made it somewhat less heinous to share documents online, has yet to prove out with autosaving and tracking changes. It's not that realtime, on-line collaboration is completely FAIL. It's just that it's still a little bit rough around the edges. Remedy: Consider sending out the non-PDF document that you've attached in a common format as a review then pull together all the interested parties and have a real-live sit-down mark-up meeting. You'll be surprised how quickly the comments get reviewed and processed when a number of people have been dragged into a room to finalize the Zarniwoop Presentation.
>> You choose the wrong medium for the message. E-mail is not a platform for policy. Email is not a desktop publishing program. Email that scrolls on "below the fold" is too long. Email that CCs to entire company that doesn't come from top management once in a blue moon doesn't get read. Stop using email as the bully pulpit. Remedy: If the document that is not a PDF is getting published, instead, as a lengthy email, ask yourself "Is someone going to get their knickers in a knot over this?" Then answer "Yes." Simply put, if you want a bunch of people to read and respond effectively, email can turn into a quick game of electronic air hockey, with messages playing the role of battered plastic puck. Lots of excitement and noise, but at some point, a bad hit is going to send it spiraling off the table on to the floor.
>> - SPECIAL BONUS THING - Formatting. Don't. This blog entry not withstanding, think how much time you waste justifying, bolding, underlining, text-boxing, bordering, etc. My guess is that for every 20 minutes of real writing you do, you spend the next 5 farting around with the Format Palette. Microsoft Word taught the American Office Drudge to use hanging indents like toilet paper. You know what? No one gives a rat's ass. They want to see the idea expressed quickly and succinctly. Remedy: Man up, close all those freaking palette bars and write more succinctly. When I write, I use double carriage returns to set off key thoughts and two >> to indicate a bullet. It all justifies flesh left. Doesn't mean my writing's any better than yours. Just maybe less fancified.
Think about it this way ... Studs Terkel spent most of his career on a typewriter. So did Norman Mailer. Ditto Woodward and Bernstein. And do have any idea how hard it is to do a bold, italic, underlined, nested hanging indent on a typewriter? It creates like a tear in the time-space continuum. Suffering results.
So don't be a copydick. Make friends. Influence people. Change minds. Do it all by writing simpler and talking face to face more.
I typed up the email to send out the PDF, soliciting, obviously, comments and suggestions from the receiving group. And I realized I was basically sending out an in-process document bound up in the electronic equivalent of a sealed plastic clamshell. I was asking for feedback, but by publishing in an (essentially) uneditable form, I was saying "If you have changes, you'll have to email, IM, text or phone ME. Then we can talk about your changes. Maybe I'll find them valid. Maybe I'll edit your face." In a lot of ways it felt like a real copydick move. And it really wasn't intended to be.
Thus, #1 of my list of 6 things that you might be (un/intentionally) doing to alienate friends and co-workers when you publish documents. And I'll be the first to admit to every single one of these.
>>You publish PDFs for documents still in discussion. Yeah, I know that Adobe Acrobat has mark-up tools. Using them like trying to knit wearing mittens. And whether or not the recipient's copy of Acrobat is set up to handle, open, etc. the comments people have put in place is anyone's guess. Remedy: Don't publish working docs as PDFs. Ever.
>>You fail to attach the documents under discussion once a long email chain begins, assuming all involved have saved the attached document. This is a tough one for me to remember sometimes. In a document destined to make the rounds within a large work group, hitting REPLY is fine. However, hitting REPLY without making sure the doc in question is attached almost guarantees that someone will want to weigh in late in the process, go to open the document, and not have it attached. Remedy: Attach the document that is not a PDF the first time every time.
>>You ask respondents to reply/mark-up in a format of your choosing rather than theirs. Asking recipients to "just turn on Track Changes and do your thing" is like telling them to make markups with crayons and leave the pages on your desk overnight. You have no way of really knowing that everyone's changes made it into the final version. And with Microsoft Word especially, that Accept/Reject Changes thing is iffy at best, greatly increasing the chances that the comment you received from Packaging mocking the client's request for information will make it into the document. Remedy: When you attach the document that is not a PDF and send it around for review, consider suggesting they print a paper copy (sacrelige!) to mark on.
>> You publish from the beta of some word processing app you've just started using. Yay for the bleeding edge. And yes, at some point, the real-time 3D collaboration in hyperspace module of GroupWriter will revolutionize the way that groups co-write. But the fact that your doc will require a decoder plug-in available for free download from a domain ending in .it is just un-necessary. Remedy: Write the document that is not a PDF that you want to have reviewed and commented upon to the lowest common denominator -- even if that means figuring out something that can be read by Lotus Notes by Jim in Procurement.
>> You publish to an online collaborative space that requires your friends and co-workers to register, sign in, or otherwise qualify themselves to read your document. Even Google Docs, which has made it somewhat less heinous to share documents online, has yet to prove out with autosaving and tracking changes. It's not that realtime, on-line collaboration is completely FAIL. It's just that it's still a little bit rough around the edges. Remedy: Consider sending out the non-PDF document that you've attached in a common format as a review then pull together all the interested parties and have a real-live sit-down mark-up meeting. You'll be surprised how quickly the comments get reviewed and processed when a number of people have been dragged into a room to finalize the Zarniwoop Presentation.
>> You choose the wrong medium for the message. E-mail is not a platform for policy. Email is not a desktop publishing program. Email that scrolls on "below the fold" is too long. Email that CCs to entire company that doesn't come from top management once in a blue moon doesn't get read. Stop using email as the bully pulpit. Remedy: If the document that is not a PDF is getting published, instead, as a lengthy email, ask yourself "Is someone going to get their knickers in a knot over this?" Then answer "Yes." Simply put, if you want a bunch of people to read and respond effectively, email can turn into a quick game of electronic air hockey, with messages playing the role of battered plastic puck. Lots of excitement and noise, but at some point, a bad hit is going to send it spiraling off the table on to the floor.
>> - SPECIAL BONUS THING - Formatting. Don't. This blog entry not withstanding, think how much time you waste justifying, bolding, underlining, text-boxing, bordering, etc. My guess is that for every 20 minutes of real writing you do, you spend the next 5 farting around with the Format Palette. Microsoft Word taught the American Office Drudge to use hanging indents like toilet paper. You know what? No one gives a rat's ass. They want to see the idea expressed quickly and succinctly. Remedy: Man up, close all those freaking palette bars and write more succinctly. When I write, I use double carriage returns to set off key thoughts and two >> to indicate a bullet. It all justifies flesh left. Doesn't mean my writing's any better than yours. Just maybe less fancified.
Think about it this way ... Studs Terkel spent most of his career on a typewriter. So did Norman Mailer. Ditto Woodward and Bernstein. And do have any idea how hard it is to do a bold, italic, underlined, nested hanging indent on a typewriter? It creates like a tear in the time-space continuum. Suffering results.
So don't be a copydick. Make friends. Influence people. Change minds. Do it all by writing simpler and talking face to face more.
Reader Comments (1)
I commonly make the email (what's on this side of faux pas?) mistake of a short bit of text and a long bit of caveat remarks.
However, I think you've covered the majority.