Product Coalition is About Clarity
Why do we believe editing is important? It’s because we believe in quality learning, we believe in our writers, and we want all our readers to succeed in product development — globally.
By Tremis Skeete, Executive Editor for Product Coalition
Jay Stansell, founded Product Coalition based on the belief that learning about product development should be accessible to everyone, globally.
Granted, “accessible” can mean a great deal of things, especially when he’s talking about… the entire world.
What Jay also means, is the Coalition was created during a time when other communities were being established to raise the profile of product development learning — just as long as the learning activities were profitable for the community creators and their affiliates.
At Product Coalition, we are globally independent — which means that we are not beholding to any corporate entity where their agenda is to leverage learning communities as marketing vehicles for conferences, workshops, and other products that provide little or no authentic value. These other communities — we all know who they are, and we are not them.
That is why, according to our community publishing guidelines, Jay declares that a great Product Coalition article is:
“The kind [of article] that helps you to clearly understand concepts, experiences and lessons learned in the product development field. Essentially, a great educational article that’s designed to give readers access to knowledge and tools in order to get things done.”
-Jay Stansell
So, if you can get product work done in light of reading our articles, our accessibility objective has been achieved.
Yes, it’s a fact, we don’t have the resources to translate articles from English into the many other languages that exist. Besides being compatible with tools provided by Medium, Google Translate, and others designed to optimize language accessibility — what we also provide is the ability to ensure that our English speaking articles are presented in the clearest and most coherent ways possible.
English Communication
Let’s be honest. We know that the English language has quite the complicated history. The English language has been appropriating words from others for centuries. It’s amazing that the Spanish, French, Dutch, Irish, Scottish, Scandinavian, German, and many others have not risen up and said, “We want our words back.” That’s not going to happen, so we do our best with the resources we have, and prepare for the many variations of English communication found in the many articles submitted.
One of the challenges we have is that we receive articles from many capable individuals, and they can be aspiring or seasoned product managers — where English is not their native language.
When we read the articles, we can sense there is a wealth of valuable information, but with all due respect, the way how various concepts are explained, they are at times — not always universally understandable.
Here’s an example. The way an American product manager who speaks and writes American English, is not the same as a British product manager who speaks and writes United Kingdom English. As someone who was born and raised in a British territory, then lived in the USA for over twenty years, and now lives in the UK and USA, believe me when I say — English written and verbal communication in the UK and USA are not identical.
Let’s add another dimension. The way that American, Canadian, British, and Australian product managers write and speak, is not the same as how product managers based in Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Mumbai or Bucharest or St. Petersburg speak and write English, which for the latter group — English is most likely their second or third language.
Does this mean that product managers from Bucharest or Mumbai will not be understood by American or Canadian or British readers? No, not necessarily.
For example, in the above mentioned cases, the Americans, British, and Australians may understand the words in articles written by individuals from Paris or Mumbai — but they might not get the correct or complete context, thus they might not comprehend the full message.
For this communication and comprehension challenge — the door swings both ways, especially in conversations.
Lost in Interpretation
A product manager in the USA could talk about creating a “roadmap” and they’re talking about a breakdown of desired business and customer outcomes. A product manager in England could talk about a “roadmap” but they’re talking about a delivery timeline for feature sets with due dates.
To eliminate this confusion, we recommend to writers to be specific and describe the purpose of the roadmap. If you’re talking about a breakdown of business and customer outcomes, refer to it as a “Product Development Roadmap” or an “Outcome-Driven Roadmap”. If you’re talking about a breakdown of feature sets and delivery dates, refer to it as a “Product Delivery Roadmap” or a “Feature-Driven Roadmap”.
A product manager could write a case study and refer to someone as a “PM” and they’re talking about a “program manager”. Another product manager could refer to someone else as a “PM” and they’re talking about “project manager”. A conversation can progress for several minutes before all parties realize that they’re talking about different people in different roles with the same “PM” labels.
Imagine how confusing it gets when you read about these “PM” scenarios in product management articles. That is why we recommend to writers that they avoid using only acronyms. Instead, if you’re going to use an acronym, write out the full terminology or job title first, then provide the acronym, or vice versa. For example:
- Product manager (PM)
- PM (Product manager)
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- AWS (Amazon Web Services)
Context and Clarity Matters
There are countless examples we can share, but for all, the moral of the story is the same. As a product community, we’ve learned that while many product writers from around the world use the same English words — the choice of words and the manner they are articulated, mean different things to each person, depending on their preferred or situational context.
It’s like saying, when one product manager says “A very basic web page”, and another product manager says, “A web page with just HTML and text” — while they can mean the same thing, to other people, the two statements can mean something completely different.
Here’s another example. If an analyst says, “This is the basic idea”, and another analyst says, “This is the idea” — these statements mean the same thing, but the latter statement is more concise. If another analyst comes along and says, “This is the basic essential idea” or “Basically, this is the essential idea”, the statements also mean the same thing, except they’re not as concise, and there are two words in the statement that mean the same thing — “basic” and “essential”.
We usually see examples of word usage that’s comparable to the “basic and essential” scenario, from product writers where English is not their first language, which is understandable. It’s because in cases like this, they might not have learned that words like “basic” and “essential” mean the same thing, and you can use either word, and you don’t need to use them consecutively in the same phrase or sentence.
We also understand that sometimes words like “essential” and “basically” add flavor or color to your prose, but sometimes, when not used correctly, they get in the way of delivering a clear message to readers.
That is why, in regard to the example above, the best statements to use are, “The idea is…” or “This is the idea.”
These challenges are more than just about matters of proper narrative, word choice, sentence structure, grammar and spelling. This is about effective communication, comprehension, context, meaning, and clarity — all on an international stage.
Editing for a Global Audience
Not all people from these places are the same in how they articulate, understand and interpret English. Misunderstandings do occur, the unintentional language barriers do exist, and sometimes, even English speakers and writers need English translators and interpreters.
This is where our article editing comes in.
Writing and editing for a global audience of aspiring and successful product people, is not easy. That’s why our hope is restored whenever we receive messages from writers, thanking us for ensuring their articles read better, and are presented in ways they hadn’t considered, because English is not their native language.
Our Articles Are for Everyone, Not Just Product People
There are moments when we’ve had to edit articles to expand upon acronyms or to explain product management specific terminology. In these moments, we’ve asked writers to provide explanations and context, and many would respond by saying, “But product managers should know what that means,” and there lies the disconnect.
It’s not a good idea to presume that everyone who reads your articles are product managers. What many of our writers now understand, is that product education articles are not just for product managers. They are written for everyone to read and learn about product development.
Everyone in the world is learning about the product craft, and as writers, we owe it to our readers to be clear, explanatory, and thorough in regard to what we share in our writing.
Product Coalition Articles Travel Around the Globe
There are social media platforms, public and private, that pick up our articles and distribute them on their networks. When we look at the data in our analytics, we can see when articles are shared not just throughout the USA, but in Canada, Central and South America, Iceland, UK, Scandinavia, Europe, Israel, Turkey, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, India, Australia, New Zealand. Some articles are even reproduced on blogs in parts of Asia.
There are also email news publications that pick up our articles and distribute them to their subscribers. They’re not going to do that unless the articles have demonstrated that they’re worth distributing around the globe. These events are indicators that Product Coalition is doing the right things, not just by our writers, but by readers and learners everywhere.
We don’t just want to provide a platform for you to voice your perspectives and lessons learned. We want to provide the means to present the best versions of yourselves, and sometimes that means — making sure that your writing is polished and delivered in a way that’s the most clear, most coherent, most eloquent, informed, and presented in the highest quality formats we can provide, because we genuinely believe in what you have to share with the entire world.
Join Our Global Coalition
If you decide to submit to another Medium publication, and they just “approve” your article, while you know that your writing could benefit from some improvements — do you believe you will benefit in the long run?
Sure, you might get some claps, and even some comments — but did you truly learn anything from the writing experience?
How do you know that you are getting better with your writing, for a global audience? If you’re article is not being edited, and it’s just getting published — you are still missing out on what is possible when it comes to raising your global writing capabilities.
If you are a product development or product management writer that knows that you could benefit from an objective and supportive set of eyes on your material — come and join our Coalition.
Let’s collaborate on making product education, accessible to anyone and everyone, globally.
Write and publish with Product Coalition, and become an even greater product education writer.
