How we help make your brand stronger

What values do we at informiQ provide your business? What does branding have to do with it? As we reconsidered our own offer and how we communicate it, we found out that branding is essential in everything we do.

Written by: Andreas Grönvall Mikkelsen

Branding comes in many shapes. They might be witty billboard headlines, talk of the town Superbowl commercials, or ads flooding your social media feeds. But the field of branding is much more than creating awareness and gaining leads.

"We have gone from product to process, from problem resolution to emotion seeking, from object to experience," Idris Mootee wrote in his modern classic 60 Minutes Brand Strategist more than a decade ago. Today, we still see a focus on experience – your audiences' needs and expectations change in different contexts over time. There’s a strong need to create, follow up, and tweak experiences throughout the user journey.

The audiences have the answers

In our assignments, we often need to consider the user experience in different ways. This is why we made Experience Communication into one of three strong pillars in our offer. Brand personality and tonality guidelines affect what texts our UX writers create and how they write them. Branding is also key in our technical writing, although this is often a matter of after-sales content, such as user manuals and online help. Many of our clients are associated with quality, safety, and long-lasting solutions. Having the audiences in mind, we need to create clear, concise, and comprehensible content – such as texts and illustrations – that follow brand guidelines.

Foundation and know-how is branding too

The second pillar of our offer is Processes and Quality – our consultants lead and support our clients’ work with content, experiences, and deliveries. We ensure solid structures, optimized processes, quality assurance, and much more. These activities are vital to brands that are known for reliable best-in-class solutions that must reach the market at critical moments. So we actually do branding in those areas as well!

Think ahead as the world changes

What about innovation and taking your business further? The third pillar of our offer is Business Development – we level up and add value thanks to our seniority and knowledge of strategy, improvements, and business analysis. For example, we are improving collaboration and cost control at a groundbreaking research facility. This helps lay a solid foundation for the innovations that audiences and society need and expect.

Telling your story

Your branding is like a story told in new ways as the world evolves. The story creates emotions, so you have to be aware of what kind of emotions your audiences expect – from the first impression to the most long-lasting relationship. This is why there's always a need to develop and improve people’s experience of your brand.

Be aware of the right to repair

Written by: Karin Askeroth

The European “Right to Repair” directive gives customers the right to easier, faster, and cheaper repair of products, and the incentive to manufacturers to make longer lasting products. This is good news for anyone working with technical documentation, since the need for repair instructions will increase. 

Prolonged product lifecycle 

Photo: Wix

In April 2024, the European parliament adopted the “Right to Repair” directive for customers. This new rule requires manufacturers to provide customers with timely and cost-effective repair of their products, even after the current EU required two-year minimum warranty expires. EU countries have been granted two years to incorporate this directive into their national legislation. 

There is hope that this initiative will extend the life cycle of the products included in the legislation, as well as strengthen the EU repair market, whilst reducing costs for customers. Simply put, manufacturers will be bound to providing spare parts and tools, cannot impede the use of second-hand or 3D-printed spare parts by independent repairers, and will not be able to refuse to repair a product that has previously been repaired by a third party.

How will the tech doc profession be affected?

One of the core components of the “Right to Repair” movement is the availability of repair manuals. We can expect a rise in demand for detailed, user-friendly repair instructions.  

• Technical writers will play a crucial role by creating clear, accurate, and accessible documentation for a broad audience.

• Documentation that consists of structured modular content will enable reuse of content, which in turn saves time and resources.

• There will be a need for documentation aimed at different user groups, for example repair professionals and the customers themselves.

Efficiency using  modular content

Photo: Wix

The use of modular content will effectivize work with technical documentation since it will maximize customer relevance while it decreases the personalization effort to as few and small components as possible. The personalization can be built by combining components to make the material meaningful for different user groups.

The upside of this method is that less content creation is needed to produce an exponential variety of tailored experiences.

Summary: The “Right to Repair” directive will mean an increased need for technical documentation by professionals, aimed at several different user roles. We believe that the ability to work with structured modular content will be especially important.

Our advice to you: To anyone working within tech doc: make sure you master structured modular content, reuse of content, and how you can use AI to make your work easier. To employers: having access to tech doc competence ensures your technical documentation is transformed from a barrier to a bridge, which helps you avoid issues like misunderstandings, errors, and wasted resources.

Read the whole legislative resolution

Overcoming the challenges of coaching a remote team

Being a consultant often means seeing more of your assignment colleagues, than of your colleagues at your consultancy company. As team coach it’s my task to, despite this, create a team spirit with my colleagues at informiQ in Linköping and Stockholm. Keep reading, and I will tell you how I work with overcoming the challenges of coaching a remote team. 

Written by: Mari-Ann Gripmark

The main challenge: 

We do not work together, and we do not even live in the same city. We meet in person only a couple of times per year. 

Our goals:

• Get to know each other.

• Get to know ourselves.

• Create an open climate where everyone feels comfortable and safe.

Image by: Freepik

Why are we doing this?

As a consultant, I am encouraged to look out for new consultancy assignments, both for myself and for my colleagues. This is a much easier task if I know not only my colleagues' competencies, but also their personalities, preferences, and goals.

As a consultant, I am responsible for my own competence development. Discussing with others helps me get new ideas and find new ways.

The solution we have tried so far:

Bi-weekly team meetings (remote): At each team meeting we make time for some chit-chat, but there is also a main purpose. Here are some examples of activities so far: Each team member presents his/her consultancy assignment, with focus on what he/she enjoys most and least.

• Team building games to get to know each other better.

• Exercises to find your personal motivators and understand what makes you enjoy your daily work. (based on https://management30.com/practice/moving-motivators/)

• Talk about what would be our dream consultancy assignments.

A Slack channel just for us: Anyone in the team can write about anything. Team coach posts at least once a week: Interesting links, questions, information or (most often) just a GIF or a thought.

Challenge: How to prioritize the team meetings? 

From a team building perspective, it would be better to see each other more often than every other week. You have to make a trade-off though, between team building and working on your consultancy assignment. This trade-off may look different for different organizations.

Challenge: How to use the Slack channel?

The Slack channel is a great place for sharing thoughts, problems, and tips as well as weekend plans. Though, if chatting in a Slack channel does not come naturally to the team members, there is no use trying to force this. In that case, focus on relevant information. Discuss how you want to use this channel within the team!

Image by: Freepik

Summary: To feel comfortable sharing thoughts and ideas, we first have to feel that we are a team and that we trust each other.

Our advice to you: Creating a safe and comfortable space for the team should be your top priority.

Do not underestimate the power of simple team building games that make us laugh together. Involve all team members in planning, discussions etc, but do not try to force anyone.