I sometimes feel that my life online varies drastically from my life at work. Online, I blog and publish podcasts and write about wikis and Web 2.0. But at work, I used Flare, InDesign, Word, and other tools to create standard help deliverables, such as the User Guide, the Quick Reference Guide, and the Video Tutorial. For a long time, I’ve wanted to take my … more »

Download MP3 (right-click, select Save Target As) Duration: 20 min. [Audio clip: view full post to listen] In this podcast, I talk with Scott Abel about social networking, in particular The Content Wrangler community he started at TheContentWrangler.ning.com. Scott talks about this new social network specifically for technical communicators. But he also explains the value of social networks for your help deliverables. Social networks can … more »

One of my readers sent me a link to today’s New York Times article on blogging titled “In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Til They Drop.” I find it touching that someone would think of me while reading the article. Actually, I read a sneak peak of the article in yesterday’s Blog Herald. It made me think hard about how much I’ve been … more »

Ning (“peace” in Chinese) is a social network application that allows groups to communicate and connect with each other in seamless, convenient ways. Scott Abel just recently started a new social network community called The Content Wrangler Community. Within a couple of weeks, it already attracted 824 868 members. This community on Ning is quickly becoming the social network community for technical writers and others … more »

The 2008 South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW) festival, currently underway in Austin, Texas, until March 16, is one of the most popular, high-energy tech conferences of the year. This Interactive conference “celebrates the creativity and passion behind the coolest new media technologies.” Basically, everyone who is doing anything cool on the Internet ends up speaking there. 37 Signals, Facebook, Wired — they’re all there. Many … more »