Freakonomics summarizes Paul Graham’s argument that programmers and writers are more disrupted by meetings than managers because of the nature of the tasks programmers and writers are involved in. I completely agree. One hour-long meeting can blow apart my entire afternoon.

After a recent conference call I had for an STC chapter meeting, we needed an online mechanism to keep the discussion going. Doc Guy set up a Google Groups discussion site (which includes a threaded forum and wiki) to facilitate the online discussion, and we started a few threads, but soon the discussion focused , unfortunately, only on scheduling dates for in-person meetings. In a … more »

[Audio clip: view full post to listen] Download MP3 (to download, right-click and select Save Target As) Duration: 28 min. In this podcast, I interview Alyssa Fox, an information development manager at NetIQ, about technical writing in agile environments. Agile environments involve short iterations of product development, such as three to six weeks to complete a release, rather than the longer one to two years … more »