Where I’m Going, My Aspirations — Everything Seems to Align with Web 2.0

April 20th, 2007 | Posted in blog 8 Comments »

While we were eating Thai food last night in Vancouver, one of my technical writing buddies asked where I’m going. He always seems to ask me this, like when you look at a menu and ask, what are you ordering? But more philosophical.

It’s an open-ended question that provokes thought. I’m young with an open road ahead of me. Since I finished my presentation today at the Doc Train conference, I returned to my hotel room (see my panoramic hotel window view at the right), sat down and thought, what next, where am I going?

Here are several things I would like to do.

Implement a recurring virtual software Saturday event.

I want to use a free webconferencing service like www.dimdim.com or www.vyew.com to set in motion a recurring virtual software Saturday event focused on tools. For example, a tool expert (located anywhere in the world) could appear on the show for a 2 hour explanation, demo, and Q&A of the tool. Participants could view the web conference on their desktop, and it would be recorded as well for later viewers.

Convert podcasting into a Web 2.0 experience.

I would like to start using LiveOffice Teleconferencing or some other conference calling feature to enable collaborative, participant-driven podcasts that remove the tedium of manual audio recording. This service supposedly records your teleconference calls and lets you download them as MP3 files — all for free. Anyone would be able to join these podcast conversations and ask questions in real-time.

Create Yahoo Pipes feeds that deliver useful information to writers.

I would like to mash up keyword driven RSS searches from the web into a Yahoo Pipes feed that filters out all the unwanted noise and distills important and meaningful messages. Basically, I’d like to distill the entire web through one very accurate, informative feed.

Hack WordPress into a help authoring tool.

I would like to hack WordPress into a help authoring tool. It has some pretty strong limitations, such as no cross references or character-level indexes, and a page threshold, but I like the idea of an open-source help authoring medium that is interactive, dynamic, and customizable.

It will be a small miracle if I can do any one of these things. Still, when I look inside myself and ask, Tom, where are you going? these are a few of the short-term things that come to mind. Of course I would like to have a few more kids, move to the country, and go fishing more, but that’s another topic. Any thoughts or recommendations for me?

Alignment with Web 2.0

Interestingly, all of my aspirations align with Web 2.o. By Web 2.0 I mean user-driven/collaborated content. Web 2.0 is the future that everything will have to fall under anyway. In the following picture, my mind is being beamed into my surroundings, or my surroundings are being beamed into me. Either way, it’s sort of a Web 2.0 looking photo (taken with my friend Sean’s Macbook iBooth).

Archives

Aaron says:

April 20, 2007 at 11:16 pm

Where are you going? Why, you shouldn’t have to spend any time or space (=same?) on that! The answer . . . ARIZONA!

Tom says:

April 20, 2007 at 11:46 pm

I wish ….

I didn’t even know you read my blog, Aaron! How awesome to also get a comment.

Actually my rental car has Arizona plates.

Karel Lukas says:

April 22, 2007 at 6:16 pm

Hi Tom,

This is Karel Lukas from Yugma. For your recurring weekly virtual meetings, I certainly encourage you to also take a look at Yugma (www.yugma.com). It to is a free web conferencing app that is designed with everyone in mind (small businesses, educators, and online communities). It’s key benefits are a) it’s super easy to use, b) works on Windows, Mac, and Linux (also application and browser independant), and c) its free forever. Also, please stay tuned as we’ve got a number of very cool new features about to be released in the next couple of weeks.

All the best,
Karel
Yugma
http://www.yugma.com

April 23, 2007 at 12:41 pm

Yugma works well. Scott and I have used it in the past for sharing our desktops and it worked surprisingly well for a free app.

Brian says:

April 23, 2007 at 1:40 pm

Fun post!

I wrote a college paper on open source software and technical writing and came to the conclusion that wikis had the most potential in the future of technical writing. The general public has wonderful knowledge of certain topics that you can’t get from anywhere else, but they can’t be trusted to portray information in an organized, uniform fashion. If wikis proliferate in this fashion I see a future career of “Technical Rewriter” emerging where a professional writer would apply a style guide to user-submitted information.

Compare any user manual to the company’s user forums to get an idea of this twinkle in my eye. People are passionate about products so why not harness that passion in the most easily accessible place – the primary documentation.

Pie in the sky or plausible? I can’t decide.

April 25, 2007 at 8:06 pm

Brian,
I agree that wikis have the most potential. I would be interested in reading your paper, if you still have it. The only problem with wikis is that they’re primitive single sourcing tools. Plus there must be some incentive for users to contribute their time and attention to them. When I think of the future of help documentation, I think the WordPress Codex is a perfect example of the sprawling, complicated wiki that will emerge.

April 25, 2007 at 8:07 pm

Karel,

Thanks for letting me know about Yugma. I’ll check it out.

Andrew Donnelly says:

April 24, 2008 at 2:22 am

I read your blog today about free web conferencing tools, and I wanted to recommend Mikogo to you (http://www.mikogo.com).
I’m on the team members here at Mikogo, so I hope you don’t mind hearing a little about the product from me.
Firstly, it’s completely free – no catches.
Secondly, there are no limits on the features. i.e. everyone is able to access all the features of Mikogo. Once again this is because it’s 100% free.
Features include: switch presenter, remote keyboard and mouse control, file transfer, application selection, and more.
Also we’ve just realised the Mikogo Skype Extra: this gives you free screen sharing and phone calls all in one.

I think you’ll find Mikogo to be aligned with what you are seeking, as well as Web 2.0. Check it out and let me know what you think. Feel free to email me.

Regards,
Andrew

I'd Rather Be Writing