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Re: Follow-up to question about getting feedback from users
Subject:Re: Follow-up to question about getting feedback from users From:David Farbey <dfarbey -at- yahoo -dot- co -dot- uk> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:25:30 +0100
I'm coming in late on this question, because I have been at the
Technical Communications UK (TCUK09) conference for the last couple of
days (Mike Hamilton was there, by the way), and please forgive me if my
comments are at a little bit of a tangent to this thread.
One of the themes that emerged from TCUK09 was the importance of
engaging in conversations with your customers. New media and new
technology offer enormous opportunities for being in contact with
customers, but it's important that these contacts aren't just seen as
statistical tracking exercises or as just another sales and marketing
channel - corporations have to be prepared to listen to feedback and to
act on it.
In his closing keynote address to TCUK09 yesterday, RJ Jacquez of Adobe
pointed out that Technical Communicators are well placed to lead the way
in engaging with customers - many of us are already involved in social
media through our own blogs and our own Twitter and Facebook accounts,
and most of us are genuinely interested in knowing what our customers
think of the documentation we prepare, how they use it, and how we can
make it even better.
Robert Lauriston wrote:
> I suspect it doesn't actually work that way.
>
> On Sep 24, 2009 4:08 PM, "Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- polycom -dot- com> wrote:
>
> Robert Lauriston wrote: > This isn't about you as the docs manager. It's a
> privacy issue for the >...
> Not only does it collect data without permission, and with no privacy
> policy or other protections for the user -- it apparently does this
> _surreptitiously_, without the user's _knowledge_.
>
> I'm just gobsmacked that a seemingly reputable company would promote
> such a "feature" and that a seemingly intelligent person can't see the
> ethical and legal problems with it.
>
> Richard
>
>
> Richard G. Combs
> Senior Technical Writer
> Polycom, Inc.
> richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> 303-223-5111
> ------
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436
> ------
>
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