Collin Canright

Useful documentation is one of the most important elements for a growing business. Whatever you’re working on, the ability to quickly bring new team members up to speed is a major advantage in efficiency.

That said, for many businesses, good information is hard to find. So-called Tribal Knowledge, where only certain employees within a business have any real knowledge about products, customers, or processes, is by far the rule of the day for most.  

For a rapidly-growing company, information that only exists inside the heads of a few people may as well not exist at all. Finding a route to a good documentation strategy is critical, and it’s simpler than it may seem at first blush to organize effectively.

Make a Plan

Developing a thought-out, organized structure for your documentation is a critical step to take before ever opening a Word document. The better thought-out your specific strategies for content structure before you get started, the stronger foundation you’ll have to keep everything organized.

Keep it Simple!

You don’t have to overthink the structure. It’s tempting, particularly with more complicated subject matters, to create deep, nesting hierarchies of folders that are hyperspecialized to individual topics. This is a trap, as it can be difficult to navigate and, more critically, time-consuming and complex to create in the first place.  

Keep the categories simple and focused on the most important functions and processes for the organization.  

Centralize Control

For many organizations, documentation that exists is built out in an ad hoc way, with each user who has something new to add putting up a new folder or space for their own documentation. This way lies chaos. To keep that information accessible, centralize control over documentation structure with users adhering to the format of one overall vision for your content.

Giving users the ability to add the content they need ensures that the tribe’s needs and desires are met. Focusing that content on a centralized structure and style provides the guard rails which ensure that content is readable, accessible, and usable.

Aligning business with technology can be daunting. The ever-present drumbeat of advancement can be hard to keep up with, particularly in the face of institutional inertia.

But, implemented well, digital technologies like cloud development, FinTech solutions, and digital asset systems, can represent a real opportunity for all financial businesses big and small. They can help keep ahead of client expectations and meet them more cost-effectively.

The key to digital success is embracing an operating model in which business and technology are aligned and unified. Technical communicators can help by making sure business executives and technology leaders understand one another.

Perspectives may differ, but effective technical communicators can ensure that all teams are aligned on desired outcomes, which can include:

• Retain clients.
• Provide better margins to existing lines of business.
• Build new distribution channels for both existing and new clients.
• Increase market reach.
• Target new revenue sources.

Many of the problems that new technologies can solve are ones that less efficient business models have yet to consider. Canright communications consultants help clarify the problems and potential solutions.

We focus our business-alignment assignments on three primary technology themes.

1. To survive, become technology-focused and evolve quickly.

In short, technology focused on solving business problems will be the differentiator for asset and wealth managers. Investing in technical talents, such as data scientists and high-level developers, will remain important. Adopting digital and cloud technologies is important as well.

2. To become more efficient, tie specific technologies into broader processes.

It’s imperative for technology to provide workflow and cost efficiencies to all business and product lines, especially as today’s regulatory environment changes compensation patterns in advisory firms.  

Technical challenges lie in rationalizing hardware systems, software interfaces, and data models. Too often, the focus on “legacy systems” leaves out data models and data quality.

3. To thrive, stay a step ahead of your clients.

Clients today want asset and wealth managers to anticipate their needs, to know what they need before they ask for it. That will make the difference in retaining existing clients and winning new business.

Technology can help businesses stay a step ahead. Business models and technical systems must be able to adjust and adapt to quickly changing markets.

Support for the front lines of the business is important as well. For all the things automation can do to reduce operating costs, for instance, the heart of the business still comes from personal contact.

Technology that makes this happen may go beyond what’s comfortable for both business and tech organizations. But with proper alignment, it’s possible to stretch while maintaining the security and trustworthiness that forms the bedrock of all businesses.

In writing blog posts for clients and ourselves, Canright focuses on five major types of blogs. These posts run the gamut from spot news to big ideas, and all help you gain interest in your company and generate traffic to your site.

1. Identify a Trend. A staple of media reporting is the trends story. A trends post can start with a report on industry surveys in order to show a trend. “Wealth Technology that Personalizes Portfolios,” by FinTech Rising, takes the trend post a step further. In the piece, product providers advise investment advisors on how they can use technology to retain their trusted positions with clients.

2. Present a Case Study. Case studies are the bread-and-butter of marketing communications and blog posts. They are also great ways to gain a position in search results. For example, a recent case study written for the North Central Terrazzo Association (NCTA), titled “Breathing Life Back into an Architectural Wonder,” highlights a terrazzo project that was part of a large-scale renovation project to bring the Bottleworks Hotel in Indianapolis back to life.

3. Develop an Idea. Leaders in their fields develop new ideas and knowledge. In “Principled Capitalism: A Pragmatic Approach to Corporate Governance,” Don Delves, president of executive compensation consulting firm The Delves Group, writes about capitalism under attack. Based on his experience at a recent conference, he proposes five principles for capitalism, which he will develop in subsequent posts.

4. Build on the News. There are times when an issue gets a lot of media attention. When a lot of coverage hits, a post that wraps it all up provides an opportunity to get the news in front of your network once again. For example, the article titled “Safeguard Your Business from Cybercrime” from Dubuque Bank and Trust is a good example of how you can use current news to showcase your solutions.

5. Make an Announcement. You can also announce a new product or service. Lyonscg used its blog to write about the different types of Quality Assurance in software as a way of announcing its new methodology.

There are other many other types of posts you can experiment with for your business. From covering news and interviewing subject matter experts to teaching techniques and demonstrating your business value, the sky is the limit. What others types of posts do you enjoy reading or writing about?