Comments for ISV Kaizen

Comment on Does the good documentation increase the load of technical support? by Mike Wethington

Mike Wethington — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:06:55 +0000

…Documentation has so much cool stuff described, that it makes people’s imagination stimulated and they start thinking of other, even more exotic stuff they want to do but can not figure out and start a service request for it…

I would call this an opportunity to make more revenue. Either charge for the services that customers want delivered or, if enough interest, create new features/functionality in the product to upsell to customers.

Sounds like Doc transitions from a cost-center to a revenue-center in the 2nd scenario.

Comment on Does the good documentation increase the load of technical support? by Craig Prichard

Craig Prichard — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:27:10 +0000

Scott’s observations are interesting. I agree that the goal of good documentation is to reduce service incidents. Striking a balance between too little and too much content is the challenge. Undoubtedly too little documentation will leave the end-user with few options for seeking support, such as newsletters, webinars or other training or educational rich media, and forums if they are available.

Maybe the 1000 page manual is in the wrong hands? Maybe it should be an in-house support document and the end-user manual only contain a subset (single-sourced, I would hope) of all that content.

Stimulating the imagination of the end-user to experiment and push the application might result in additional service requests, but my experience has been that the result of that quality of free usability testing should lead to a better product. Monkeying around can lead to “stupid user questions” but it can also exposing otherwise hidden bugs. That same creative imagination might help the forward development of the application by providing a fresh perspective on its use in the real world.

It is possible to have too much of a good thing. A single man at a buffet could hurt himself trying to do justice to the opportunity alone. But accompanied by his football buddies, the buffet would serve them well. Massive documentation can certainly serve the support (football) team well but it might overwhelm all but the most gluttonous among the rest of us.

My thoughts are my own.

Craig Prichard
Technical Communicator
craig.prichard@gmail.com

Comment on Two useful services for making voice-over for screencast or video by Dennis Crane

Dennis Crane — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:52:30 +0000

> How much talent does it really take to provide a voice to a script?
For our 750 word script we received about 150 bids from talents with cost ranging from approximately $50 to $600. Finally, we get 6 minutes of speech for $275. The turnover was ~6 hours.

The benefits of using the services are:
- speed of response and deliveries
- easy of payment
- wide choice (especially important for voice-over)
- ESCROW service
- infrastructure\usability\engine

Nick: Have you ever wondered to offer your services though similar marketplaces?

Comment on Two useful services for making voice-over for screencast or video by Nick Jones

Nick Jones — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:38:47 +0000

Interesting article - although the rate for voice overs seems expensive to me. How much talent does it really take to provide a voice to a script?

Also my editing service for non-native English speakers is more affordable at $8 for 1000 words.

Comment on Implementing Uninstall Feedback with Inno Setup by Rod

Rod — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:01:00 +0000

Tremendous…
Terrific. I saw a commercial software doing the same for money

Comment on How to spin up a forum on your website by Dennis Crane

Dennis Crane — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:50:03 +0000

I think Kaizen and Agile should be used together in our business: Agile start and then Kaizen-style continuous improvements.

Comment on How to spin up a forum on your website by Mo Flanagan

Mo Flanagan — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 18:49:56 +0000

Dennis, thanks for the tips. The term “Kaizen” beats “Agile” any day…

Comment on How to Notify Your Customers About Software Update Safely by Dennis Crane

Dennis Crane — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:50:27 +0000

BTW, Tim, the ‘Check for update’ feature doesn’t help or will even harm if you have an issue in your release.
As the release gets visible to all users in a moment, they all will download the file with issue. You won’t have a chance to fix it quickly.

Comment on How to Notify Your Customers About Software Update Safely by Dennis Crane

Dennis Crane — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:01:24 +0000

Excellent hint, Tim. I agree that ‘Check for update’ feature will simplify the task.
In the same time my tip may be useful also for cases when you need to tell the users something more than just ‘We have an update’, e.g. announcing a special offer or other news . Sometimes we have to send e-mails.

Comment on How to Notify Your Customers About Software Update Safely by Tim Haughton

Tim Haughton — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 07:48:05 +0000

For my document management software, I use a combination of weekly updates and ClickOnce to achieve update nirvana. The weekly updates mean that there is seldom an epic change coming into any 1 release, and the changes happen progressively over time.

ClickOnce has the benefit that I publish the change to my server, and the application is updated automagically on customers’ machines.