Last week while attending the STC Summit, I learned that MindTouch named my blog, I’d Rather Be Writing, the most innovative blog in technical communication. In their post, 2011 Technical Communication Innovation Award Winners, they write, This honor is bestowed upon long-time technical documentation professional Tom Johnson for creating some of the best — and most innovative — original content about the field of technical … more »

Epiphany: Cross Pollination Ultimately, what my colleagues had to say did have merit. There is a point that, in playing too many roles, you spread yourself too thin. You compromise your specialization and expertise as you step into unfamiliar territory. There is a limit to the number of roles you can play, and perhaps I had stepped over that limit. But I believe I also … more »

It seems most of the conversations in our industry today revolve around value. If you go to stc.org, the large graphic at the center of the site says “The Value of Technical Communication.” (Given the recent events in the STC, to me the graphic really reads, “The value of the STC organization.”) At any rate, technical writers have been talking about demonstrating value to employers … more »

Lately I’ve come to a conclusion about blog posts. Bloggers write at least two kinds of posts: knowledge posts and creative posts. Knowledge Posts Knowledge posts involve documenting what you already know. For example, the last two posts I wrote on my blog — methods for recording presentations and software demos — were knowledge posts. I personally didn’t learn anything writing about them. It was … more »

Lately I’ve been reading Scott Berkun’s The Myths of Innovation. A passage about the methods for innovation jumped out at me. Berkun writes, Many innovations start in the same way as mentioned previously [from dedicated problem solvers], but an unexpected opportunity emerges and is pursued midway through the work (p. 41). In other words, while people are pursuing one direction, they encounter a surprise that … more »

After reading Scott Berkun’s essay on the how to be a genius, I listened to some of his podcasts too. One myth is that geniuses get their ideas almost out of the sky — Newton is watching an apple fall from the tree when he suddenly discovers gravity. Archimedes is taking a bath when he realizes the physics of buoyancy. Here’s an excerpt of this … more »

You know the typical scenario — the technical writer is the last one to be notified of changes to the application (be it interface or functionality), and developers hate reviewing the manuals we write. Recently a business analyst explained an interesting technique to me for not only discovering software changes, but also building rapport with developers. He said that in a previous company, he bought … more »

In this iinnovate podcast, Marissa Mayer — Google VP of Search Products and User Experience — talks about the innovation and methodology behind some of Google’s products. What’s most interesting is the story behind Gmail, specifically how Marissa almost killed its ad integration. Apparently one of the coders — despite the request from Marissa to stop trying to integrate ads — stayed up all night … more »