I walked into Home Depot the other day and, seeing a clerk near the entry way, asked where the storage boxes were. Immediately the clerk told me. After I found my boxes, I asked another clerk where the gloves and Sharpee markers were. Again, she gave the answer immediately. In my experience, apart from wandering aimlessly around the store for extended periods of time, this … more »

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 Twitter), and professional organizations (STC, TWIN) rich with content. We … more »

In The Big Shift from Search to Social, Anne Gentle notes the growing problem with Google’s search and trends towards alternative search sources, such as social networks like Facebook. She links to an stirring NY Times article called The Dirty Little Secrets of Search, which I recommend reading. The NYTimes article exposes how search engines are gamed, and how search engines can also game consumers. … more »

In a world of increasing social media, work, activities, and other obligations, it’s easy for our lives to become quickly cluttered. Just last week an old friend wrote and explained that she was finally listening to some of my podcasts and really enjoyed them. In particular, she listened to the podcast with Ricardo Amigo about technical writing, in which I explain some of the new … more »

Before I met my Jane 11 years ago, she spent about seven weeks traveling across Europe. It was a time she trying to answer some questions, and during some point in her walking and train-riding and city exploring, she found answers. She also fell in love with Europe—with the little narrow streets, the bustling plazas, the rich histories, the winding rivers, the chocolates and pastries. … more »

This is a guest post by Ryan Schmid. Ryan has worked as a Senior Technical Writer and Information Developer in St. Louis, Missouri for nine years. He has previously been published in Intercom. Contact: schmidr@gmail.com. The August 2008 issue of Technical Communication analyzed the growing domain of virtual worlds. I contributed an article about the large amount of written text they contain. This seems surprising, … more »

In Utah, technical writers abound but are hidden. Utah probably has at least 500 technical writers spread out across companies all over the state (most in Northern Utah), but communication among the technical writers is sparse. The community is a little disconnected.

Download MP3 Duration: 43 min. [Audio clip: view full post to listen] In this podcast, I talk with Alan Porter, vice president of Operations at WebWorks, about the Web 2.0 technologies they’re using to reach out to their customer base. In addition to using blogs, wikis, and social networks to connect with customers, WebWorks also uses wikis to facilitate communication and collaboration within their company. … more »

Tonight I attended a WordCamp Utah planning meeting at Applebees with a group of blogging enthusiasts. Joseph Scott, one of the WordPress developers employed by Automattic, organized the event and is taking charge of the upcoming Wordcamp, which looks like it will be in September to avoid competition with other conferences (Blog World, Open Source, and New Media Expo).

In a moment of mental relapse, I volunteered to be my chapter’s virtual meeting coordinator. I already do podcasts, which are virtual one-on-one meetings/discussions, and I’ve been wanting to make my podcasts more Web 2.0-ish. So, I thought hey, why not make the last 20 minutes of a podcast open to whoever wants to listen, allowing them to ask questions themselves? How cool, yes, this … 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 »