One of the reasons my blog has been successful among technical writers is because I’m in a technical writer in the trenches rather than on the sidelines. In contrast, many other people in the field of tech comm writing blogs are sales engineers, consultants, marketers, or c-level executives. If there’s one truism about writing that Continue Reading »
Tag Archives: social media
Graduate Research Findings about Technical Communication and Blogs in the Workplace
The following is a guest post by Michelle Tompkins. Earlier this year she asked me to post a survey about technical communication and blogging. I posted it here, and then asked if she would follow up to share her findings. This guest post shares her findings. Earlier in December, Tom Johnson was nice enough to Continue Reading »
Introducing Technical Writing World, a New Social Network for Technical Writers
The following is a guest post by Arnold Burian, founder of the new social network Technical Writing World. When it comes to knowledge sharing, we technical writers have it pretty darn good. There are active mailing lists (HATT, TECHRL-W), many informative blogs (I’d Rather Be Writing, The Content Wrangler), a vibrant notification system (#techcomm on Continue Reading »
Participatory Economics: Are Companies Budgeting for Social Media?
A podcast summary by David Armano from Edelman caught my attention yesterday. Armano writes: My theory is that social technologies and the online behaviors they enable leads to more participation from what use to be static audiences and “consumers”. But as a result of this, a demand is generated for participation to be reciprocated from Continue Reading »
Podcast: Finding and Creating Relevant Content — Strategies for Social Media
Download MP3 Length: 70 min. In the barrage of information created by all the social media channels, how can you find relevant content? How can you move past forms of noise to actually produce content that engages users? What forms of social media do students respond to the most? These are some of the questions Continue Reading »
New Variables for Technical Writing Project Managers: Larry Kunz at the STC Summit in Dallas, #stc10
In this video, I interview Larry Kunz about new variables for technical writing project managers. Larry talks specifically about the ways agile and social media are changing the way technical writers manage projects. We recorded this video at the STC Summit in Dallas. The next day, Larry received the President’s Award at the STC Summit Continue Reading »
From Overlooked to Center Stage [6]
Catalyst 2: User Experience We didn’t have a very good support model for the application. It became clear that our service desk, which included mostly BYU students working part-time and supporting over 100 different applications, couldn’t answer questions that users had. They would only escalate the questions to us. And not many of our customers Continue Reading »
When Social Media Becomes Hollow
I attended Podcamp Salt Lake City (Podcampslc.org) on Friday for the third year in a row. The attendees have fluctuated. The first year, about 30 attended. The next year, about 90 attended. This year, the attendees decreased to around 45. Sometimes events just suffer from poor timing. We are all so busy. But I noticed Continue Reading »
An Interview About Technical Writing
Download MP3 Length: 30 min. This is a special podcast for Carly Finseth at Clemson University who is thinking about entering the field of technical writing and wanted to ask me a few questions. After I recorded the podcast, she was kind enough to transcribe it. I polished up the transcription a bit so that Continue Reading »
Clive Thompson on the New Literacy
A scholar conducts a 6 year study of student writing and finds that, despite constant accusations that social media is taking writing downhill, actually “we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization.” I have to agree — it is a cool effect that the social Continue Reading »