I'd Rather Be Writing » Podcasts

Podcast: Organizing Help Content: Breaking Out of Topic-based Hierarchies

Tom Johnson — Wed, 18 May 2011 22:59:33 +0000

The recording is available in a variety of formats:

I recently gave a presentation at the STC Summit in Sacramento titled “Organizing Help Content: Breaking Out of Topic-based Hierarchies.” I would have recorded my presentation, but recording is not allowed. I did, however, record a practice run-through in my hotel room the morning before.

I included a variety of links here. If you want to view slides while listening, click the Audio with Slides option.

Comparing the practice presentation to the real presentation, the practice presentation ended up being about 15 minutes longer. This means I had more time for questions and discussion during the real presentation. Some participants gave me great feedback in the discussion and follow-up afterwards. This presentation is only one part of an ongoing journey in my effort to solve the findability problem with help content.

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Podcast: Content Strategy and Agility, with Noz Urbina

Tom Johnson — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 05:00:45 +0000

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Length: 40 min.

I recently spoke with Noz Urbina, consultant from Mekon Ltd, about his upcoming conference, Congility, and about content strategy.

Based in Valencia, Spain, Noz is one of the industry’s thought leaders on XML, DITA, component content management, and content strategy. This year he and Mekon are running a conference called Congility (formerly X-Pubs), held in Gatwick UK, May 25-26.

Noz says that Congility is about making your content “agile,” so that your organization can deliver the content your users want, when they want it, in the format they want it. It’s also about leveraging the content generated or discussed among your users for your organization’s benefit. If you’re interested in attending Congility, you can save 20% until April 29th using the discount code TJRBWCA1120.

In this podcast, we talk about the following:

What a content strategist tackles that a technical writer does not
How content strategy differs from marketing
How one becomes a content strategist
Bridging enterprise silos in your content strategy, especially without the ability to enforce your strategy
The role of metadata and taxonomy in content strategy
Challenges with the diversity of authoring platforms and tools in content strategy

To contact Noz, see his blog, Less Work, More Flow, at or send him an e-mail at noz.urbina@mekon.com. And don’t forget to check out the Congility conference website. Congility is a sponsor of I’d Rather Be Writing.

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Podcast: A Practical Guide to Information Architecture, with Donna Spencer

Tom Johnson — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 06:25:21 +0000

A Practical Guide to Information Architecture

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Length: 40 min.

Donna Spencer is the author of A Practical Guide to Information Architecture as well as two other books (on card sorting and writing for the web). She’s an experienced information architect, based in Australia, who gives regular workshops on information architecture at conferences such as the IA Summit and also runs the UX Australia conference. In this podcast we talk about information architecture, especially in the context of technical communication. Some of the topics we cover include the following:

What information architecture is, especially in contrast to content strategy and user experience
Why writers are well suited for information architecture
Reasons for doing user research prior to building your information architecture
Determining user terminology (and dangers of choosing the wrong terms, even if people use them)
Evaluating browse versus search, and the problem of looking for information without knowing the right terms
Strategies for dealing with overlapping categories and difficult-to-fit topics
Why organizing content by audience can be tricky
Using focused entry points to serve different audiences
Finding what you need when you don’t know what you need
Organizing content by popularity, and other alternative classification schemes
Scenario driven testing with index cards
Card sorting strategies, tools, and limits
Reasons for brainstorming IA off-screen, without your computer.
Determining the number of top-level navigation options
Providing navigation through next and related links
Beginning the information architecture at the content page rather than the home page
The kind of content to add to your home page

I highly recommend this book as well as learning more about information architecture in general. For more information about Donna Spencer, see her site, Maad Mob. For more information on her book, see A Practical Guide to Information Architecture. You can follow Donna on Twitter @maadonna.

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Podcast — Visual Composing: Document Design for Print and Digital Media, with Jo Mackiewicz

Tom Johnson — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:49:42 +0000

Visual Composing: Document Design for Print and Digital Media

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Length: 45 min.

Recently Jo Mackiewicz (Auburn University) and Kathryn Riley (Illinois Institute of Technology) published Visual Composing: Document Design for Print and Digital Media with Pearson. This book covers the visual side of document design, including all the design decisions from the font you use to the colors you choose to the tables, column widths, images types, and more. I interviewed Jo for a podcast about the book. In the podcast, we cover the following:

Typography, including serif and san-serif fonts
Font sizes, and recommendations for older users
Characters per line — 35, 55, 75, or 95 characters long
Color — complementary colors, Itten’s wheel, the psychology of color
Headings and subheadings
Background colors, negative and positive polarity
Contrast in document design
Dual-coding theory, and when aural and verbal conflict but not visual and verbal
Reasons for gaps in graphic document design among technical writers
File types for images
Alignment — full justification versus ragged right
Symmetry and professional versus playful tone

Resources

Visual Composing on Amazon /on Pearson.
Jo Mackawicz’s website.

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Podcast with Alan Houser — Candidate for STC Vice President

Tom Johnson — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 06:33:58 +0000

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Length: 25 min.

Alan Houser

I recently interviewed Alan Houser, candidate for STC vice president, in a podcast about his perspectives and plans for the STC. Both Alan and Vici Koster-Lenhardt are running for this position. I asked each of them the following five questions:

What’s one of the greatest challenge STC members face right now. Any solutions?
What would you like to see differently in the STC?
Local chapters struggle to make their events relevant to members. How would you help fix this problem?
How can you help you resolve the rift between academics and practitioners?
Given the variety of job titles/specializations in the STC, how can you keep the magazines, conferences, webinars, etc. relevant?

For more information on Alan, see his bio here and his blog post on the STC Notebook. You can also listen to the Scriptorium webinar forum with the two candidates.

The election runs from March 9 to March 30. You can ask the candidate questions here.

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Podcast with Victoria Koster-Lenhardt — Candidate for STC Vice President

Tom Johnson — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 06:33:48 +0000

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Length: 15 min.

Victoria Koster-Lenhardt

In this podcast, I talk with Victoria Koster-Lenhardt, candidate for STC vice president, about her perspectives and plans for the STC. Both Alan and Victoria Koster-Lenhardt are running for STC vice president. I asked Victoria following five questions:

What’s one of the greatest challenge STC members face right now. Any solutions?
What would you like to see differently in the STC?
Local chapters struggle to make their events relevant to members. How would you help fix this problem?
How can you help you resolve the rift between academics and practitioners?
Given the variety of job titles/specializations in the STC, how can you keep the magazines, conferences, webinars, etc. relevant?

For more information on Victoria, see her bio here and her blog post on the STC Notebook here. You can also listen to the Scriptorium webinar forum with the two candidates.

The election runs from March 9 to March 30. You can ask the candidate questions here.

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Podcast: Educational Programs and Workplace Practices

Tom Johnson — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:11:18 +0000

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Length: 65 min.

Last week we recorded an Intermountain-STC chapter event, “Educational Programs and Workplace Practices,” held in Layton, Utah. The event included a panel of academics from local technical communication programs in Utah. We had six programs represented: BYU Provo, Westminster College, Utah Valley University, University of Utah, Utah State University, and Weber Utah State University. About 15 students and a handful of practitioners attended the event.

Here’s a description of the program:

It’s often a mystery to practitioners what Utah’s technical communication programs offer. Hiring managers are unaware about the knowledge and skills they can expect program graduates to have. And educators often struggle to understand workplace trends and realities. At this event, a panel of educators will describe their programs and discuss with practitioners the effectiveness of the coursework. Professionals in the audience will provide insight into current trends in the field. This discussion will be enlightening for all professionals, educators, and students in technical communication programs or fields.

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Technical Writing Is More Than “Click This, Select That” [Podcast]

Tom Johnson — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 05:18:14 +0000

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Length: 50 min.

This is a presentation I gave at BYU Idaho last week to students interested in entering professional writing. For the accompanying slides, see this post. For the overall question I was trying to tackle, see Students Contemplate Whether a Technical Writing Career Will Be Fulfilling.

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Podcast: Finding and Creating Relevant Content — Strategies for Social Media

Tom Johnson — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 06:21:18 +0000

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Length: 70 min.

In the barrage of information created by all the social media channels, how can you find relevant content? How can you move past forms of noise to actually produce content that engages users? What forms of social media do students respond to the most? These are some of the questions we explored in a presentation I gave to Brigham Young University Provo students earlier this week. This podcast is a recording of the presentation.

The podcast is about an hour long, and I bookended the presentation with some thoughts before and after.

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Podcast: Developing a Personal Voice in Audio (Intermountain-STC event)

Tom Johnson — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:15:38 +0000

Download MP3
Download the PowerPoint
PowerPoint in Zip file (in case you have trouble with the above)
Length: 60 min.

A while ago, our chapter held a half-day eLearning event, and I presented a version of my Developing a Personal Voice in Audio presentation (similar to what I presented at the STC Summit in Dallas). The recording has been sitting on my hard drive for a while, and I thought I’d finally release it. I’ve also included the rather large PowerPoint file that accompanies the presentation.

Note: If you like podcasts, check out the latest podcast from IT Author, which he recorded while walking his dog.