How and when to single-source

Manufacturers at the Northwest Chocolate Festival this past weekend in Seattle talked about biodynamic chocolate, grown, processed and manufactured all in the same place.

Manufacturers at the Northwest Chocolate Festival this past weekend in Seattle talked about biodynamic chocolate, grown, processed and manufactured all in the same place. They touted their single-source chocolate, made from one type of cocoa bean, grown in one specific area.

In a previous career as a technical writer, I learned several systems to write content once and publish it in multiple formats. They turned “single-source” into a verb, which I always thought was strange for writers, but the tech industry makes up words all the time, so I guess it made sense.

I’m no chocolate expert, just a fan, so I’m assuming that single-source chocolate gives you a good sense of what a particular cocoa bean, or a particular growing region can do for the finished product. It’s a bit like the wine industry, but with beans and “origins” instead of grapes and “terroir.” Single-source chocolate is tasty, too, so all in all, it can be a good thing.

The same goes for technical writing. Single-source content, once you’ve wrangled the tools into doing what you want them to do, can save a lot of time and work.

This doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop buying plain old chocolate chips in favor of fancy-schmancy chocolate bars, though. It also doesn’t mean that I’m not going to cringe a little the next time I get to, or have to, learn a new documentation tool.

Single-source has its place, but it can also be limiting — it’s right there in the term.

The best example of the shortcomings of “single-sourcing” is, to me, the election process. I’ve gone on record as disliking the vote-by-mail process before, but I will admit that it does force me to do my homework before I vote. Sometimes, I even manage to do it before Election Day.

Usually, my voters guide arrives in my mailbox a few days before my ballot does. It’s a good reminder to me to become familiar with any issues I didn’t already have on my radar, which means looking stuff up. I use the voters guide, too, but the information in it is best for ballot measures, since it’s entirely accurate, if a little hard to follow.

I haven’t found the happy medium between the strict “what the law says” information of the voters guide and the more understandable, but potentially less factual rhetoric from both supporters and opponents, but the Washington Secretary of State’s website, sos.wa.gov, is a good start. For every election, the site lists the ballot measures, candidates, and a list of large donors to their campaigns.

For candidates who have already held office, there are a couple of sites I use, http://washingtonvotes.org and https://www.govtrack.us, to see their voting records, bill sponsorships and so on. Vote411.org is also helpful, but requires you to register.

For newcomers to political candidacy and for local elections, it’s harder to find specific information, which makes it even more important for voters to find multiple sources.

Talk to the candidates who show up on your doorstep.

Read the newspapers.

Visit the candidates’ websites, attend candidate forums.

Gather in as much information as you can, blend it all together, like wine or chocolate, then cast your informed vote.