I recently attended Confab in Minneapolis. I was one of about 5 technical writers among the 650 attendees, which is why I found it surprising to hear Kristina Halverson say, We can learn a lot from tech comm. Let me repeat that. We can learn a lot from tech comm. I felt pleased to hear this shout-out to my profession, and then tried to unpack exactly … more »

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 »

This week was the first time I’ve actually seen our usability labs used. We have a new usability research group led by someone with years of experience doing usability engineering for Microsoft. I watched in our observation room as he led a handful of users through 60-90 minute usability tests for an application I documented. What is surprising about usability testing is how much valid … more »

Valeria Maltoni from Conversation Agent recently wrote about Groupon as an example of a business employing a strong copywriting strategy. Valeria writes, Great copywriting is the secret sauce of successful email newsletters. Groupon is an interesting example of promotional writing that sells, when attached to the right deals. (See Conversation Agent: How Content Seals the Deal at Groupon.) If you’re unfamiliar with Groupon, it’s a daily … more »

A couple of months ago, I realized I would be playing a larger role in web publishing at my work, moving more towards a user awareness role. Realizing this direction, and knowing I had some budget, I decided I should attend Confab, the first conference on content strategy. It was sold out, but by a stroke of luck the organizer offered me one of thirteen … more »

Recently I listened to Moira Gunn interview Steve Rosenbaum about content curation in her podcast, Tech Nation. I heard Steve present on a similar topic at Confab. Interestingly, I found the podcast, which was a conversation between Moira and Steve, more interesting, fluid, and natural than Steve’s Confab presentation. Steve’s presentation at Confab was great. But all presentations, by nature, have a different rhythm and … more »

Have you noticed how many good conferences are scheduled lately? I remember a couple of years ago, when Doc Train conferences ended, and some of us thought the STC Summit was approaching its last time — I thought conferences would become extinct. Today there are almost too many conferences. Here are some of the interesting looking conferences taking place within the next couple of months: … more »