Birds eye view of the quick reference guide

Here’s a close-up:

Close-up view of the quick reference guide

Thanks to Louellen Coker of Content Solutions for sending me these pictures. I believe this is her actual chair, which is from Neutral Posture. It’s a great example of integrating help directly in the user interface, making it part of the product rather than a separate entity.

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Customizing Jing to auto-publish to SharePoint

The other day a developer approached me at work to ask how he could quickly capture and upload video to explain database processes he was documenting. He said he downloaded a trial version of Camtasia Studio, but wasn’t sure if it was the best solution.

Of course I had an answer: Jing, I told him. I showed him how he could use Jing to quickly capture and save video, and he seemed impressed. I thought that was the end of the story, but no. Two days later he approached my desk again and said he needed an even faster way to upload the video. He was using a SharePoint wiki to document techniques. The process of saving the video and then uploading it using SharePoint was too tedious. I need it faster, he said. A couple of clicks and that’s it. The longer it takes, the less likely I am to create video at all.

He reinforced a belief I wrote about earlier: What’s convenient gets used. With that principle in mind, the following is the quickest video solution for uploading Jing videos to a SharePoint directory. This process requires a few minutes of setup, but once you set it up, it literally takes just five clicks to initiate, capture, and publish a video to SharePoint.

1. Find the SharePoint Document Library Path

Find the path of a SharePoint document library that you want to upload videos into. To do this:

1. Go to the Document Library where you want to store the uploaded videos.
2. Click the Actions button and select Open with Windows Explorer. (If you’re in Firefox, you won’t see this option.) A window opens into which you can drag and drop files.
3. Copy the path that appears in the Address field at the top of the window.

2. Map a Network Drive to the SharePoint Library Path

1. *In Windows XP, double-click the My Computer icon on your desktop.
2. Go to Tools > Map Network Drive.
3. Pick an unused drive letter.
4. In the Folder field, insert the path you copied in step 3 of the previous section.
5. Before clicking Finish, change the path a little. Remove the http: and switch the forward slashes to backslashes. For example, if you had https://abccompany.org/sites/jing/Documents, change it to \\abccompany.org\sites\jing\Documents.
6. Click Finish to close the dialog. If you typed the path correctly, the network drive should map and then open.

*Note: In Windows Vista, click the Start button, click Computer, and then click Map Network Drive.

3. Create a New Jing Button and Configure It to Publish to SharePoint

1. Start Jing.
2. Mouse over the Jing Sun and click the right ball (“More”).
3. Click the Preferences button (the cog icon, in the exact middle of the buttons).
4. Click Customize Jing Buttons. A row of buttons appears, somewhat similar to the following image (but without as many buttons).


Jing buttons to customize

5. Click the New button.
6. In the top row of icons, click Save.
7. In the Button Description field, type a name for the button. This helps you identify the button. (You can’t customize the graphic, and you may have multiple instances of the same graphic, so choose a good description.)
8. In the Save Location field, select Other. You’re prompted with a pop-up allowing you to browse for a folder.
9. Click the plus sign (+) next to My Computer and select drive you mapped; then click OK.
10. In the Clipboard Contents field of the Jing dialog box, select Custom Code.
11. In the Image custom return text field, type http://abccompany.org/sites/jing/Documents/[filename]. (Or whatever your path is — just make sure you add [filename] in brackets at the end.)
12. In the Video custom return text field, type http://abccompany.org/sites/jing/Documents/[filename].
13. Click Save.
14. Drag the buttons in the order you want, and then click Close.

4. Set a Hotkey to Launch Jing

1. If the Jing preferences window isn’t open, mouse over the Jing sun and click the right ball (“More”).
2. Click the Preferences button (the cog icon).
3. In the Capture Hotkey field, type a trigger key, such as Alt+V.
4. Click the check mark button to close the Jing Sun dialog.

The Five-Click Process

Now that you’ve set all this up, the five-click process for uploading a Jing videos is as follows.

1. Click Alt+V (or whatever hotkey you configured to start a capture).
2. Click the video or image button to specify the type of capture.
3. If it’s a video, the video capture begins. After you’re finished, click the stop button to end the capture.
4. Click the custom Jing button you created (the one configured to upload directly to a SharePoint directory). After uploading, Jing automatically copies the path to the video or image to your clipboard.
5. In your wiki, click the hyperlink button to insert a link, or the image button to insert an image. Press Ctrl+V to insert the link to the video or image.

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Thinking a little about my philosophy of life

A couple of months ago I started writing little thoughts on post-it notes next to my monitor at work. The thoughts consisted of random little epiphanies or conclusions about life. I took the best 10 post-in notes and have collected them here as an attempt toward a philosophy of life. It’s not much of a “philosophy,” but I don’t know what else to call it.

In writing, story is what matters — everything else is a footnote.

When I was an undergrad majoring in English, I knew then what appealed to me about literature: the stories. Everything else was secondary. Story is also what gets my attention in blog posts, presentations, and conversations. Story creates meaning. Even bad writing is forgivable if the story is good.

Do few things, but do them well.

I used to play a half a dozen sports — tennis, basketball, baseball, swimming, track, snowboarding — but I eventually realized that I could do only one or two well, so I narrowed my activities. I take the same approach toward life. I don’t try to do too much, but what I do, I try to do well. This philosophy is actually a quotation from a Saint Francis movie, from a scene where Saint Francis rebuilds a chapel stone by stone. Life is more enjoyable when you don’t overload it.

I am infinitely creative.

In grad school I took a few writing courses that required me to produce new essays week after week. I didn’t think I’d be able to produce the content. But as I sat down and looked around me, asked questions, read and reflected and observed, I found that I always had something to say. I learned that I have an endless creative core inside of me. Maybe we all have a creative core, but I know that if you give me a blank piece of paper every day, I could fill it with something interesting.

You do what you want to do, for the most part.

I sometimes tell myself that I’ll take up running, or yard work, some other hobby. But when I sit around to analyze why I don’t follow through, I realize that I never wanted to truly do it. In Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, Franklin gives himself a dozen goals. His friend recommended that he add humility, so Franklin included it in his goals. But he never accomplished it because it was never truly something he wanted. When I fail to follow through with something, it’s usually because, deep down, I don’t want to do it.

Go with your gut impression, even if you don’t understand it.

Have you ever been shopping, and you try a pair of shoes, or sit on a new bike, or look at a house — and inside you have an immediate yes or no impression, which you can’t explain rationally? In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell says this split-second impression usually turns out to be more accurate than decisions that come about after lengthy reasoning. I constantly apply my gut impression to writing. If a paragraph doesn’t feel right, rather than over-analyzing it, I go with my gut impression (and usually delete it). Same with other situations — people, contracts, major decisions. I pay careful attention to my initial impressions.

Arguments are more about attitude than reason.

Last month I had a lengthy argument with Jane. As much as I attempted to resolve it rationally, the argument kept spiraling downward the more we argued. Eventually we gave up because neither of us would concede the other’s logic, but Jane did point out something particularly worthwhile: “Attitude is more important than reason,” she said. This is a principle that applies in a variety of contexts — from the basketball court to the customer support call. The attitude (medium) is just as important, if not more, than the reason (message).

What’s convenient gets used.

Software solutions are only adopted when they’re convenient and easy. People blog so frequently because blogs enable push-button publishing; they make writing easy. I also apply my what’s-convenient-and-easy-gets-used principle to where I put things in my house. Laundry baskets should go where you undress; towel racks should go where you would throw towels on the floor; trash baskets should be placed where you naturally throw trash. Whatever context, if you want to people to adopt the solution, make it convenient.

Negativity backfires.

I once worked a contract in a remote location that involved long car rides with a colleague. During the rides, my colleague often complained at length about the department heads. Complained is probably too soft. He engaged in diatribes that nauseated him the more he spoke. Things got so bad, he had to take pills for depression. I’m not a “positive-Peter” type of person — I’ll freely criticize someone or something. But I try to keep negativity at a minimum. Extended negative rants, whether in blog posts or conversations, backfire and make you look poisoned.

What you enjoy, you do often.

Long ago I decided to play basketball rather than take up running because I enjoy game-like activities more than non-games. I’m apt to repeat enjoyable activities. So if I set myself to a goal, I tweak it so that it’s enjoyable; otherwise I won’t do it. I chose a writing career because I enjoy writing more than law or medicine. Regardless of the activity or the purpose, if you don’t enjoy it, the activity will have a short life. But if you can make a good-for-you activity enjoyable, you might just stick with it.

A writer is someone who creates, not who merely relays existing knowledge.

Some people say, “I don’t have anything to say, so why write?” Actually, this is the best time to write, because good writing sparks discovery. When I don’t have anything to say, I sit down and use a variety of writing heuristics to generate ideas — until I come up with something new to say. This sense of discovery and insight usually makes for good writing. If my writing doesn’t have a spark of discovery, it tends to be dull.

Additional Resources

• To make ‘um people belong-a you

• New podcasts download automatically when I merely plug it in to my computer and click Sync.
• Its small size allows me to clip it onto my belt and easily hide the headphones in my pocket.
• I can quickly toggle between music and podcasts.
• When I stop a podcast half way in the middle, the iPod remembers where I left off the next time I return to it.

I have my BlackBerry clipped onto the left side of my belt and the iPod Nano clipped onto the right. Yes, it feels nerdy, but it’s also extremely convenient. If I had to dig the iPod out of my backpack every time I wanted to listen to a podcast, or if I had to sit there every morning downloading podcasts, I’d be much less likely to listen. But by making podcasts extremely convenient, I plow through more episodes now than ever.

There’s a lesson to learn here: Don’t underestimate the importance of convenience. If you want to increase the usage of your help material, increase its convenience. Make your help context-sensitive. Provide a one-page quick reference guide. Give the user a search field that returns accurate results, etc. The long printed manual is going out of style not because it’s ugly or long, but because it’s inconvenient.