Featured TC: Ruth Hamilton

September

Emma Harding recently spoke to Ruth Hamilton of WritersInc Ltd. about her history with TechCommNZ and her work as a technical communicator and business owner in Auckland.

Tell me about WritersInc Ltd

We’ve been in business since 1998. Currently there are four employees in the business – me, senior writer Niki Bailey, and two newer recruits – Shamili Kovvuru and Louie Oliver. We also have several contractors we can call on as needed.

What sort of work does the team do?

We do lots of writing and template development, and deliver training programmes. We mainly write standard operating procedures, training collateral, compliance manuals, and health and safety documentation. We also help businesses write proposals for government contracts. We do a lot of work in traditional Word and PDF format, but encourage businesses to adopt online formats. We've seen several poor implementations of Author-It, which has put their managers off using any authoring tool, which is a pity.

Our team has a real mix of skills, with writing as the core, but we are also proactive in helping clients solve broader problems, such as documentation management, incorporating industry standards into their operating systems and even helping them communicate between departments. We are often called in to help when a client has an audit coming up and they need to ensure their documentation meets the required standards. We're good at analysing what the auditor wants to see, and we add value by making the resulting documents work for the company.

How long have you been involved with TechCommNZ?

I was in at the start when the organisation was NZTWA [New Zealand Technical Writers Association]. In those days the organisation had a heavy focus on writing for the software industry, but in fact WritersInc isn't currently involved in much of this type of work.

I actually served as NZTWA President for about 3 years, starting in 1999, but it became increasingly difficult to be President and run my own business, so I stood down in 2001.

How has business been for you over the last few years?

It was difficult from the middle to the end of the recession – businesses hunkered down and pricing was tricky. Businesses went for the lowest priced contractor without recognising the benefit of working with a team of writers.

When WritersInc first started, I used to make a lot of phone calls, asking companies "do you need any help with your documentation?" Responses ranged from "What? You like doing the documentation - you should get a life!" to "no, our software developers do the writing". I always asked whether their developers enjoyed doing the documentation, or were any good at it – and pointed out that while they were documenting, they were not developing!

With one guy, I actually asked him whether he was ever going to want a technical writer, and whether I should keep ringing him every month. He replied that I should keep calling because he "quite enjoyed our conversations".

You've got some young writers with you in the business now – what's your advice to them?

I encourage our new writers to follow our documentation standards but also to think outside the box. We like to be personable and helpful. Personality is important, and confidence (but not over-confidence). We expect everyone to work hard, but we also want to enjoy our work. We should always be looking for opportunities to add extra value, for example, by improving business processes, or improving communication between departments. We aim to make sure clients get value for money and if there is a fixed budget, we try to do the best we can do with that budget.

Humour can help people remember things better, especially when used during training sessions. It doesn't mean you're not taking the job seriously. Sometimes, however, we have to be prepared to be firm with our customers. For example, when an employee tells us senior management do not want to be involved in health and safety, I am quite happy to ask their senior managers how they would feel about a $600,000.00 fine!

What jobs have recently given you particular satisfaction?

Oh, I can think of several! Niki has been involved with writing a quality manual and supporting documentation to meet Home-Based Healthcare standards. This has resulted in the company consistently passing audits and making an overall improvement in their quality management.

We have one client who was used to writing his own proposals, but suddenly wasn't winning the work he was aiming for. He asked us to help - and he's just reported back that the latest proposal was ranked number 1 from the whole of New Zealand.

Another, bigger project we've been working on for the last few years has been very interesting. We have written a wide range of operating procedures for the University of Auckland Property Services. We have also been involved with a review of their Health & Safety system, relevant to building and maintenance contractors. Property Services embarked on a programme to improve contractor safety compliance. We've worked with them, writing and delivering their H & S induction programme. Now every contractor is required to complete the induction before working at the University.

Recently, as a Board member of the Brain Injury Association, Auckland, I wrote up their strategic plan. It turned out to be very timely as the reporting requirements for charitable organisations have recently changed. Fortunately the way the plan is written will make it easy for us to comply, which is very gratifying.

WritersInc runs training programmes teaching topic-based writing for standard operating procedures, reports, proposals, and other documentation. For more details, see their website http://www.writersinc.co.nz/.