Breaking into the Mobile Market: Joe Welinski at the STC Summit in Dallas, #stc10

Dallas STC Summit videocasts 1.0 A Few Ways to Make the Next STC Summit Better, #stc10 1.0 Trending Towards Mobile: Neil Perlin at the STC Summit #stc10 1.0 What I'm presenting on at the STC Summit in Dallas, #stc10 ...

The Art of Questioning: Rich Maggiani at the STC Summit, #stc10

Dallas STC Summit videocasts 1.0 A Few Ways to Make the Next STC Summit Better, #stc10 1.0 Trending Towards Mobile: Neil Perlin at the STC Summit #stc10 1.0 What I'm presenting on at the STC Summit in Dallas, #stc10 ...

Storytelling for User Experience: Whitney Quesenbery at the STC Summit #stc10

Dallas STC Summit videocasts 1.0 A Few Ways to Make the Next STC Summit Better, #stc10 1.0 Trending Towards Mobile: Neil Perlin at the STC Summit #stc10 1.0 What I'm presenting on at the STC Summit in Dallas, #stc10 ...

Trending Towards Mobile: Neil Perlin at the STC Summit #stc10

Dallas STC Summit videocasts 1.0 A Few Ways to Make the Next STC Summit Better, #stc10 1.0 → Trending Towards Mobile: Neil Perlin at the STC Summit #stc10 1.0 What I'm presenting on at the STC Summit in Dallas, #stc10 1.1 Trust and Tran...

Trust and Transparency: Leadership Day at the STC Summit #stc10

Dallas STC Summit videocasts 1.0 A Few Ways to Make the Next STC Summit Better, #stc10 1.0 Trending Towards Mobile: Neil Perlin at the STC Summit #stc10 1.0 What I'm presenting on at the STC Summit in Dallas, #stc10 1.1 → Trust...

What I'm presenting on at the STC Summit in Dallas, #stc10

Dallas STC Summit videocasts 1.0 A Few Ways to Make the Next STC Summit Better, #stc10 1.0 Trending Towards Mobile: Neil Perlin at the STC Summit #stc10 1.0 → What I'm presenting on at the STC Summit in Dallas, #stc10 1.1 Trust and Tran...

The Compulsion to Figure Things Out

I listened to a podcast from Radiolab titled Stochasticity (meaning randomness) the other day, and it made me look at a few things in an entirely new light. The hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich tell the story of a lady who developed Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's debilitates muscle movement and control by depleting the dopamine in the brain, they explained. Her doctor gave her a drug called Requip, which countered the dopamine depl...

Quoted in Technical Writing Careers Blurb in U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report article Today a reader said he found me through an article in the May issue of U.S. News & World Report. I couldn't find the link to the article online yet. But if you click the image on the right, you can read a scanned copy in PDF format that the reader sent me. I don't say anything that interesting or revelatory in the short blurb, but it's cool to see journalists turning to bloggers for information lik...

“Blogs are Still Where Substantive Conversations are Happening.”

A recent Blogher study finds that blogging is still the dominant place where conversations of substance are taking place (despite rumors about blogging being dead or ideas that microblogging on Twitter and Facebook would replace the more time-consuming blog). I always knew this to be the case. For more info, check out “Blogs are Still Where Substantive Conversations are Happening.” Blogher study on blogging

Typography for Lawyers

Typography for Lawyers provides the basics of typography and general style in an easy-to-read way that would be perfectly suited not only for lawyers, but for anybody whose writing needs a little cleaning up (for example, you could send it to the project manager who keeps putting two spaces after each period). Definitely a handy resource to know about. Hat tip: tc.eserver library.

Podcast: From Overlooked to Center Stage (Overlooked)

From Overlooked to Center Stage 1.0 Presenting at the Atlanta Currents Conference (Overlooked) 1.1 Intro to From Overlooked to Center Stage (Overlooked) 1.3 The Problem: "Just a Writer" (Overlooked) 1.4 The Yearnin...

Message from the Sponsors -- April 27, 2010

MadCap Software Thinking Windows, a leading provider of billing software solutions for Australian water authorities, has long embraced MadCap Flare's single-source publishing to improve efficiencies and eliminate redundancies.  But it also uses Flare for its new device-agnostic mobile output -- and recently was able to deliver online Help to GPS-enabled mobile devices around Australia in less than 30 days. “We have long recognized the imp...

Why Tech Comm Professors Don't Teach Video

The other week, by invitation, I was at a Missouri State University Workshop for Teachers of Technical Writing. I presented about trends in technical communication and highlighted multimedia, particularly video, as an important trend. Near the end of my presentation, I asked the academic audience why so many teachers don't require students to create video (e.g., screencasts, e-learning, video tutorials) as part of their help materials. M...

Story (Overlooked)

From Overlooked to Center Stage 1.0 Presenting at the Atlanta Currents Conference (Overlooked) 1.1 Intro to From Overlooked to Center Stage (Overlooked) 1.3 The Problem: "Just a Writer" (Overlooked) 1.4 The Yearnin...

Why Usability is Praised and Tech Comm is Ignored

While I was in Missouri at a technical writing conference for teachers and students last weekend, I had an interesting conversation with a lady who happened to drop by from Canada. She had transitioned from tech comm to usability, and she explained an interesting parallel. I had just presented my "Anyone Can Write: Changing Roles for Technical Communicators" presentation to students, and she commented that many have the same assumption ab...