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Twitter - Can it Make You a Better Technical Writer?
Copyblogger's Jennifer Blanchard thinks so and I completely agree. According to the post " How Twitter Makes You A Better Writer ", Twitter helps writers in three ways: Twitter forces you to be concise. Twitter forces you to exercise your...
Have you committed a technical writing sin?
I’ve been re-reading some old posts in the field, and after reading Amy Hoy's Slash7 post on " How Tech Writing Sucks: The Five Sins ," I started thinking… is it really possible not to commit any one of the five sins? The Five Sins - Losing...
How do you explain technical writing to a kid?
The short answer is… you don’t! Last Friday, I had the distinct privilege to be part of a special field trip for kids from Meeting Street Academy (See Rachel’s blog post for more background on the special event). In short summary, I was to explain to...
Journey from Structred Frame to SharePoint Server Wiki
The journey from last week to this week already feels a decade long as I’ve encountered many trials and errors in converting internal team documentation authored in Structured FrameMaker into a Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 friendly format. In other...
By Popular Demand - The Raiser's Edge 7 for Beginners
We often get great feedback about our documentation from our users. Sometimes, it's a friendly head's up of a typo that made its way out into the world (d'oh!). My favorites, though, are when I get to help fulfill a user’s request or search...
Google's Chrome Comic Book Documentation
The buzz in the online world the past few weeks is about Google's new Internet browser Chrome . In the Technical Communication world, the buzz is around Google's choice to create a help book to explain Chrome. Why the buzz? Well it was done in...
How do you like your help?
In the evolution of software help, user assistance content has taken many shapes and forms. The search for the best way to assist you in your every day work processes is an ever changing quest. Long, jargon filled, and confusing technical documentation...
Why we need technical communicators?
Saw this funny post on Holly Harkness's technical communication blog Don't Call Me Tina . It's a funny video that Karen Schriver showed at the STC Conference a year ago in Minneapolis. The video explains for itself why the world needs more...
Documentation is Haunting Me
Even on vacation I couldn't escape documentation. While most people think technical writers explain software or some similar product (and it's true, I do) so many other forms of technical communication exist. On my vacation I was bombarded with...
Why does web 2.0 matter?
I know I write many (and long winded) posts about web 2.0 and my little brain gets excited about all the new technologies that emerge every day. But how can I not? I am sitting mere feet from software engineers who are part of this innovative movement...
Be a Part of the Conversation
How often do you think about the conversations you have with your constituents or users? Are you thinking about the synchronous real time conversations - the phone calls, the meetings, the special events? If you are, you're overlooking one of the...
Society for Technical Communication's Annual Conference
I recently (6/2 - 6/4) attended the Society for Technical Communication's 55th Annual Conference in Philadelphia. (And yes, we have been around for at least that long trying to help users make sense of technology.) Over the next several weeks I plan...
The Business Case for Twitter
Lately, much has been said about Twitter . Chad wrote a great post ( Twitter Makes Relationships Work - Right Now ) with an explanation of what Twitter is so I'll skip the overview and get to the business case. Let's start with a little confession...
Online Dis-Connectedness
Seems like the more we move in this digital age to online connectedness the more we become solitary in our efforts. We sit crouched behind a laptop staring at the screen for hours on end typing messages to people on twitter, facebook, IM, or email (depending...
Integrating Emerging Technologies on a Daily Basis with Existing Work Processes
Something that’s been on my mind a lot lately is the role of emerging technology and how to incorporate it into the documentation process. I’ve known about some of these emerging technologies for a long time but lately I’ve been thinking more about how...
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