What’s the best time to manage production of a long document? All too frequently, reverse engineering is required when questions that should have been asked before writing started are asked just before the document is due to go to print.

What style do we want? How can we manage content written by multiple authors? Do we need consistency in how industry terms are written? Does it make sense?

A style guide and an active editor can manage all this.

When all these questions are addressed at the beginning, they can guide contributors to write in the desired style and put in place a process to manage production and flag any problems before it’s too late. Brand names can be written correctly, capitals used consistently and the document can appear as a unified article that makes sense rather than many separate ones joined together in confusion.

Does it matter?

Yes, if you want to get the best value from all the resources invested. If employees are putting a lot of time into writing and if money is being spent on design, printing and distribution, I’d want to see the most effective document possible. Most importantly, I’d want a document that was useful to readers and gave them value.

Where this doesn’t happen, many things have to be corrected at the last minute. Rather than polishing the material, it has to be patched so that it is at best ‘satisfactory’.

You can find tips and advice on managing long documents at editorialresources.co.uk.

The Google+ redesign is the latest change to shake up social media users. Some like it, some don’t, but what matters is whether people continue to use Google+ and more people take to it. It’s the same with other social media services.

It’s surprising that many people still don’t take change in their stride. I admit to being able to remember when, in the mid-1980s, some travel agents objected to having their dumb terminal travel reservation systems replaced by PCs. They had become attached to these boxes and didn’t want new boxes to replace them.

Since then we’ve gone from DOS to Windows, seen the Mac OS, Linux and mobile operating systems arrive, flocked online to build html web pages, then abandoned them for content management systems and are now immersing ourselves in social media services.

I’m sure social media won’t be the final development or change we see. Computing and communication change daily: a new feature appears and a familiar one disappears. Changes are not always for the better, but those who make them hope they are. Where these make life easier and are useful, people tend to go along with them; where they make usage impossible, people can respond by abandoning that service.

Do I like the new Google+? I liked the clean design of the previous version, but I’ve just written a workshop on using Google+ and find I am now using it more. For me, it is becoming more usable.

I’m glad that the new version was released before I wrote the workshop, but it has reminded me that the material I’ve written now will soon have to change to reflect future developments. Nothing stays the same.

We are delighted to publish the latest issue of the North Devon Business Alliance’s magazine #ndevon today.

This issue focuses on social media and Twitter.