When this topic,persuasion, appeared in one of the text books, my initial reaction was quizzical. With a background in sales and service, I associated persuasion more with those areas. I considered technical writing as a framework to instruct, provide clear, step by step action based instructions. Furthermore I considered technical writing as devoid of emotion, black and white with no grey areas. Write down the instructions in a linear fashion, to be read if needed. Thus I found it really interesting to consider how fear of the unknown, fear of disruption and fear of failure could influence a decision to accept or reject information. In other words how our emotions could influence how we approach information.
In their book Technical Communication, Lannon and Gurak, reference management expert Edgar Schein when discussing emotion and his idea that people must feel psychologically safe to try out new things. People need to feel there will be no major upheaval in their lives if they make a change. Consider a situation where a company is overhauling their technology and introducing a brand new IT system with no connection to the existing system. This will potentially have a major impact on staff and how they work in the future which could cause anxiety and worry. How the guides and supports are created and presented could help with the transition, however the technical writer needs to be aware of the background to do this. Thus a greater awareness not just of the audience you are writing for but also their circumstances is really important. Like a painting the elements can be fixed e.g. person or object the landscape can be incredibly varied with different colours, tones and hues.