The recording is available in a variety of formats: Audio with Slides MP3 Audio Only PowerPoint Show File PowerPoint Original File iPod format I recently gave a presentation at the STC Summit in Sacramento titled “Organizing Help Content: Breaking Out of Topic-based Hierarchies.” I would have recorded my presentation, but recording is not allowed. I did, however, record a practice run-through in my hotel room … more »

With my recent reflections on long versus short text, a comment by Michael O’neil made me wonder whether the “reading to do” mode equated with DITA’s task type, and whether the “reading to learn” mode equated to DITA’s concept type. In researching this, I stumbled across a goldmine of an article on the History of DITA. The article (mostly by Bob Doyle) traces the evolution … more »

In my previous post (“Less Text, Please”), I argued that users want shorter texts. I also explained how social media and Internet sites have possibly rewired our brains to incline us toward shorter content — according to some, our gnat-like attention spans can only consume a few short paragraphs before tapping out. The Onion has a great parody of how a single block of uninterrupted … more »

Integrating a WordPress blog into your website is one of the most common requests I receive as a WordPress consultant. Whenever someone asks me to do this, I usually recommend moving the entire website into WordPress. That way you can manage all the content in one place. The user experience is more seamless too. If you’re interested in having me convert your website into a … more »

One trend I think we’ll see more and more is the decrease of professional voiceover actors in screencasts when those voiceover actors are merely reading a script they don’t understand. As an example, watch some of the tutorials at lynda.com. The narrators may not be professional voiceover actors, but they are subject matter experts. You can tell they’re not just saying words they don’t understand. They’re narrating … more »

Last week my wife, Shannon, showed me a couple hilarious Xtranormal videos. The first is So, you want to be a lawyer? And then, So, you want to get a PhD in the humanities? After watching these two, I couldn’t help but think of a scenario for technical writers. The following is a conversation I’m calling, “I need your help with some documentation.” The project … more »

One of the advantages of belonging to the Society for Technical Communication (STC) is having access to the rich information sources on technical communication. These sources include Intercom, the Technical Communication Journal, past proceedings from conferences, the Notebook blog, and more. Unfortunately, there isn’t a single search that allows you to comprehensively search all of these sources at once. I this screencast, I show you … more »

Recently due to flooding in my window wells, I had to dig the wells deeper. I piled up the dirt and rocks around the outside, and then realized I needed to sift the dirt from the rocks because I wanted to put the rocks back in, but move the dirt elsewhere in my yard to re-slope it. To sift the dirt from the rocks, I … more »

Last month I gave a webinar on WordPress to the STC CIC SIG, which is the Independent Contracting and Consulting Special Interest Group of the Society for Technical Communication. I recorded the webinar and am allowed now to make it available for free on my site. The recording plays my voice only, and the whole webinar lasts about 75 minutes. You can view the recording … more »

On Tuesday, July 13, TechSmith is create 24 Screencasts About Camtasia in 24 Hours. It must be fun to do screencasts at 3 a.m. If you’re into screencasts (and use Camtasia), these sessions should provide a lot of good information. They’re streaming the screencasts live here and are also recording them to publish later.

I’ve been researching how to translate screencasts. Here’s one problem to overcome: Even if you use youtube’s caption system, if you embed the translated videos on a web page, will users have to select both their language and captions? Normally, we want the video to display these automatically if we’re embedding the video a page that we have translated. It turns out that by adding … more »

This post compiles all the videocasts I did at the STC Summit in Dallas. You can also browse the STC Summit in Dallas series. [youtubegallery] Whitney Hess|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naKtaS-7Qq4 Ben Minson|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amA8XruqkBQ Paul Pehrson|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnHgez9FyfU Gentle/Swisher|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR6Ujuw3bSI Larry Kunz|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM5kuLEBfpA Saul Carliner 1|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaioqQMcTP8 Saul Carliner 2|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAkDQt0_1Zo Quesenbery/Jarrett|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtHNDAoQLSQ Whit. Quesenbery|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aM4JcJHNhM Rich Maggiani|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWnsXagN0DA Richard Hamilton|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-opo6wXmkw Joe Welinske|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKaYcZliW4o Brenda Huettner|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxDeiViMJhg Swallow/Char JT|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZMYOO8T04c Neil Perlin|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1N37NO8Q4A [/youtubegallery]

In this videocast, I talk with Whitney Hess at the STC Summit in Dallas about her perspective on old guard versus new guard mentality, or in other words, the traditional offline, change-resistant mentality versus the web-savvy, social-media-saturated mindset more common with the younger generation. Whitney Hess is a user experience design consultant from New York City who was invited to speak at the Summit this … more »

How does the South by Southwest Interactive conference (SXSW) compare with the STC Summit? Are technical communicators behind the times when it comes to web trends and interactive media? I asked Anne Gentle and Janet Swisher, two Austin locals who have attended SXSW, to compare SXSW with the STC Summit. We recorded this video at the STC Summit in Dallas.

In this video interview, I ask Saul Carliner to give practical tips for handling some of the toughest situations that technical communication managers face, including firing, metrics, frank conversations with underperforming employees, and more. Saul gave a two-day workshop at the STC Summit for technical communication managers.