Information Mapping

["Smith, Amy" <Amy -dot- Smith -at- FMR -dot- COM>]

On June 20, Don Turnbull wrote:

"Please let me know if you can find out anything about info mapping."

Don,

I'm not an InfoMapping expert, but I did take one of their three-day
classes. They're located here in Mass. - I'll put their address at the
bottom of this posting.

In a nutshell, Information Mapping is an approach to organizing information.
The InfoMapping system emphasizes information "chunking" and format
consistency. It's a formulaic approach that can be useful in companies where
documentation resources are scarce. There is one word to describe their
approach - tables! Lots and lots of tables!

To many, InfoMapping is practically a religion. I am not a convert. There
are many useful aspects to it; I learned new ways to think about and
approach the information I'm writing about. The problem I have with
InfoMapping is that it seems like a "Jenny Craig" approach to documentation
 - a tidy little package that has everything you need and  solves all your
problems (no flames from successful Jenny Craig customers, please!). I don't
believe that all documentation can be addressed that way. That's certainly
not the case where I work. And, IMHO, I think manuals with page after page
of tables are boring.

On the other hand, if you're the only writing resource in your company, this
may be the way to go. It's easy to get contract help to write to your
company standards then - many contractors (at least in this area) have
Information Mapping training, and they could hit the ground running.

Hope this helps. The InfoMapping address is

Information Mapping
300 Third Ave.
Waltham, MA 02154
(800)MAP-4544

Good luck!

Amy Smith
Documentation specialist
Fidelity Investments
amy -dot- smith -at- fmr -dot- com