Combining the Power of Google and National Instruments is a post from: Shanghai Tech Writer I’ve had the privilege of working for two great companies — National Instruments (2007-2009) and now, Google (2009-present). What happens when you combine both companies’ products together and create a new product? Check out this awesome Guinness World Record-breaking robot built using Lego Mindstorm NXT (programmed using NI’s LabVIEW) and Samsung Galaxy S II (powered by Google’s Android). This ARM-powered, Lego-constructed CubeStormer II has set a Guiness…
Technical Writing
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Most Topular Stories
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Combining the Power of Google and National Instruments
Shanghai Tech Writer12 Jan 2012 | 7:28 pm -
Better than winning Lotto
CyberText Newsletter26 Jan 2012 | 3:30 pmWow. I work with a health, safety and environment team and we got these pictures from one of the safety guys. It seems this accident happened mid-December 2011 in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, and it involved a truck driver delivering oil/gas pipeline casings to a storage area. While this accident happened at a different company than the one I work for, it could’ve happened to anyone driving this sort of cargo and shows the importance of inspecting a load and how it’s tied down before you move off with it. Here’s the description that came with the photos… -
Dealing with change
one man writes10 Jan 2012 | 9:40 amIt’s going to be a big year for us, both as a company and as a team. We have grand and achievable plans for the product which will mean the working processes for the Publications team will need to change for, as well as multiple streams of work with their own staggered release dates for the product, we are also restructuring our entire information set to improve ‘findability’. Which immediately prompts a question, how do you improve ‘findability’? The simple answer is would be ‘in as many ways as possible’ as there is no silver bullet. What may work… -
Guess a name to win a copy of my book
ffeathers -- a technical writer's blog13 Jan 2012 | 2:02 pmWould you like to have some fun, and perhaps win a copy of my upcoming book too? Just guess the name of the girl on the cover! The first person to get it right will receive a free copy of the book, in a choice of paperback or ebook format. The book is all about using a wiki for technical communication. It’s called Confluence, Tech Comm, Chocolate: A wiki as platform extraordinare for technical communication. It will be published in February by Richard Hamilton at XML Press. The book cover I love the illustrations in the book, and especially the picture on the cover. They are the work of… -
Pick a beat for release notes
Just Write Click23 Jan 2012 | 9:50 pmThis is fun. Fedora has “beat writers” which harken to journalists tracking a story. Each beat is a section in the release notes. I found it while poking around on the Fedora wiki pages that describe how they do documentation. See fedoraproject.org/wiki/Documentation_Beats. I like this approach for a few reasons. One is that the term “beat” seems fresh. While I did have to look for the definition of “beat writer,” I had a notion in the back of my mind and it turned out to be correct. My initial reaction was, oh, it’s like a journalist chasing down a…
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ffeathers -- a technical writer's blog
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Guess a name to win a copy of my book
13 Jan 2012 | 2:02 pmWould you like to have some fun, and perhaps win a copy of my upcoming book too? Just guess the name of the girl on the cover! The first person to get it right will receive a free copy of the book, in a choice of paperback or ebook format. The book is all about using a wiki for technical communication. It’s called Confluence, Tech Comm, Chocolate: A wiki as platform extraordinare for technical communication. It will be published in February by Richard Hamilton at XML Press. The book cover I love the illustrations in the book, and especially the picture on the cover. They are the work of… -
REST API documentation embedded in the application
12 Jan 2012 | 1:07 amOur development team has built a tool that documents an application’s REST APIs within the application itself. What’s more, you can test the REST resources and methods too. All from the application’s user interface. Now, that’s embedded help for nerds. I’m writing this post because I think many technical writers and developers will be interested in this solution. It may trigger ideas about adding something similar to other applications too. The tool is called the REST API Browser, and it is implemented as a plugin. At the moment, it is available only within the… -
Should we allow comments on documentation pages
6 Jan 2012 | 6:11 pmThis is a very interesting question: Should we, as technical writers, allow comments on our documentation pages? It’s interesting because it’s a multi-faceted question, and because people have such strong feelings about it. My quick answer is, “Yes”. Ha ha, but there’s always a “but” or two. Read on, and then I’d love to know what you think. I’m a technical writer at a company called Atlassian. We write all our product documentation on a wiki. For example, here is the Confluence user’s guide. What’s more, we have configured the… -
A quick update on my book
16 Dec 2011 | 1:39 pmThe Confluence, Tech Comm, Chocolate wiki is buzzing! That’s where I’m writing the book, and that’s where the technical reviewers are giving their feedback at the moment: on the wiki. It’s good fun seeing all their comments flow in. Their input is very useful indeed. My earlier post let everyone know that I’m writing a book about technical communication on Confluence, titled Confluence, Tech Comm, Chocolate: A wiki as platform extraordinaire for technical communication. We’ve been busy with the technical review for the last two weeks. The review phase… -
How to wrap text around images in Confluence 4.0
9 Dec 2011 | 1:54 pmI have just learned how to wrap the text around an image in Confluence 4.0. W00t. Just click the image to select it, then click the left-align or right-align button in the editor toolbar. Simple when you know how! One tricky aspect: There is no indication that the image is selected. Just click it, and it will be OK. How to wrap text around an image in Confluence 4.0 In case you’re wondering, it’s easy in Confluence 3.5: When you insert an image using the image browser, there is an “Align” option in the image insertion dialog, where you can choose no alignment, or left,…
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Just Write Click
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Pick a beat for release notes
23 Jan 2012 | 9:50 pmThis is fun. Fedora has “beat writers” which harken to journalists tracking a story. Each beat is a section in the release notes. I found it while poking around on the Fedora wiki pages that describe how they do documentation. See fedoraproject.org/wiki/Documentation_Beats. I like this approach for a few reasons. One is that the term “beat” seems fresh. While I did have to look for the definition of “beat writer,” I had a notion in the back of my mind and it turned out to be correct. My initial reaction was, oh, it’s like a journalist chasing down a… -
From Cement to Spandex – Making PDF and ePub
2 Dec 2011 | 3:46 pmWhich statement is true: “PDFs are like cement.” or “Gentlemen prefer PDF.” Turns out both are true! See my recent OpenStack blog entry, Hacking on Ebooks, for more context and attributions for those statements. We recently held a hackathon which I blogged about earlier to discuss the prep work for creating epub from DocBook XML source for the OpenStack and Rackspace manuals. We had a very successful day of hacking on 11/11/11. A team of about seven writers, testers, and developers worked all day to try to make epub files. And sure enough, we did it! Our list of bugs… -
DocBook, ePub, Hackathon, What More Could You Ask For?
9 Nov 2011 | 9:35 amThis Friday, on 11/11/11, the Austin Rackspace office is holding a Hackathon. The projects range from “fix the arcade game” to “install notification system to indicate availability of the men’s room” to my pet hack project, “create epub output for Rackspace and OpenStack manuals.” Here’s a short introduction about making epubs from the FLOSS Manuals book, E-Book Enlightenment. Of all the formats for e-books only EPUB combines small file sizes with the ability to do formatted text and illustrations. An EPUB is like a website contained in a Zip… -
Fabric Welding and Costume Making
2 Nov 2011 | 5:36 pmAt Rackspace we get these great email threads due to an email list designated for “fun” at each core location. One of these such email threads started with a guy asking if any other guys do sewing – and wondering where he could learn to sew on projects that were gender-neutral? He wasn’t going to make a purse, after all, he needed to hem pants and wondered about suit making. The best part of the thread was when he invented a term, fabric welding, to see if he could get more interest that way. It was a fabulous turn of phrase, though I don’t know if it garnered… -
Google Summer of Code Doc Summit Stories
21 Oct 2011 | 9:45 amOn my way to the airport after an intense and enjoyable three day session with four open source projects writing a book apiece, I wonder if I have any more words to write down. The group I worked with had 14,000 words in the system by day two. I feel I need to try to capture this experience. I’m feeling a little badly about coming home early – they are still working hard at it today! The four projects were KDE, OpenStreetMap, OpenMRS, and Sahana. Each project brought 3-5 participants. Some of the participants didn’t know they had applied to write a book in three days. One…
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one man writes
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Dealing with change
10 Jan 2012 | 9:40 amIt’s going to be a big year for us, both as a company and as a team. We have grand and achievable plans for the product which will mean the working processes for the Publications team will need to change for, as well as multiple streams of work with their own staggered release dates for the product, we are also restructuring our entire information set to improve ‘findability’. Which immediately prompts a question, how do you improve ‘findability’? The simple answer is would be ‘in as many ways as possible’ as there is no silver bullet. What may work… -
ISTC West of Scotland Area Group meeting
9 Jan 2012 | 9:11 amThe next ISTC West of Scotland area group meeting in Glasgow will take place on Thursday 16th February 2012, from 7.30 pm onwards. Come along to talk about latest news and trends in communication, or just to meet other communication professionals. The event is free and open to anyone interested in technical communication, such as technical authors, information architects, internal communication professionals, report writers, marketing writers, web content writers and graphic designers. Venue: Waxy O’Connors pub, 44 West George Street, Glasgow, G2 1DH. Please make your way to… -
One step forward…
5 Jan 2012 | 8:09 amFirstly I’ll admit that I’m starting to feel a bit like a fool. I’ve been close to getting the new ISTC website launched for several weeks now, only for an subtle twist or unforeseen working process to scupper my plans. I realise now, of course, that what I should’ve done was revisit the usage models of the website and finessed those first, rather than trying to shoehorn a somewhat antiquated set of processes into what is a fairly standard membership model. Oh well, live and learn. That said, it’s not been the legacy processes that have really slowed me down,… -
Ho ho … ho?
12 Dec 2011 | 3:18 amIt’s true. I’ve checked the calendar. Twice. It is definitely almost Christmas. Which means it’s almost the end of the year. How did that happen? I’m a bit disappointed that I’ve not yet managed to get the new ISTC website up and running. It’s close, so close, and after a few frustrating weeks of backtracking and replanning part of the implementation (the member database part, quite important that bit!) I now have a clear path forward and will be looking to get it tested (I have volunteers already, more welcomed!) in the next few weeks. Mind you, the past… -
On not blogging
25 Nov 2011 | 9:39 amA product release is imminent. A trip to visit two customers in the US of A. Ongoing complications with the new ISTC website (soon, soon!). Planning for 2012, including a major restructure of our content. Actual writing some documentation (a rare occurrence!). Plus all the usual things that life is wont to throw at us. Maybe look for me on Twitter instead?
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The Content Wrangler
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iBooks 2 and iBooks Author: One Week Later, What We’ve Learned — An Executive Round Table with McGraw-Hill, Digital Book World, and Aptara
23 Jan 2012 | 5:51 pmYet again Apple stopped us in our tracks. We awaited each word with bated breath during last Thursday’s unveiling of iBooks2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U. Now what? After a week of social media frenzy, water cooler chatter, thoughtful analysis, and technical digging, it’s time to reflect on what we’ve learned. Join us Thursday, January 26 for a live round table discussion with McGraw-Hill – one of Apple’s education partners; Digital Book World – the publishing industry’s premier digital publishing forum; and Aptara – trusted digital solutions partner to the… -
[Infographic] The Big Mac Index
19 Jan 2012 | 4:53 pmAccording to The Economist, “bugernomics” is “a lighthearted attempt to gauge how far currencies are from their fair value. It is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity (PPP), which argues that in the long run exchange rates should move to equalise the price of an identical basket of goods between two countries. Our basket consists of a single item, a McDonald’s Big Mac hamburger, produced in nearly 120 countries. The fair-value benchmark is the exchange rate that leaves burgers costing the same in America as elsewhere.” The folks at FoodBeast.com explain… -
[Infographic] Where The Outlets Are: The Best Airports And Airlines For Digitally-Savvy Business Travelers
12 Jan 2012 | 12:39 pmDigitally-savvy business travelers need to work on the go. Tablets, smartphones, and laptops make it possible to keep the information flowing. But, without a good, fast connection to the net and an electrical outlet to charge power-hungry mobile device batteries, business travelers aren’t very productive. The folks at Online MBA News put this handy infographic together (using data from a variety of sources) to help business travelers find the airports and and airlines that are helping them stay connected. Via: Online MBA News -
The Financial Services Insider: Who Needs A Web Content Management System When We Can Print The Web?
11 Jan 2012 | 2:37 pmby The Financial Services Insider (a secret, for obvious reasons) Too many companies are still treating enterprise web content as an animal separate and apart from the rest of the enterprise’s content. It’s a wasteful mistake that leads to some crazy behavior. Let me explain. I work for a financial services provider which is supposed to file its web properties with an industry watchdog or face audits and possible fines. When I started with the company, the websites had never been filed, and the compliance department was reluctant to increase the public web presence for fear of… -
[Infographic] How To Spot A Yelp User
5 Jan 2012 | 1:03 pmYelp, the popular review website where consumers share their views about restaurants, hotels, and other service providers, is extremely popular. Users of the site create millions of reviews each year, impacting the decisions of others who use the site as a guide to good experiences. But, who are Yelp users and how do you spot them? This infographic from the folks at FlowTown attempts to answer that question. Our question for you is “Do you use Yelp?” and if so, for what? Share your experiences in the comments section. We’d love to hear from you. Flowtown – Social Media…
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I Came, I Saw, I Learned...
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Adobe Captivate: A Font Frenzy
25 Jan 2012 | 12:40 pmby Kevin Siegel I received the following from fellow Captivate developer Johan Van Eeden. It seems Johan ran into some nasty font issues on his computer that totally derailed Captivate. He found a solution and shares it below.Hi Kevin, I recently sent you some information about a Captivate problem that I experienced: Soon after the green Captivate splash screen appears, the program freezes. The problem of Captivate hanging up on start-up is, according to the Adobe forums, one that is encountered quite a bit with versions 4, 5, and 5.5." I tried… -
Adobe RoboHelp: Importing & Linking Word Documents
20 Jan 2012 | 10:53 amRoboHelp allows you to integrate content created by different authors in Microsoft Word and Adobe FrameMaker. You can create projects by linking or importing Word and FrameMaker documents and then publish in different formats, including printed documentation. You can also use Word and FrameMaker documents as source files in an existing RoboHelp project. This article is a quick summary of the import and linking process. -
PowerPoint 2010: Copy a Master Slide from a Previous Presentation
20 Jan 2012 | 10:51 amby AJ George Ever received a PowerPoint presentation from someone and wished you could apply your own, previously created master slides in the presentation? Easy peasy; here's how: Open both the recipient and the source presentation (the source presentation is the one that has the master slide you would like to use in the recipient presentation). From within the source presentation, choose View > Master Views > Slide Master. In the slide thumbnail pane on the left, right-click the master slide that you would like to copy. (Selecting the larger slide master at the top… -
Writing & Grammar: The Importance of Knowing (at least some) Parts of Speech
19 Jan 2012 | 8:57 amby Jennie Ruby If you have spoken English since infancy, you probably have a lot of the structures of English built into your head. You don't need me to tell you, for example, how to fix this sentence: Towel the into the dryer went. You probably immediately saw that the sentence was backwards (Yoda-speak) and that the word the goes beforetowel, not after it. The normally structured sentence would read: The towel went into the dryer. Why do we have to study grammar rules, then, if we know things like this without even thinking? Because not all areas of… -
Adobe RoboHelp: Apply a CSS Project-Wide in a Snap
18 Jan 2012 | 12:42 pmby Kevin Siegel If you want to ensure that the appearance of your topics is consistent project-wide, one of the first things you should think about doing is creating a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) and then assigning the CSS to all the topics in your project.To assign the CSS to a single topic, open the topic. On the Formatting toolbar, click the Assign Style Sheet or Create New command. Select an existing CSS from the drop-down menu (or create a new one on the fly) and you are done. Using the technique above will get the job done. However, you can only use this…
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I'd Rather Be Writing
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STC Certification: An In-Depth Interview with Steve Jong
26 Jan 2012 | 10:11 pmThe following is a guest post by Steve Jong, chair of the STC Certification Commission. What does the certification program involve? First, for an introduction to the subject, I recommend the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_certification. Our Certified Professional Technical Communicator™ (CPTC) credential provides assurance to employers and the public that the certified practitioner possesses the knowledge, skill, and ability expected of a competent technical communicator to meet the demands of technical communication projects, today and tomorrow. To… -
Interview with Ugur Akinci about Technical Communication
23 Jan 2012 | 4:41 pmUgur Akinci The following is an interview with Ugur Akinci, a technical writer for Honeywell Corporation. Ugur asked me these same questions for an interview on this site. After answering them, I was curious about how he would answer the same questions, so I asked Ugur to respond to the questions for my site as well. (1) How long you’ve been a technical communicator? Where do you work right now? How would you characterize a typical day at work? I’ve been a technical communicator for over 13 years, lucky enough to be working for Fortune 100 hi-tech corporations. Currently I work for… -
Upcoming Webinar: Designing Quick Reference Guides
23 Jan 2012 | 9:31 amI’m giving an STC webinar this week on designing quick reference guides. Here are the details: Designing Quick Reference Guides Date: Wednesday, 25 January | 1:00–2:00 PM EST (GMT-5) Condensing a manual into an attractive quick reference guide requires a poet’s precision with language, but it also requires you to exercise skill with visual design and page layout. These short guides blend marketing with instruction, allowing you to combine text with images to pull readers into the content. Long manuals are outdated, ineffective ways to teach people software. The quick reference… -
Graduate Research Findings about Technical Communication and Blogs in the Workplace
22 Jan 2012 | 1:07 pmThe following is a guest post by Michelle Tompkins. Earlier this year she asked me to post a survey about technical communication and blogging. I posted it here, and then asked if she would follow up to share her findings. This guest post shares her findings. Earlier in December, Tom Johnson was nice enough to help me with my graduate research on how blogs are used with the workplace of a technical communicator. I received great feedback from all of the respondents on my survey, and I would like to thank everyone who participated. Not only did my study look at blog use, but also how social… -
Using JIRA to Track Writing Assignments
18 Jan 2012 | 8:57 amWe had a couple of writing interns join our group this month. To track writing assignments for the technology blog, I’ve been using JIRA. JIRA is a bug tracking tool from Atlassian (the same company that makes Confluence). It’s typically used by software teams to track bugs during software development projects. You can add comments to items, assign items to team members, assign the items to sprints, create advanced viewing filters for the items, and more. Since I’m using JIRA to track writing assignments, I have to live with a few compromises in terminology, but so far I…
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Gryphon Mountain Journals
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Precision Is Concision
10 Jan 2012 | 9:34 amYou may have noticed that I’ve been missing in action lately—at least on Gryphon Mountain, anyway. A couple of related factors have contributed to this. First, I’ve devoted a lot of my attention in 2011 to fiction. I’m most of the way through my second draft of a novel. During my two-week Christmas vacation a year ago, I wrote over 27,000 words of the first draft. This last vacation, I edited and revised my way through almost the entire second half of it in my second-draft effort. I’m trying to perfect my storytelling skills. Once I complete the second draft,… -
How Can Tech Writers Quantify Their Contribution to Usability?
6 Oct 2011 | 11:20 amI wonder if there’s a tech writer out there—in the software industry, anyway—who would argue that being involved in the design stages of a project is a bad thing. This theme comes up time and again among our User Education team members. Yesterday, one of us gave a presentation to our community of practice about usable design, what makes something usable, and how tech writers can contribute. She suggested we come up with some metrics that help us demonstrate how our contribution to usable design increases user productivity and lowers cost. As part of her illustration, she showed a… -
The Core Component of Technical Communication
20 Sep 2011 | 11:37 amOver the last few months, the User Education Team has developed a content model and a supporting style guide. Our evaluation of various documentation authoring tools a few months ago resulted in our choosing Author-it—a tool none of us was familiar with. In our discussions about our content model, or how our information is structured, sometimes we kept drifting into talking about what Author-it would allow us to do. It was an easy line to cross. The way you approach reuse and other considerations can change based on what tool you use. But overall, the optimal way to structure information… -
Some Survey Results That Surprised Me
19 Jul 2011 | 11:15 amMany times when I think of surveys, I think of the Animaniacs cartoon with the ladies who asked the three Warner siblings, “Would you like to take a survey?” There followed many questions with every imaginable permutation based around George Wendt, movies, and bean-eating. Recently I conducted an online survey on the training and help materials for System X, a Web-based app for office staff. I didn’t ask a single question about George Wendt or beans. My two main goals were: Find out how good the training was that the respondents received in person Learn how much the… -
Don’t Compartmentalize: Write for Everyone
1 Jun 2011 | 10:47 amNot that I’m the most stylish guy, but I’ve been working on a short style guide for our team. Our organization has a style guide that relies heavily on the Merriam-Webster dictionary and the Chicago Manual of Style, but it gives little attention to content regarding technology. To this point, the team has used the Microsoft style guide (third edition) as well, but it has some style specifications in it that seem pretty outdated—and rightly so, since it was published in 2003 or 2004. The objective for our style guide is to highlight the most important considerations so…
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THE BOGGLISH HUDERON
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time and location
12 Jan 2012 | 3:38 pmThe industry trade journals all predicted that smart phones and tablets would overtake PC shipments by the end of last year. I don’t know if that’s the case, but I’ve been curious to see how this trend plays out with our traditional age undergrads. If we work from the assumption that mobility eliminates time and space boundaries, then we can assume a predilection for content that can be “consumed” any time/any place.This isn’t a new concept, but it does serve our ongoing conversations about the use of technology to maximize classroom time. If, as some argue, SU will never see a… -
progress at any pace
11 Jan 2012 | 3:22 pmI had the opportunity yesterday to attend an online teaching and learning prep session hosted by the SU Writing Program (WP). The WP has shown extraordinary vision in this regard, as they’ve been hosting these events at least once a year for the past six or so years. The sessions are now required for any Professional Writing Instructor (adjunct) or doctoral student interested in teaching an online writing course.This year, a scholar who I’ve long admired as a teacher’s teacher gave a terrific overview of her strategy for engaging students in an online course. It was interesting to see… -
tech no faculty
16 Nov 2011 | 3:38 pmI just read two more articles bemoaning the challenges of getting faculty to use instructional technology in ways that benefit students. Both articles offer the same staid suggestions for technology adoption, as well as the standard 5-step approach for implementing technology -- any technology -- to address a specific problem.These regurgitated suggestions always fail to recognize the audience -- the faculty we are asking to rethink and retool. Beyond the anecdotal generational differences among faculty, there are a few other "conditions" that cause faculty to not fully accept our best… -
governance and chaos
14 Nov 2011 | 3:19 pmIt doesn't look like it should work, but it does...I left the Sloan-C conference last week with a renewed vigor, ready to embrace the chaotic cultural context in which undergraduate online teaching and learning occurs at Syracuse University. The chaos is a byproduct or the operational and academic autonomy that each of our schools and colleges maintain. In regard to governance of online initiatives, this autonomy necessitates a multi-level structure. Faculty and Deans provide governance at the local level. The Provost's office provides oversight and considers initiatives against the… -
pew and the new online learner
10 Nov 2011 | 7:24 amThe keynote at this year's Sloan-C was delivered by a really smart guy from the Pew Foundation. They've completed yet another great research project that would imply we have to think about online teaching and learning in different ways -- or do we.Pew claims we're in the midst of a digital revolution with three components: 1) broadband access, 2) social networking, and 3) mobile computing. The mobile aspect of the digital revolution is really interesting in only one regard: There are now 328 million wireless lines in the US. The total population of the country is 315.5 million. Do the math.
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[: technically speaking :]
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On hold
18 Jan 2012 | 8:54 amI had put a link to a Twitter account here ... but I'm going to be pursuing a different strategy, working with NI's existing social media team. So if you read this post earlier ... never mind! :-) -
Entering Edits
1 Apr 2011 | 10:56 amHello Internet-land, it's been awhile since I posted here. But I work on inspiration, and lately there hasn't been much of that driving any blog posts. I've been at NI for over six years now (crazy to think I've been writing this blog for like five of those years) and think I know pretty darn well how to write effective end-user documentation. Plus, I'm human and have an ego. Put these two facts -
Customer's Language Redux
28 Sep 2010 | 3:00 pmI've talked here before about speaking the customer's language. Yesterday I saw a post from another technical writing blog that reinforces this point. I quote: === ....[A] user may want to send a letter to many different people. If the user doesn't know about the mail merge feature, they will insanely copy and paste all the letters. Having an index entry of mail merge is useless, because if -
Designing for your Audience
30 Jul 2010 | 9:47 amToday's xkcd (a fantastically geeky webcomic) is about designing for your audience ... http://xkcd.com/773/ The parallels to technical writing are obvious :-) How can you know what to write if you don't know what information your audience is looking for? -
I Don't Want You to Think
25 May 2010 | 2:44 pmNo, really, I don't! At least, not when reading my documentation. One of my guiding principles behind writing & reviewing technical documentation is "Remove the burden of thought from the customer." After all, our customers are NOT getting paid to read documentation. They're not even getting paid to figure out how to program in LabVIEW. They are getting paid to solve problems. So when I'm
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CyberText Newsletter
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Better than winning Lotto
26 Jan 2012 | 3:30 pmWow. I work with a health, safety and environment team and we got these pictures from one of the safety guys. It seems this accident happened mid-December 2011 in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, and it involved a truck driver delivering oil/gas pipeline casings to a storage area. While this accident happened at a different company than the one I work for, it could’ve happened to anyone driving this sort of cargo and shows the importance of inspecting a load and how it’s tied down before you move off with it. Here’s the description that came with the photos… -
To cap or not to cap, that is the question
25 Jan 2012 | 3:30 pmOne of the team I work with asked: Please could you provide us with some guidance on when to use and not to use capital letters. I would expect to use capitals for proper nouns, defined terms in a legal document, position titles, acronyms, symbols for chemical elements and the first word of each sentence. In most of the reports I read, almost every noun is capitalised and a smattering of other parts of speech as well. It looks like German. Also: What is the shortcut key combination for converting text to lower case? Let’s get the easy one out of the way first… To toggle the case of a… -
The online world is global, right?
24 Jan 2012 | 3:30 pmAnother post on the inequities of Kindle books available on Amazon… One of the list members of a tech writer discussion list I’m on, notified the group that The Yahoo! Style Guide: Writing for an Online Audience is only $1.99 in Kindle edition on Amazon. Nice. Kindle is all about digital distribution of books, the book’s subject is to do with writing for an online audience, and the price was sweet. So I click the link and prepare to part with $1.99 for this Kindle edition. After all, the online world can be anywhere, can’t it? It’s global, right? Not so. -
Guess they don’t get many complaints
23 Jan 2012 | 3:30 pm‘Snapped’ at a local restaurant: Filed under: Humor -
Just get a $2 throwaway SIM, they said
22 Jan 2012 | 3:30 pmI’m heading off to the US in less than six weeks, and am taking my smartphone with me. I want to use it as my modem for my laptop where there isn’t free WiFi (yeah, I need to figure out how to do that…), so I need to get a SIM that is either a US SIM or a global SIM. I’m on a contract with Telstra in Australia and if I use their SIM plus international roaming, I could be up for thousands (yes, thousands) of dollars on my phone bill for just two weeks in the US. I checked the Whirlpool forums online (a great source of Australian information on all things techie and…
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The Humane Experience
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Not right does not mean wrong
25 Jan 2012 | 9:50 amI'm reading a really good document about risk analysis, and the author makes the point that when using probabilities to make predictions, at some point the future will unfold in a way that will make others perceive you were wrong. He emphasized "perceive" and that got me thinking. We do that a lot. Someone does their analysis, makes a decision, and then acts on it. Like a football coach that -
Think Aloud Is More than Talk Aloud
16 Jan 2012 | 11:58 amNielsen's current Alert Box reinforces that think-aloud is a great usability test tool. I couldn't agree more, but I'd like to add some in-the-trenches wisdom I learned from my first usability mentor, Loren Burke. There is a big difference between someone thinking out loud about the task they are doing and someone voicing their opinion about the design. The first is very valuable; the second, meh -
It ain't the walk, it's the talk.
20 Dec 2011 | 10:27 amI have a new column out today in UXmatters. It has to do with managing design tensions, but I talk a little in it about Action Science. During my doctoral research, in which I studied how development teams learn collectively during usability tests, I came across a field called Action Science, which analyzes dysfunctional communication with a focus on resolving contradictions between stated -
A Picture Is Worth...hmmmm
16 Nov 2011 | 7:26 amI think we use icons way too much! I'm working on a project right now where we are updating a web app and so I'm getting to talk to users and customers. One weakness that keeps coming up is that they can't figure out the icons. Not all of them, and that's been the important aha for me. Here's my new insight: Icons that differentiate among broad categories = good Icons that differentiate among -
A Most Unlikely Pub
11 Nov 2011 | 7:36 amOn Wednesday I went to the Irish Bred Pub in Rex, Georgia. Rex (now that I've been there, I feel as if I am on a first-name basis with the town) is a bit south of Atlanta, just off exit 2 on I-675. I went there to celebrate David Ellis's birthday and to hear his band, 3-Way Street, play. I've been in pubs all around Ireland and consider myself to know one when I see one. The one in Rex is,
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TechScribe software documentation
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Technical writing newsletter 44: January 2012
3 Jan 2012 | 4:00 amThe latest news from TechScribe. Issue 44 is about the Technical Communication UK (TCUK) 2011 conference and guidelines for typography. -
ISTC online groups, autumn 2011
18 Dec 2011 | 4:00 amISTC members discuss: wikis for documentation; reading Kindle e-books; terms to describe technical writers. -
Technical Communication UK 2011
19 Oct 2011 | 6:00 amThe Technical Communication UK 2011 conference in Oxford was excellent. Mike Unwalla reviews the presentations that he attended.
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Cherryleaf Technical Authors Blog
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Do Technical Authors do anything important?
27 Jan 2012 | 3:05 amChatting at the Royal Institution just before Christmas, someone asked me “But do you do anything important?”. They were slightly embarrassed when they realised what they’d said,... [[ For the full article, see http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog.htm]] -
Come and speak at our “Trends in Technical Documentation” talks
26 Jan 2012 | 2:35 amCherryleaf is curating and hosting a programme of talks on trends in technical documentation. At these sessions, there’s a presentation from a respected member of the Technical Communication... [[ For the full article, see http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog.htm]] -
Funeral arrangements for Carol Johnston
25 Jan 2012 | 1:40 amThe funeral for Carol Johnston will be held held at 2.15pm on Tuesday 31 January, at chapel at Oxford Crematorium. Our office will be closed on that afternoon. It will be a Humanist service, with... [[ For the full article, see http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog.htm]] -
Carol Johnston, one of the founders of Cherryleaf, passed away today
22 Jan 2012 | 2:40 pmCarol Johnston, one of the founders and a director of Cherryleaf, passed away today. It’s naturally terribly sad news. However, Carol had more than 40 years of life – a life to be... [[ For the full article, see http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog.htm]] -
The guilty pleasure of writing policy and procedure documents
16 Jan 2012 | 3:57 amWe have a number of projects running at the moment that involve us improving organisations’ policy and procedures documents. It may not seem likely, but these projects are enormous fun. The... [[ For the full article, see http://www.cherryleaf.com/blog.htm]]
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Communications from DMN
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Writing with bullets, a bit too much?
23 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amI have to admit that I find the book Writing in Bullets to be quite valuable and useful. It’s a good guide to writing concisely, and for using bullets effectively. Unfortunately, over the last few years I’ve been seeing bullets used to replace crisp, well-thought-out writing. And that’s forced me to think about 1) how bullets should be used, 2) how bullets are used, and 3) how I use them when writing. How bullets should be used At least, as far as I’m concerned … Bullets should be used to: Summarize key points List action items Introduce concepts that will follow… -
Take a cue from the trades when starting your business
16 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amWhen you’re starting out as a freelance technical writer (or in any business, for that matter), you run into difficulties and choices. Like how to hang out your shingle, how to market your wares, your pricing structure, and more. One way that you can do this is canvass other freelancers. That might net you some information. Then again, there are freelancers of all stripes out there who play with their cards close to their chests. They might be reluctant to share information, especially with someone who they perceive to be a potential competitor. A couple of weeks ago, I was going… -
Weekly links roundup
13 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amGetting a little respect for technical writing Thoughts about gender-neutral technical writing A look at going from FrameMaker to EPUB Web analytics for content planning What is collaboration? -
Copy editing versus content editing
9 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amA warning before we begin: I’m sure that this post is going to cause a bit … well, if not controversy then a bit of contention. That’s OK. I’m used to it. Understand that my definitions and perceptions of many things are filtered through my experiences. Enough of that. On to the post … I’ve often said that editing is the secret to good writing. And I really do believe that. As someone who once made a precarious living as a freelance editor, I helped improve the writing of my clients with a few tweaks. Well, sometimes more than that. In some cases, a lot… -
Weekly links roundup
6 Jan 2012 | 7:00 amTom Johnson discusses what he learned about technical communication in 2011. And, it seems, a few things about himself Keith Soltys looks at a very unhelpful error message Rhonda Bracey explains how to find and replace multiple spaces after a punctuation mark in Word Bill Kirschbaum talks about customer loyalty. Yes, documentation figures into it! Some thoughts on user assistance for smartphones
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Core Dump 2.0
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Some sad anniversaries
27 Jan 2012 | 3:33 amThis seems to be a bad time of year for the U.S. space program. Today is the anniversary of the fire that killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts: Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. The fire set the Apollo program back by more than a year, but did result in safety improvements that have affected spacecraft design to this day. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Challenger Shuttle disaster that killed seven astronauts: Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Christa McAuliffe, and Gregory Jarvis. February first is the anniversary of… -
Scalzi’s Oscar predictions
26 Jan 2012 | 6:17 pmThe Oscar nominations were announced today, and as usual John Scalzi (wearing his film critic hat) has posted his predictions. He makes a good case. First step: Toss out every nominee whose director is not nominated this year, since it is very rare for a film to win Best Picture without its director also being nominated (the last time it happened was 1988, with Driving Miss Daisy). So long Extremely Loud, The Help, Moneyball and War Horse. After that I suspect Midnight in Paris is next off. Usually I’d say it’s because it’s a comedy and comedies don’t win Oscars (the last straight… -
Let the genie out of the bottle
26 Jan 2012 | 4:03 amThere’s been a lot of controversy recently about the flu researchers who managed to figure out how to tweak H5N1 avian flu into something that’s a lot more contagious than the strain currently circulating in the wild. That strain has caused a few hundred deaths world-wide; the strain the researchers created could kill millions – potentially billions. It could be what virologists call a “slate wiper”, a disease so deadly that it threatens human civilization. Publication of the research results has been delayed while panels of scientist figure out whether the… -
Lessons learned from a website meltdown
25 Jan 2012 | 9:26 amIf you’re reading this, chances are better than average that you have your own blog. If so, then this article is worth reading. In it, Roger Renteria describes a recent site meltdown he experienced and the lessons he learned. I think it’s time I updated my backups …. Beware that moving a website like a WordPress blog is not an easy task if you don’t know the details regarding HTML, FTP, PHP, Apache Configuration, mySQL, Zone Files, A Records, and DNS. Thankfully the internet has instructions on fixing these issues that may arise as a result of trial and error. DOWNLOAD… -
HTML 5 Please
24 Jan 2012 | 9:27 amThere are a lot of new features in the HTML 5 and CSS 3 specifications, and if you’re like me and haven’t kept on top of the new web developments, you might have trouble figuring out which features are worth using and which are best left alone. If that’s the case, check out HTML 5 Please, which breaks them down into three categories: use, caution, and avoid. It’s a nicely laid out site with a brief explanation of each feature and why it’s categorized the way it is.
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Tech Writer News (Elephant)
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Resilience Tip - Statement Questions
19 Jan 2012 | 6:58 amRESILIENCE TIP Resilience is the ability to cope well with difficulties and to bounce back from setbacks. While some people are naturally more resilient than others, resiliency can also be intentionally developed. Statement Questions Ever notice how sometimes people ask a question when they really do not have a question? Recently I approached an office building where the gate at the entrance booth was open. I pulled up past the gate to the window where the guard was sitting, and opened my window to say where I was headed. The guard asked: “Why did you pull up past the gate?” I attempted… -
Translatable But Debatable - L'havdil
17 Jan 2012 | 4:20 pmI don’t find many dictionary definitions of להבדיל. Dov Ben Abba’s dictionary in Signet paperback says “not to be mentioned together,” which makes sense — or at least reasonable partial sense, since whenever we say להבדיל we are indeed mentioning things together, while simultaneously we point out that they are not to be compared except in the narrow sense that we intend. Read more... -
Translatable but Debatable - פירגון (Firgun)
17 Dec 2011 | 4:18 pmA contributor to “Better than English” writes that פירגון is “An act of saying nice things or doing nice things to another person without any other purpose, but to make the other feel good about what he is or what he does” but another contributor responds that “It can also be to share the credit with someone or not try to stab them in the back. Not to be jealous of someone’s accomplishments.”Read more... -
Resilience Tip - Confusion's Beauty
24 Nov 2011 | 3:31 am“I’m confused”, clients have said with a look of dismay. “Great!” I say. “That is the first step toward new thinking.” We humans use routine thinking for routine situations. We compartmentalize incoming data to help us manage the vast amounts of information coming our way. Hmm, seat, back, some legs – goes into our “chair” compartment of our thinking, and then we can move on to another thoughtRead more... -
Translatable But Debatable - געגועים
18 Nov 2011 | 8:03 amNostalgia may be wistfully reflective but is not painfully sad the way געגועים can be. Are we ever said to be nostalgic over people anyway? Times and places for sure, but individual people? I don’t know. Maybe public figures. Read more...
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The Humane Experience
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Not right does not mean wrong
25 Jan 2012 | 9:50 amI'm reading a really good document about risk analysis, and the author makes the point that when using probabilities to make predictions, at some point the future will unfold in a way that will make others perceive you were wrong. He emphasized "perceive" and that got me thinking. We do that a lot. Someone does their analysis, makes a decision, and then acts on it. Like a football coach that -
Think Aloud Is More than Talk Aloud
16 Jan 2012 | 11:58 amNielsen's current Alert Box reinforces that think-aloud is a great usability test tool. I couldn't agree more, but I'd like to add some in-the-trenches wisdom I learned from my first usability mentor, Loren Burke. There is a big difference between someone thinking out loud about the task they are doing and someone voicing their opinion about the design. The first is very valuable; the second, meh -
It ain't the walk, it's the talk.
20 Dec 2011 | 10:27 amI have a new column out today in UXmatters. It has to do with managing design tensions, but I talk a little in it about Action Science. During my doctoral research, in which I studied how development teams learn collectively during usability tests, I came across a field called Action Science, which analyzes dysfunctional communication with a focus on resolving contradictions between stated -
A Picture Is Worth...hmmmm
16 Nov 2011 | 7:26 amI think we use icons way too much! I'm working on a project right now where we are updating a web app and so I'm getting to talk to users and customers. One weakness that keeps coming up is that they can't figure out the icons. Not all of them, and that's been the important aha for me. Here's my new insight: Icons that differentiate among broad categories = good Icons that differentiate among -
A Most Unlikely Pub
11 Nov 2011 | 7:36 amOn Wednesday I went to the Irish Bred Pub in Rex, Georgia. Rex (now that I've been there, I feel as if I am on a first-name basis with the town) is a bit south of Atlanta, just off exit 2 on I-675. I went there to celebrate David Ellis's birthday and to hear his band, 3-Way Street, play. I've been in pubs all around Ireland and consider myself to know one when I see one. The one in Rex is,
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EServer TC Library: Recent Additions
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Tech Writer Tips and Tricks-DITA
22 Jan 2012 | 9:54 pmDarwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is a sweeping revolution in technical writing and training. DITA introduces a different way of writing; a way that satisfies the ways users look for information and is therefore more usable. Additionally, authors work more efficiently by being able to easily single source and re-use content. The overall user experience is more consistent because format is completely separated from content (format is handled on publish only, not by the authors). Consider carefully, and if you choose to make the switch to DITA, it’s already time to start planning. -
Taking Advantage of Social Media Part I: The Media Are the Message
22 Jan 2012 | 2:24 pmIf you’re a technical communicator desperately trying to find some peace and quiet amidst a rowdy cubicle farm, it may seem hard to understand why anyone would want to become more social. In this article, I’ll describe some of the currently popular technologies that support social networking. In the next installment (in about 2 months), I’ll show how you can take advantage of these technologies to communicate more effectively with an audience by embracing socialism. Hart, Geoffrey J.S. -
Taking Advantage of Social Media Part II: The Media Aren't the Message
22 Jan 2012 | 2:24 pmWhatever a social medium’s idiosyncrasies, what distinguishes it from traditional communication methods is that it restores the human touch by permitting or even insisting on dialogue. At a minimum, this makes the reading more diverse and interesting, as in blogs that painlessly mingle technical content (upcoming webinars, solutions to technical problems) with insights into the blogger’s life. At the other extreme, social media represent a revolutionary way for readers to work with us to create meaning. To borrow a phrase that is fast-becoming cliché, that changes everything. Hart,… -
E-Book Formats
22 Jan 2012 | 2:22 pmMost technical writers understand online help formats and have worked with at least one over the years. Help file format have evolved from man pages (manual pages in UNIX in the early 1970’s) and HLP files through CHM files and the plethora of HTML-based formats that we have now. E-Book formats are similar in many respects to the common online help formats, but with one crucial difference; they’re designed to work on the small screens of today’s e-readers and tablets. Soltys, Keith -
New Communications Cycle: Content Consumption is a Two-Way Street
20 Jan 2012 | 3:48 pmThe impact of social media on how technical communicators do their job extends beyond the frequently discussed “you need to be on Facebook” conversation. The communications cycle relies on determining the what, how, and when of communications in a strategic way… and that much hasn’t changed. Giordano, Connie
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Shanghai Tech Writer
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Combining the Power of Google and National Instruments
12 Jan 2012 | 7:28 pmCombining the Power of Google and National Instruments is a post from: Shanghai Tech Writer I’ve had the privilege of working for two great companies — National Instruments (2007-2009) and now, Google (2009-present). What happens when you combine both companies’ products together and create a new product? Check out this awesome Guinness World Record-breaking robot built using Lego Mindstorm NXT (programmed using NI’s LabVIEW) and Samsung Galaxy S II (powered by Google’s Android). This ARM-powered, Lego-constructed CubeStormer II has set a Guiness… -
Google’s New WebGL Bookcase
18 Oct 2011 | 8:59 pmGoogle’s New WebGL Bookcase is a post from: Shanghai Tech Writer Google came up with an awesome way to represent digital books online, using WebGL. WebGL Bookcase is an experimental interface for the Google Books API. The interface is a circular digital bookshelf. You pick a subject and scroll through the book titles. To view a book, just click it, and a 3D-looking book comes to the foreground, enabling you to flip through the pages and even click to buy or download. Check it out! Chrome Expirment – WebGL Bookcase (If you’re in China, you’ll need VPN to view the… -
Chinese Robots Can Play Ping Pong
17 Oct 2011 | 8:36 pmChinese Robots Can Play Ping Pong is a post from: Shanghai Tech Writer Check out this YouTube video of a robot playing ping pong in China. If robots can play ping pong, imagine what they can do in another 5 or 10 years (especially if you add A.I. like Siri)! (If you’re in China, you’ll need VPN to see the embedded video. Here’s the actual video link.) Share and Enjoy: Related Articles:Google Voice Finally Sends Out Invites! (0)Combining the Power of Google and National Instruments (0)Google’s New WebGL Bookcase (1)The Amazing Google Body (0)The Magic Goop Scoop (0)A… -
Watch Out for Scams Targeting Foreigners in China
30 Sep 2011 | 3:46 pmWatch Out for Scams Targeting Foreigners in China is a post from: Shanghai Tech Writer Useful information regarding various scams targeting foreigners living in China. Some of them are quite funny and/or crazy! The American Citizen Services (ACS) unit is regularly contacted by Americans victimized by scams that take advantage of their generosity or ignorance of local norms and culture. While petty theft remains the most prevalent type of crime Westerners encounter in China, the diversity and sophistication of scams is increasing. While the following list is not meant to be… -
Documentation Writer Job Opening at Google NY
6 Sep 2011 | 2:17 pmDocumentation Writer Job Opening at Google NY is a post from: Shanghai Tech Writer The area: Engineering Simply put, Google engineers make computers do amazing things. Populated by extraordinarily creative, motivated and talented people, our Engineering team gets excited by developing new applications that really make a difference and are used by millions of people. We’re driven by Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. If you seek to tackle such challenges as building a highly scalable computing infrastructure,…
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Freelance Technical Writing Services | Web Writing Services
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Internet Marketing Start to Finish: A Review
23 Jan 2012 | 9:04 amGot a website? Of course you do. Got an effective marketing strategy for it? You’re not alone. It’s becoming increasingly critical for businesses to invest in online marketing, but online marketing is also growing more complex. Small and medium size businesses are under great pressure to beef up their Internet marketing efforts, but often they don’t have the resources or the expertise to handle such an enormous challenge. Internet Marketing Start to Finish, by Catherine Juon, Dunrie Greiling, and Catherine Buerkle, aims to provide some relief. Designed to outline “a breakthrough… -
Hey Content, Don’t Be That Guy [Good Design #6]
20 Jan 2012 | 9:01 amPhoto credit: Carrington Vanston You know how there’s always That Guy at the party? He’s the guy without a sense of personal space who keeps butting into other people’s conversations and derailing them with slightly inappropriate stories and way too much personal information. Well, I hate to break it to you, but your content may be That Guy. We want our content to get noticed, but it shouldn’t ever butt in where it doesn’t belong. Do we have a good understanding of where our content doesn’t belong? No one likes the guy at the party who keeps butting into other people’s… -
Air Guitars and Keeping Loyal Customers [Good Design #5]
2 Jan 2012 | 9:31 amMy dad got an Air Guitar for Christmas this year. Yes, an Air Guitar. It’s a plastic toy shaped like the head and neck of a guitar, with a laser that senses your arm’s motion through the air. When you pass your hand in front of the laser, the toy plays a sound that resembles a chord (sort of). A cheap thrill, but my dad was amused with it. He had fun with this Air Guitar, but the instructions were nearly indecipherable. The content itself wasn’t bad (although it really wasn’t good, either). In fact, although the content itself was pretty clear, it took great effort to undertstand the… -
Serious About Marketing? Better Be Serious About User Guides Too
16 Dec 2011 | 9:48 amScott Abel, The Content Wrangler, posted a terrific article this week that got a lot of attention from the technical communications community. Looking ahead to 2012, he poses several challenges to the tech comm industry. One challenge in particular strikes at every small business that’s serious about reaching customers. Scott says: When organizations showcase their technical communication products on the web, in the way that Autodesk and ExactTarget do today, they experience many benefits, including deep knowledge about their customers that allow them to make valuable incremental… -
Why the iPad User Guide Matters [Good Design #4]
27 Oct 2011 | 8:47 amHave you considered how the design of your technical materials is shaping your customers’ opinions of you? Are they impressed or turned off? Glad they chose you, or discouraged by the sea of text? Apple is known for its exceptional design in everything they do, and there’s a reason they extend that to their technical content. They know that everything their customers see will shape perceptions of Apple and its products. The iPad user guide is a big deal. This is the fourth in a series of posts that discuss Dieter Rams’s 10 principles of good design and why good design is necessary for…
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Kai's Tech Writing Blog
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Short-sighted seduction: Tech comm as a task
23 Jan 2012 | 3:00 amTreating tech comm as a task, not a profession, is seductive, but harmful. This is the story of how a seemingly sensible management decision about documentation has inflicted avoidable damage on a product. Read how the idea that “anybody can write” can backfire. Best intentions Imagine a software company. They decide to revamp one of their products. It’s gotten a little long in the tooth and deserves a renovation. Requirements and designs are written, modules are developed and tested. Documentation was previously understaffed, but that wasn’t a severe problem. The… -
On being a tech comm influencer
16 Jan 2012 | 2:00 amMindTouch’s list of The 400 Most Influential in #Techcomm and #ContentStrategy does a great job of invigorating our profession, but has a few problems as well. [This blog post is victim to my regular blogging schedule: It was written before, but published after David Farbey's more elaborate post where all the action is in the comments and Aaron from MindTouch replies to some of the issues with the list!] Here’s my play-by-play recap of my various reactions to the list: Hope — “Did I make the top 50?” Marvel — “Wow, look at the people at the top,… -
Beef up tech comm skills with free webinars
11 Jan 2012 | 3:00 amIf one of your new year’s resolutions has been to improve your tech comm skills, here’s your chance. Industry experts offer several webinars in upcoming weeks to start you off. Many of them are free, so you really have no excuse! Scriptorium Scriptorium’s free webinars cover industry trends and technologies, such as: Content strategy in technical communication Trends in technical communication, 2012 HTML5 and its impact on technical communication I’ve attended many Scriptorium webinars and have learned a lot from them. They are substantial and presented well. If… -
Tech comm trends 2012, mashed up and commented
9 Jan 2012 | 3:00 am2012 is the year when tech comm’ers need to understand business processes and align documentation with new technologies, say tech comm pundits – and yours truly. What I expect for 2012 Tech comm’ers need to understand business processes. Okay, so this trend is not exactly new, but I expect it will gain traction this year. Scott Abel thinks so, too. Business processes are crucial for us tech writers in more ways than we might think. Ideally, we understand them in three domains: In tech comm, we need to understand business processes to do our job efficiently, to improve how we… -
Happy New Year
1 Jan 2012 | 3:00 amI wish you a happy new year and all the best for 2012! If you’ve stopped by this blog in 2011, you’re in the good company of readers, most from the USA, Germany, Canada and the UK, but also from India, Denmark, Philippines, Australia, South Africa and Brazil – and other countries who didn’t make it into the top 10. I hope to see you around in 2012, on this here blog, on twitter at @techwriterkai or on the occasional conference: I will speak at STC Summit in Chicago in May, and plan to attend – speaking or not – TCUK and tekom in October. Filed under: blogs
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Content Evangelist
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Improving Knowledge Retention in eLearning
19 Jan 2012 | 9:47 amImproving Knowledge Retention in eLearning A kind gnome pass this knowledge retention link to me (yeah, Ima gonna pay for that gnome comment! It’s worth a full read but the highlights on how we can use those retention ideas to improve our eLearning courses are: Say it Again if You Want Me To Remember! Repetition and Retention Studies show that adaptive repetition aids in knowledge retention. The gist of it is: Pretest – what do I already know? Adaptive Learning presentation – Show me only the gaps in my knowledge Test – What do I know now? Repeat step 2 –… -
Demonstrating the power of EPUB3 for Interactive Elearning
4 Jan 2012 | 3:03 pmYou’ll have to download the ereader, then grab the EPUB3 Unleashed ebook. It’s worth clicking through the whole demo, as it shows a lot of options that become available in epub3. What’s exciting from an elearning and interactive enhanced ebook perspective includes: text-linked audio animation interaction quizzes (True/false, sequencing, multiple choice, drag and drop, etc). Will be great to see some of this functionality showing up in digital content to move us all beyond the print-based econtent we have available today. -
New Survey Results on ebooks from Aptara
20 Dec 2011 | 2:29 pmAptara came out with survey results on the State of Epubs around the publishing world. If you don’t have time for the full pdf survey results, take a look at this short infographic that covers the basics on ebook adoption. While this is focused on all book publishers, there’s some interesting takeaways for elearning and techcomm professionals: ebooks are on the rise across all industries Enhanced ebooks will change the paradigm of what it means to be a ‘book’ – i.e. we’ll move away from the print-to-digital conversion, and create new user… -
Another Interesting Take on the Mobile User (and content assumptions)
7 Nov 2011 | 5:21 pmFrom Myths of the Mobile Context , Mobile users: Expect as good an experience as the desktop May be looking for that quick snippet, but many times are looking for the full content. Plan accordingly. Don’t randomly remove content – keep the core content available on Mobile (tho need to reconsider navigation etc for smaller screen). Extra clicks to get to content is okay, so long as it is leading to the right direction. Make decisions obvious. Serve the same content to all devices, but optimize experience for the device capabilities Apply Minimalist principles to ALL your content. -
Mobile First as a Content Strategy
2 Nov 2011 | 7:48 amThis is is being presented at this year’s DevLearn 2011 conference: Content Strategy Across Connected Devices Interesting highlights: Content developers’ goal – create an engaging educational experience for screens that are convenient, not simply converting existing content to smaller screens. Converting existing elearning content to mobile format is a lesson in futility. Design training content for mobile first, not desktop or print. Content development should become Agile – continuous experimentation and improvement. Design upfront what your smallest content…
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More Specifically
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Transitioning
27 Jan 2012 | 1:13 pmMany life changing events (both professional and personal) have been occurring and I apologize for not being more regular in my blog. Professionally, I will be officially making the transition from full time to freelance. There had been some back and forth because the company I work for wants to keep me as a contractor, but it is a small company and there were many loopholes to work though. Now it is official. Transition is sometimes the most difficult part. I am currently still working full time and freelancing at night. I have a few terrific clients I am working with right now and having a… -
The Art of Negotiation: What You Need to Get the Gig
18 Jan 2012 | 12:40 pmThis past year, I have been moonlighting as a freelance editor/writer while still maintaining a full time job. This paycheck security meant that I could take or leave projects with no real financial burden. This means I slacked a bit when it came to 1.) Looking for new clients and 2.) Securing the contract. As I transition now into full time freelance, I do find myself with more anxiety when it comes to finding enough work to cover the bills. Every freelancer goes through this phase as they are first starting out to make their brand known. The safety net is being pulled out and now I better… -
Sprints: Freelancing with a Baby or Toddler Around
12 Jan 2012 | 7:44 amKatharine O’Moore-Klopf, ELS, a board-certified editor in the life sciences, has been self-employed since 1995. She has helped researchers in more than 20 nations get their articles published in more than 35 US and UK biomedical journals by removing language barriers. On Twitter, where she networked her way into coauthoring a book, Katharine’s handle is @KOKEdit. Learn more about her at http://www.kokedit.com. One of the best techniques for dealing with seemingly daunting projects is to break them down into a series of small tasks. When I went freelance full time at the start of 1995 just… -
Guest Post: Tips For The Work At Home Freelancer
4 Jan 2012 | 8:37 amBio: Louise Harnby is a UK-based professional proofreader with 21 years’ experience in the publishing industry. Freelance since 2006, she is also a mother, a wife, and a Labrador owner. Web address: www.louiseharnbyproofreading.weebly.com I became a freelance proofreader in 2006 when my daughter was two years old. I’d worked ‘in-house’ for a couple of publishing companies for 13 years prior to giving birth. Holding my tiny child in my arms, I realized that the concept of working ‘in-house’ was going to take on an entirely different meaning if I was going to earn some money and… -
An Announcement
2 Jan 2012 | 9:58 amI hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season! 2012 will be an exciting year for myself and my family as we have a few life changes coming along this year. I will take just a moment to reminisce of what happened in 2011, both personal and professional. Started More Specifically freelance editing/writing business, along with this online blog and portfolio. Moved into our very first home. Paid off the last of our Credit Card debt. Met wonderful colleagues on Twitter – I highly recommend this tool for every freelancer. As 2012 starts, I am planning big changes for the year as we get…
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I Came, I Saw, I Learned...
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Adobe Captivate: A Font Frenzy
25 Jan 2012 | 12:40 pmby Kevin Siegel I received the following from fellow Captivate developer Johan Van Eeden. It seems Johan ran into some nasty font issues on his computer that totally derailed Captivate. He found a solution and shares it below.Hi Kevin, I recently sent you some information about a Captivate problem that I experienced: Soon after the green Captivate splash screen appears, the program freezes. The problem of Captivate hanging up on start-up is, according to the Adobe forums, one that is encountered quite a bit with versions 4, 5, and 5.5." I tried installing, uninstalling and… -
Adobe RoboHelp: Importing & Linking Word Documents
20 Jan 2012 | 10:53 amRoboHelp allows you to integrate content created by different authors in Microsoft Word and Adobe FrameMaker. You can create projects by linking or importing Word and FrameMaker documents and then publish in different formats, including printed documentation. You can also use Word and FrameMaker documents as source files in an existing RoboHelp project. This article is a quick summary of the import and linking process. -
PowerPoint 2010: Copy a Master Slide from a Previous Presentation
20 Jan 2012 | 10:51 amby AJ George Ever received a PowerPoint presentation from someone and wished you could apply your own, previously created master slides in the presentation? Easy peasy; here's how: Open both the recipient and the source presentation (the source presentation is the one that has the master slide you would like to use in the recipient presentation). From within the source presentation, choose View > Master Views > Slide Master. In the slide thumbnail pane on the left, right-click the master slide that you would like to copy. (Selecting the larger slide master at the top will… -
Writing & Grammar: The Importance of Knowing (at least some) Parts of Speech
19 Jan 2012 | 8:57 amby Jennie Ruby If you have spoken English since infancy, you probably have a lot of the structures of English built into your head. You don't need me to tell you, for example, how to fix this sentence: Towel the into the dryer went. You probably immediately saw that the sentence was backwards (Yoda-speak) and that the word the goes beforetowel, not after it. The normally structured sentence would read: The towel went into the dryer. Why do we have to study grammar rules, then, if we know things like this without even thinking? Because not all areas of English are… -
Adobe RoboHelp: Apply a CSS Project-Wide in a Snap
18 Jan 2012 | 12:42 pmby Kevin Siegel If you want to ensure that the appearance of your topics is consistent project-wide, one of the first things you should think about doing is creating a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) and then assigning the CSS to all the topics in your project.To assign the CSS to a single topic, open the topic. On the Formatting toolbar, click the Assign Style Sheet or Create New command. Select an existing CSS from the drop-down menu (or create a new one on the fly) and you are done. Using the technique above will get the job done. However, you can only use this technique to assign a…
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10 Newest Things in Blogging for 2012
24 Jan 2012 | 8:21 amThis is a guest post by Kathleen Hubert. Oh! snap, its 2012 already! Are you ready for a new year of blogging trends? In the last few years we’ve dealt with everything from web 2.0 to crazy innovations in car loans and insurance (who doesn’t love all of the crazy Progressive commercials?), but that was [...] -
Writers & Bloggers, Learn About the SOPA and PIPA and Why to Protest It
17 Jan 2012 | 10:38 pmSOPA Infographic: The Internet Blacklist Bill View more documents from Fight for the Future Via: Business Insurance Blog PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo. [View the story "SOPA/PIPA Protests" on Storify] Source: thisisnthappiness.com via Ben on Pinterest -
Five Areas in 2012 That Technical Writers Need to Know
4 Jan 2012 | 1:14 pmThis is also true of systems that businesses and government agencies use. The systems were not as robust, and a lot of them have been (or will be) updated to keep up with the demands of today. With this, also comes the documentation that tells the beginning, middle, and end of these systems. This is from the project planning, requirements gathering and analysis, and the end-user documents. Due to the close tie-in between documentation and systems, technical writing has also evolved alongside technology. -
Happy Holidays and New Year’s Everyone!
21 Dec 2011 | 9:00 amAnother free picture slideshow by Smilebox I want to wish everyone a happy holidays. I’ve been pretty busy working on different projects and getting ready for Christmas. After this hectic two weeks, I will be back with more material. Source: kraftykym.blogspot.com via kym on Pinterest -
5 New Year’s Resolutions for Writers
12 Dec 2011 | 9:37 pmThe New Year is right around the corner and as you gear up to bid farewell to 2011, you’re ready to pop champagne, countdown with friends and you’ve even got a special someone lined up who you plan on sharing a kiss with at the stroke of midnight…but wait—do you know what your New Year’s resolutions are for 2012? Well if not and you just happen to be a writing enthusiast, be sure to check out the following resolutions that will make for a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year as a writer.
