Comments on: Podcast: What’s New in the Field of Technical Communication?

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 07:23:45 +0000

@ Susan, thanks for the feedback on the podcast. I agree that staying up to date is a major challenge. But it’s also part of the fun.

By: Susan

Susan — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:04:41 +0000

Really interesting podcast; enjoyed it immensely.

I especially enjoyed hearing about your struggles in staying up to date with the field. It often feels like the information I need to know grows exponentially; if my knowledge grows by an inch today, the field grows by a mile.

I find the blogosphere, and particularly webcasts like these, a tremendous help in keeping current. I just make myself a cup of coffee, click, listen, and learn. Many thanks!

By: Alan J. Porter

Alan J. Porter — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:59:01 +0000

Hi Tom - I put together a quick post on other instructional comics - hope you find it interesting.

By: BookSprint Laps | just write click

BookSprint Laps | just write click — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:21:43 +0000

[...] http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2008/09/05/podcast-whats-new-in-the-field-of-technical-communicatio... [...]

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:14:01 +0000

Nice post. I fund every thing on this site which i was looking for. Thanks a lot for lovely post and links.

By: Felicia

Felicia — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 18:18:01 +0000

Wow for a great topic and nice comments. Really leaned a lot while going through this article. The links are very helpful. Thanks for the post

By: Flossmanuals.net: A New Wiki Help Authoring/Publishing Tool Hybrid | I'd Rather Be Writing - Tom Johnson

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:52:30 +0000

[...] Keith Soltys wrote about Floss and linked to numerous other writers, including Charles Jeter and Janet Swisher. We also talked about Flossmanuals.net briefly on the last podcast. [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 02:33:48 +0000

@4Fear, Thanks for the feedback. I recorded the podcast with Sharon this morning and will post it on Monday. Glad to hear that you missed the podcasts.

@Anne, You’re involved in such an interesting project. I was curious to know who coded that flossmanuals.net site. It’s really impressive. Also, I like the idea of the booksprint. Is that a new term you coined?

@Alan, I think your post about Chrome’s comic is spot on. I made it to page 5 and lost interest. As you say, there’s no main protagonist, no main story. It lacks continuity. Mostly, the comic book involves people talking to each other, or other characters. But I agree that the comic book format exposed the content to a much wider audience.

I have a colleague who does comics. Can you point me to a post of yours with more samples and references to comic book documentation?

By: Alan J. Porter

Alan J. Porter — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:43:57 +0000

Great to hear you podcasting again. I find the current discussions about the Google Chrome comic to be particularly interesting. It was a great attempt at using the medium of comics in this way, but in some ways was fatally flawed and I think in retrospect may end up being viewed as a wasted opportunity. I've been using comics to communicate technical ideas for a few years now, but more as an alternative to a white paper or marketing piece, than as a user manual. One of the problems with the Google attempt (other than the main one I blogged about)was that it didn't seem to know what purpose it was meant to achieve.

By: Anne Gentle

Anne Gentle — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:09:23 +0000

Thanks to all of you for talking about FLOSS Manuals – your analyzes sounded spot on. The remix capability and PDF output is like no other wiki implementation I’ve seen, and the API that allows you to embed the wiki content into other websites is also unparalleled.

Here’s an example of a web site that uses FM’s API to embed FLOSS Manuals content into their web pages. It’s an Open Publishing toolkit. NGO in a box stands for Non-Governmental Organization, and in a box means
they’re bundling the software in cardboard. http://openpublishing.ngoinabox.org/
We’re hoping to do something similar for OLPC’s website and wiki (embedding wiki content into another wiki).