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Author Archive
Guest Post: A Week in My Life as a Technical Writer (with some humor)
March 17th, 2012 | Posted in blog | 10 Comments »
The following is a guest post by Akshay Bardia, a technical writer in Mumbai, India. Technical communicators work odd hours of the day as we cater to clients in different parts of the world. So, you could find yourself yawning on the Tokyo shift, worrying about the traffic on the way back in the normal shift, or dozing off during the West coast shift. If … more »
Guest Post: Is Technical Writing Creative?
March 14th, 2012 | Posted in blog | 25 Comments »
The following is a guest post by Lopa Mishra, a technical writer in Mumbai, India. At a college reunion party recently, someone asked me what job I’m pursuing. On replying that I’m a writer, a friend jumped in to clarify that I’m a “technical” writer. My friend considers that technical writing has nothing to do with creativity, contrary to “plain” writing which is a highly … more »
Thinking About a Social Media Strategy: A Few Elements to Consider
March 8th, 2012 | Posted in blog | 10 Comments »
In my writing role at work , I occasionally post updates on behalf of our IT organization to various social media channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, our blog, and a user forum. Most of my activity on these social media channels is sparse and sporadic — a few minutes on an occasional hour. However, lately I’ve felt that we aren’t tapping into social … more »
Technical Communication Metrics: What Should You Track?
March 2nd, 2012 | Posted in blog | 16 Comments »
In 2004, when I returned from a teaching stint in Egypt and began working as a copywriter for a health company in Clearwater, Florida, my manager insisted that I track something related to my writing. We decided that I would track word count, because this was the easiest thing to track. Each week, I graphed the number of words I published, and during a weekly … more »
Conferences I’m Attending This Year
February 28th, 2012 | Posted in blog | 17 Comments »
I’m attending three conferences this year: Confab, the STC Summit, and Lavacon. Why did I pick these conferences, over others? I attended Confab’s inaugural conference last year and felt it was a good fit for my web publishing role at work. Although my job title is “senior technical writer,” I spend about 60% of my time being a web editor for LDSTech. LDSTech has a blog, wiki, … more »
Why don’t technical writers use wikis — or do they?
February 24th, 2012 | Posted in blog | 51 Comments »
The following is a guest post by Sarah Maddox, a technical writer at Atlassian. In a recent conversation, Tom mentioned that he’s been pondering this question: “Why, in a time when collaboration is more important than ever, do wikis still remain mostly unused as a help authoring tool in tech comm departments?” Tom asked me to join his ponderings and write a guest post on … more »
Incensed at “Laid-back” Categorization of Technical Writing Career
February 24th, 2012 | Posted in blog | 14 Comments »
I was completely incensed to read Yahoo’s categorization of technical writing as the #1 laid-back career. In 5 Low-Stress Career Options, the writer makes the ridiculous claim that technical writing isn’t just a low-stress job, but is apparently the #1 lowest-stress job of any career in America! Laid-back Career #1: Technical Writer Technical writers often write articles, manuals, and instruction booklets on a variety of topics, including … more »
Why I Love Audible
February 21st, 2012 | Posted in blog | 22 Comments »
I just got back from a 4 mile jog up and down the night sidewalks of my city. I’m not much of a jogger, but after a day of sledding, parenting, traveling, cooking, and changing baby diapers, I needed to get out for an hour on my own. It’s relatively cold in Utah at night. About 34 degrees right now, so I wear a balaclava … more »
My New Email Strategy: The Email Game and ActiveInbox
February 20th, 2012 | Posted in blog | 8 Comments »
A while ago I tweeted about how poor I am with email. I’ve tried various methods. I tried automatically filtering all the non-essential email into subfolders, but as some commenters pointed out, I soon never checked these subfolders. I tried unsubscribing from everything, but this seemed an impossible task. Then Will Sansbury recommended that I try The Email Game, and I actually love it. The Email Game … more »
Webinar Recording: Designing Quick Reference Guides
February 18th, 2012 | Posted in Podcasts | 8 Comments »
A couple of weeks ago I gave an STC webinar called Designing Quick Reference Guides. This was a general STC webinar, and usually I am not allowed to repost the recording, but due to some audio difficulties, I had to re-record it, and the STC gave me permission to post the re-recording. Here are the files to watch or download the webinar: Webinar recording | … more »
Webinar Recording — Organizing Help Content: Breaking Out of Topic-Based Hierarchies
February 18th, 2012 | Posted in Podcasts | 3 Comments »
I recently gave a presentation to the Southwestern Ontario STC chapter called Organizing Help Content: Breaking Out of Topic-Based Hierarchies. Here’s a recording of the presentation: Webinar recording Slides only Audio only
Looking at The Peter Principle, Dilbert Principle, and Parkinson’s Law
February 15th, 2012 | Posted in blog | 10 Comments »
After my last post about being an individual contributor, a reader asked if I had heard of the Peter Principle or Parkinson’s Laws. I hadn’t, so I read about them on Wikipedia, as well as a related principle, the Dilbert Principle. The Peter Principle The Peter Principle states that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” In other words, … more »
On Being an Individual Contributor
February 10th, 2012 | Posted in blog | 21 Comments »
For someone who has the job of “technical writer,” I spend very little time writing. It amazes me how quickly the day fills up with non-writing tasks. Meetings, reports, issues — they seem to surface again and again at work, requiring my attention. I sometimes try timing myself and find that if I can get in three hours of writing during the day, that’s good. … more »
A Life of Its Own: An Essay About an Article That Was Never Published
February 8th, 2012 | Posted in blog | 20 Comments »
Last year I worked on a news article that showcased certain technologies at my work. The news article was an assignment, the kickoff of a series of articles. I worked especially hard on it, as it was the first one to introduce the series. I came up with a sensible structure, gathered interesting facts and information, and then meticulously crafted the content. I structured the information … more »
A Reverse Approach to Help Authoring: Writing Documentation Post-Release
February 2nd, 2012 | Posted in blog | 68 Comments »
When I first started as a technical writer, a senior writer taught me how to write documentation. Her approach, which aligns with the traditional way of doing technical writing, generally followed these steps: Get involved as early as you can in the software development process. As soon as prototypes are available, or a functioning development environment, start the documentation process. Think of all the main … more »