A writer takes William Strunk's advice to "omit needless words" and applies it to his life to omit needless things. I so need to do this. (Thanks Collin Turner for the link.)
We launched a new website for the STC-Intermountain chapter this week. We're using WordPress as the platform. The theme is Streamline from Studio Press. One of the more interesting parts of the site is our Member List page, which shows every registered site user. Usually WordPress only allows you to generate a list of site authors. Authors are people who have written a post. But with the Member List plugin, you can show users of any role....
This is an informative intro-to-technical writing podcast by Alistair Christie. Great for writers trying to determine whether technical writing is a field they should pursue. It's always refreshing to hear Alistair's perspectives.
Listened to this podcast last night and this morning. Gerry McGovern talks about the importance of "care words" on a website. These words are the content people are looking for but aren't using in the search engines. He says finding the right words to match what the customer is looking for can make a huge impact on how the customer interprets the relevance of the site. For those non-podcast listeners, Gaffney transcribes the podcast too. ...
When I read about guys like John Gruber, who make their living from their blog, it fills me with envy. I want to do that. Not sure if tech comm's audience is large enough, but perhaps someday.
A lot of departments think that a team needs a style guide and a unified approach, if you want the audience to experience a consistent, professional branded experience. I used to think the same. In fact, just last week, we started discussing whether to use greater than symbols (>) or pipes (|) or nothing at all to indicate menu hierarchy and subtabs. I admit that a team needs to be on the same general page. And in a lot of situations, ...
Mary Connor talks about the latest tools for exporting documentation to wikis. She seems to prefer Webworks ePublisher for its ability to export to Confluence, a wiki that supports authoring for future releases.
I loved this essay on writing. I always hear advice from writers that you must write daily no matter what. Zeldman takes another perspective on this idea, and encourages you to "write when inspired; rest when tired." Very eloquent prose throughout.
On the web, the standard economic model is to give products away for free -- from storage to email, music, news, access, and other information. For companies to survive in an economy of free, they have to spin their business models in creative ways, finding profits indirectly, such as through lite/pro versions, cross-subsidies, advertising, or appeals to the attention economy. In the economics of free, writers face particular challenges b...
Chris Anderson's analysis about the economy of free (or "freeconomics") is about the most fascinating thing I've read in a long time. Everything on the web is trending toward free -- how are companies turning free into a business model? Anderson explores various reasons for the zero cost trends and lists several strategies companies are using to turn free into a profit.
It's fascinating to listen to Stephen Fry. He's an extremely eloquent British scholar, filmographer, literary critic, and who knows what else. Listening to Fry feels liberating and exhilarating at the same time. In this iTunes festival speech, he talks about the love of the art and music, and how, even if these lovers of art and music occasionally pirate content, the piracy should not earn them classification as thieves and criminals. ...
I had no idea it cost so much to run a Wordcamp conference. Apparently Wordcamp Dallas cost about $20k. Wow, I thought it would have been a tenth of that. As much as I enjoy them, I don't think I'll ever get involved in planning and running a conference.
Yesterday while driving I listened to a "Stuff You Should Know" podcast on transorbital lobotomies. Popular in the 1950s, the transorbital lobotomy was a procedure Walter Freeman performed by inserting an ice pick on the inside of your eyelid up into your frontal cortex to destroy the white matter tissue that was believed to cause extreme mood swings, schizophrenia, anxiety, maniacal behavior, or some other socio-emotional problem, such a...
Lately I've been creating context-sensitive help for an online application. As part of my strategy, I've been trying to follow Theresa Putkey's advice in "Usability in Context-Sensitive Help." In her article, Theresa recommends providing more than just the steps for a specific task in the context-sensitive help window. Instead, she says to show more contextual links, including answers to why, when, and who questions, because too frequentl...
Ben Minson reflects on the value of having a blog when your day job is technical writing. Blogging can be an outlet to practice your own literary voice, rather than always be trapped in a style guide.
