Features

Traversing the Gap Between Academia and Industry: An Interview with Sandy Bartell

By Darin Williams

The essence of technical communication is gathering and conveying information. Broad is the range of our responsibilities, yet we each identify with seeking facts prior to issuing articles, instructions, reports, innovations, etc. Ultimately, profits often drive industry research as design teams are pressured to deliver products. Academic research, by contrast, is an endurance race steered by evolving theory and close investigation.

Reflecting on Research

To examine this research context, I sat down with Dr. Alexandra (Sandy) Bartell, a senior technical communicator with The Boeing Company, to gain her perspectives on this situation as someone who has worked in both realms of the technical communication field.

In addition to being a technical communicator with extensive experience in industry, Sandy also holds both a PhD in human centered design and engineering and an MS in technical communication from the University of Washington, as well as an MBA from Monmouth University. Moreover, Sandy is a change agent in a complex organization that often relies on her research training across both industry and academia. As such, Sandy offers a unique perspective and professional evaluation on the topic of research as she moves between academia and the private sector. Researchers sorting through techniques will also appreciate her guidance on choosing methods for enabling feasible project timelines and long-term objectives.

In true technical communicator form, Sandy began the overall interview process by asking about my research and industry ambitions. She then moved to address a series of questions designed to examine how the topic of research connects the industry and academic segments of the field. What follows are excerpts of our overall discussion, and the ideas they cover have interesting insights and important implications for how members of the field view and engage in research.

Background and Experience

Darin: How long have you considered yourself a technical communicator? Did that revelation coincide with your current appointment or was it a personal discovery?

Sandy: The revelation that I should be a technical communicator did not coincide with my current position. And actually, it was a slow process over a number of years rather than a one-time revelation. When I was working on my MBA, one of my professors was very impressed with the way I blended my analytical skills and writing and told me I should consider becoming a technical writer. I didn’t even know what a technical writer was at the time!

When I later got a job at the company I’m with now, it was as a project scheduler. One of the programmers asked for a volunteer to write a user guide for an application he had developed. I volunteered and fell in love with that kind of writing. Shortly after that experience, I landed a job as a technical communicator.

Darin: Which technical communication research techniques do you consider the most important or most prevalent in industry? Are they up-to-date?

Sandy: From my vantage point, there appear to be several types of research that are prevalent in industry:

  • Research involving data collection for presentations (mostly descriptive data)
  • Audience analysis research. Mostly accomplished through one-on-one interviews
  • Usability testing, both formal and informal
  • Surveys

Different companies may support other types of research by technical communicators, depending on their particular industry, product types, government restrictions, management structure and imperatives, and other factors. In my current position, I was able to use all of the research techniques I listed here, but I’m in touch with colleagues in other companies that use more rigorous kinds of research in theirs.

Connections to Career

Darin: What kind(s) of research did you do in industry during your career—and, if possible, prior to starting your PhD work?

Sandy: During my career in industry (and prior to my PhD work), I conducted all the types of research I mentioned [previously]. However, I did not have the knowledge, techniques, or tools at my disposal that I received from my doctoral studies. I did a smattering of research in usability, mostly through think-aloud protocol testing and some paper prototyping. The results were shared informally in meetings with project teams.

Darin: What was your research topic? Was your choice driven by an industry need or personal passion?

Sandy: I had originally wanted to do my doctoral research around a topic related to a need within my company. However, given my time constraints I decided against it because of the hurdles I would have had to overcome not only with my university Institutional Review Board (IRB), but also the equivalent to a human subjects organization within my company.

I chose, instead, an area that blended several of my research interests in other smaller studies with which I’d been involved. I was interested in how writing style (in terms of explicitness) might affect the credibility of online medical information for nonnative English speakers.

Darin: What types of minor research studies did you complete in your graduate studies? How did those studies connect to your dissertation?

Sandy: During my doctoral studies, I participated in several small studies that involved Internet-based surveys. All used a mix of quantitative and qualitative techniques. I used these studies as a springboard for my doctoral dissertation because they gave me a good foundation for conducting surveys through the Internet. The topics for some of these studies had to do with various facets of online medical information, such as comprehension, ease of navigation, and so on. The results of these smaller studies were published as conference proceedings, journal articles, and book chapters.

Connecting Academia and Industry

Darin: How did the kind(s) of research you did in industry affect, guide, or contribute to the research you did for your graduate studies and for your PhD/dissertation?

Sandy: The kinds of research I did in industry did not really affect or influence the research I did for my graduate studies. The purpose of my research in industry was to solve specific business problems. The purpose of my research in academia was to contribute knowledge to the field of technical communication that might be applied in other areas than just industry; for example, health care or information systems in humanitarian efforts.

Darin: How did the kind(s) of research you did in academia—and for your PhD—affect, guide, or contribute to the research you did for your work/job in industry?

Sandy: The kinds of research I did in academia over the course of my PhD studies had a direct effect on the research I’ve done in my job. While I’m basically conducting the same kinds of research I did previous to getting my doctorate, I have a much broader and deeper perspective on different research techniques, methodologies, and ways of presenting results.

I have not had to conduct any research that involves human subjects approval, but my company does have its own human subjects review board if the need were to arise.

Contributions and Understanding

Darin: How do you think research done in industry can contribute to research done in academia? How can the research done in academia contribute to the research done in industry?

Sandy: Ideally, both types of research should inform each other. Researchers in academia can share new theories, methods, and research tools and applications with their counterparts in industry. And researchers in industry can suggest real-life problems or areas of investigation that would benefit from the rigor of academic research.

Collaborations and Partnerships

Darin: Can industry practitioners and academics collaborate to provide students with the kinds of research skills needed to succeed in todays’ economy?

Sandy: Collaboration between academia and industry is often not as simple as an agreement to research a topic or problem together. Companies frequently have governmental, legal, ethical, or military restrictions on sharing information or processes with outside entities. Academics are often pressed for time, staffing availability, and funding when wanting to engage with industry in collaborative research.

Having said that, many companies offer internships to students that have been a very effective way to introduce students to the skills they will need to perform well in industry settings. However, most internships seem to be an introduction to the duties and responsibilities of a particular job in industry. Internships that involved research would benefit students by helping them apply their research skills to real-life problems in business, and industry would benefit by taking advantage of academic researchers who are familiar with rigorous research standards and who use the latest research tools, methods, and practices in their field.

Darin: Do you have any suggestions for what individuals in industry and in academia might do to more effectively collaborate on research projects or share research results, interests, and opportunities with each other?

Sandy: The formation of an independent national or global clearinghouse to match industry research needs with academic institutions might be helpful. If posted online, companies and universities could quickly assess whether they have the capabilities, resources, staff, experience, time, and funding to collaborate on a proposed research venture.

Consideration should also be given to conducting collaborative research remotely when possible. While face-to-face collaboration is ideal, we live in an information age where much of the world’s business is conducted over the Internet on a daily basis. Collaboration tools such as WebEx and GoToMeeting are commonly used to share ideas and collaborate virtually around the globe while saving time and money.

Collaborative ventures between industry and academia do not need to be on a large scale to benefit both parties. Even small studies can generate large [returns on investment] ROIs for companies and, at the same time, give academic researchers leverage for follow-up studies and future collaboration opportunities.

Concluding Thoughts

Based on the points Sandy raised, technical communicators in academia and industry can use research to work together by using the following collaboration strategies:

  • Participating in research internship programs to develop skills and establish relationships.
  • Establishing a global institution that solely aims to quickly unite researchers with similar interests.
  • Leveraging Web conferencing tools, such as Zoom, GoToMeeting, etc., to cut research costs.
  • Thinking small! Small projects can snowball into large business impact.

Finally, I noted a salient point of encouragement from my discussions with Sandy; don’t be distracted by the inevitable bureaucracy associated with inter-organizational collaboration. While academic and industry research cultures have many differences, synergy across both sectors can have limitless societal and commercial significance. Much like this interview, an audacious attempt to traverse the gap between industry and academia will often be met with generosity.

DARIN M. WILLIAMS (darin@globalbeing.com) is a doctoral student in technical communication at Texas Tech University. His career as a petroleum engineer and a risk manager inspires his work in sustainability reporting and crisis communication. Darin is an advocate for implementing corporate strategies that leverage technology in order to preserve the environment and nurture human well-being.