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Here in Utah, things are a bit different. We only have STC meetings during the school year (not during summer). And during the school year, we’re only having meetings every other month. Although this frequency is a little surprising, it’s not hard to understand when you go to the meetings and only 6 to 7 people show up.

Despite the lack of community in the Salt Lake City area, there are plenty of technical writing jobs here. Utah has a growing number of new IT companies, and I see on average 1 to 2 new job postings each week. Additionally, Utah State University has a strong undergraduate program in technical writing.

I want to get a better sense of community in the Utah area. It’s valuable to build professional relationships, to know who’s who, and where. To try to encourage a stronger sense of community, I created a Utah Technical Writers social network. (This group is on Scott Abel’s The Content Wrangler Community Ning site.) So far, 15 people have joined it. When you join the social network, you can type a brief profile about yourself.

If you’re a technical writer in Utah, please join the social network (it’s free). Here are instructions on how to join:

1. Go to Utah technical writers group page.
2. Click the Sign Up link.
3. Complete the required fields and then sign in.
4. Click the Join Utah Technical Writers link.

Join Utah Technical Writers Group link

You know when you’ve been successful when you see your photo in the group.

WordPress's Biggest Mistake

For a company that recently secured $29 million in funding, has grown from nonexistence to worldwide popularity in just four years, and which has the reputation of being the platform for serious bloggers, it’s kind of bold for me to call attention to its biggest mistake in a post. But I’m convinced that it’s a huge miscalculation on the part of Automattic (the company that leads WordPress). The Automattic team, led by Matt Mullenweg, has about 25 engineers and …. not one technical writer.

In the engineer’s mind, writers are unnecessary because the code is so obvious. And WordPress even prides itself with its mission statement:

Through WordPress we’ve enabled millions of people to effortlessly publish to the web. Now we want to enable millions more.

“Effortlessly”? Excuse me, Matt should come over and watch my wife try to update something in her blog’s design. When the image don’t automatically float right or left to wrap around the text, when she wants to change her header’s banner, or limit the number of posts that show up in a category, she starts cursing WordPress under her breath.

My wife, who writes under the pen name “Jane,” is actually technically competent. She can edit and publish videos on Vimeo and Youtube, create linked image buttons for her sidebar, and resize and edit photos in Photoshop and Picasa pretty easily. But every time she wants to make slight adjustments to her blog … well, let’s just say last time she ended up throwing the mouse at me while I ducked near the kitchen microwave. Other times she literally pulls on her hair in desperation and says she’s “going to Blogger.” Swearing is also common.

The WordPress team overlooks an official technical writer and assumes everyone will update the WordPress Codex with the necessary documentation. Sure. Just like people will come out of their homes and automatically pick up the trash on the streets. If you’ve ever looked through the Codex for something, navigation is akin to backcountry hiking without a map. At least a quarter of the content is outdated. Much of the writing isn’t very task-oriented or clear to novices. It frequently resembles developer-writing, and screenshots are usually absent.

With the $29 million in funding WordPress has received, you’d think they’d at least pay an intern somewhere $20 an hour to update the Codex. Better yet, find someone with gusto and expertise like Lorelle to devote herself full-time to Codex upkeep. WordPress documentation is only getting worse. Is there not at least a 100 page manual that you can download (rather than buying a third-party book from Amazon)?

In the end, Blogger has much more marketshare because it’s an easier platform. WordPress could be more competitive in the marketplace if they simply hired a full-time technical writer to — I know this is shocking — add an online help file directly inside the application.