Your Communication Is At Risk

Communication.

It’s the lifeblood of a company.
Especially as companies are increasingly remote, distributed, and diverse.

Without it, companies falter.
Without it, teams lack understanding.
Without it, the world figuratively stops spinning.

Text.
Video.
Pictures.

There are so many mediums through which we can express information. But what tools can help us formulate our thoughts through the most effective channels?

Motivation

Software is well known to be an increasingly complex field. Even the industry experts would be at a loss without proper communication.

How can they help others?
How can they receive help?

As a technical lead, I’ve researched the internet many times over for tools to help communication thrive within and outside my teams.

The Hurdle

There has always been one fatal roadblock that I’ve looked to break down. This blockade can entirely prevent the most crucial subjects and aspects of communication from ever happening. What is it?

The complexity of production.

Gone are the days of turning around in your chair to discuss something with a colleague. No longer can you point at your screen to a nearby coworker to clarify your subject matter.

We’re remote.

New horizons offer new challenges and new solutions.

The Solutions

This change, I would argue, is to our advantage.

Now, our communication isn’t given as fleeting, quickly forgotten conversations. It’s written down. It’s searchable. It’s retrievable years into the future.

I would venture to guess that most of your communication happens via a communication tool like Slack. None of us need a lecture on how essential tools such as that have become.

However, today’s article touches on five other tools that aren’t as common but fulfill different needs. They don’t seek to represent organic conversation, like Slack, but different ways to inform or create long-term information.

And all of these tools look to break down that fatal hurdle: the complexity of production.

#1: Scribe

AI-powered, point-and-click documentation generator.

In person, you could walk over to someone’s desk and show them how to X, Y, or Z. It was quick and effective but was only preserved in the minds of those who saw it.

That is where Scribe comes in handy.

It is an application that records your mouse clicks and surrounding context and generates annotated screenshots of each step, as well as auto-generated captions.

You can then edit the text and images to fit your scenario better.

This tool is free for capturing workflows in your browser, or you can upgrade to a paid version for recording applications on your desktop.

#2: asciinema

Developers love the terminal.

But getting a step-by-step recording of how to do a certain task inside of it often only has two answers: spend the time to write a shell script to do it for them or write out a step-by-step, command-by-command document for the same purpose.

However, asciinema has a different approach.

Their application can be installed into your terminal, and it simply records what text appears in your console. This recording can then be sent to their cloud for a link that you can share.

It’s a novel idea. It doesn’t record a video. It records the text. So the “video” player you can share is just replaying text.

It’s super lightweight. It can be embedded anywhere, such as in Confluence or a Markdown document. It can even convert these recordings to a GIF for greater portability.

This tool is completely free.

#3: Draw.io

When words fail, pictures and diagrams shine.

Draw.io is no stranger to the world of diagramming. It goes as far back as 2005 as the name JGraph.

It is a very solid, well-rounded editor that has all of the features of more expensive enterprise tools, like Microsoft Visio, but is completely free.

My favorite aspect of it is its portability. It exports diagrams to every imaginable image format, and the project file is just XML.

You can even embed the project file into a picture to bundle the editable version and the final product together.

#4: Loom

Back in the early days of Google Chrome extensions, Loom started off as a simple, tidy screen recorder.

Since then, it has grown into a full-fledged tool that makes recording your screen and camera as simple as three clicks: open Loom, start recording, stop recording.

Like asciinema, it saves your recording to your cloud account so that you can share the link anywhere.

My favorite, zero-effort features include:

• Auto captions and chapter markers

• Pen tools for annotating your recordings

• AI that is specifically trained to extract technical documentation from your videos

You can record short, 5-minute videos for free or upgrade for unlimited recordings and AI enhancements.

#5: Zapier

When it comes to task automation, Zapier is the king.

As of today, they integrate with nearly 7000 other software applications so that you can automate once and never think about it again.

How does this apply to communication? Now, you can make it automatic.

• Did a story in Jira move from development to QA? Send a Slack message to the QA team.

• Did a new issue appear in your GitHub repository? Tag it for review.

• Are you in a meeting? Change your Slack status to do not disturb.

etc. etc. etc.

The possibilities are truly endless. It’s like having a virtual assistant that can work on your behalf.

Zapier starts for free with 100 automated tasks per month.

Conclusion

Communication has always required effort. Technology can either hinder your work or support it.

In the case of these tools, I argue they support it. Some tools require no more effort than showing how you accomplish a task, and the tool takes care of the rest. Others, such as Zapier, require zero effort after setup.

These are the tools that I use to keep my team informed and motivated to make their documentation useful and often. While many other tools deserve an honorable mention, these five rise to the top of my list.

Now that you are informed, go forth and create.