[Audio clip: view full post to listen] Download MP3 Length: 45 min. Powerpoint This podcast on Trends in Technical Communication is a recording of a presentation I gave at the Missouri State University Workshop for Teachers of Technical Writing on April 22, 2010. Although trends in technical communication could cover a variety of topics, I chose to focus on four trends: hybrid roles, social media, … more »

Catalyst 4: Wiki Manager As if I wasn’t already doing enough, I also started to wear another hat: wiki manager. It turns out I failed in this role, but I’ll still include it here because it segues into another topic I want to explore, which is spreading yourself too thin. At the beginning of this essay I mentioned the community projects we started up. When … more »

I spent much of last week with my head inside a Mediawiki skin (when I probably should have been working on another project). I’m not entirely sure what it is, but I sometimes get fixated by technical problems I can’t seem to solve. I first customized the FraternalRelief Mediawiki skin to match my organization’s home page. My customization wasn’t too bad, but I saw a … more »

I mentioned in a previous post that I think traditional help authoring tools are becoming less and less viable for robust software projects in which multiple subject matter experts in distributed locations need to collaborate, and when these same subject matter experts need to own the documentation after release. This wasn’t just a fleeting thought. I spent the last couple of days last week getting … more »

If you work in a large corporate environment, you’re familiar with restrictions about accessing production servers to make updates or additions to your help content. To touch anything on a production server, you have to go through the change release process, which requires a lot of paperwork and procedural hassle. Almost no project manager sees documentation as important enough to release a new version of … more »

Recently I’ve been working on a simple calendar project that uses a wiki for documentation. Although I’ve heard a lot about using wikis for documentation, and have even used them in the past, I ran into a few surprises this time.

Although many people put blogs and wikis in the same social media category, blogs and wikis are actually quite different. Blogs are individually authored mini-magazines or journals where one author (or sometimes a small authoring group) crank out article after article (or entry after entry) usually with a common theme. After each article is published, the article is considered done and the author moves on … more »

[amazon-product align="right"]0982219113[/amazon-product][Audio clip: view full post to listen] Download MP3 Length: 40 min. As a follow-up to my review of Anne Gentle’s book, [amazon-product type="text" text="Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation"]0982219113[/amazon-product], I also interviewed her for a podcast. Now you can listen to Anne talk about some of the concepts in her book in a more personal way through the headphones of your … more »

One of the perks about being a blogger is that authors occasionally send me their books to review. Recently Anne Gentle sent me her new book, Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation. Anne’s book is particularly important because it addresses the situation of the technical writer today, with the web in the state it is — user generated, filled with blogs, wikis, Twitter, … more »

Mary Connor talks about the latest tools for exporting documentation to wikis. She seems to prefer Webworks ePublisher for its ability to export to Confluence, a wiki that supports authoring for future releases.

After a recent conference call I had for an STC chapter meeting, we needed an online mechanism to keep the discussion going. Doc Guy set up a Google Groups discussion site (which includes a threaded forum and wiki) to facilitate the online discussion, and we started a few threads, but soon the discussion focused , unfortunately, only on scheduling dates for in-person meetings. In a … more »

This is a guest post by Cathy Wildhaber about her experience implementing a wiki in her department. Cathy is a technical writer in Kansas City. For the past 4 years, she has worked for a company that provides computer systems and services to financial organizations. Ever take a look at some slick wiki technology and think “Wow, that’s really cool…I want one”? I did, and … more »

[Audio clip: view full post to listen] Download MP3 Length: 9 min. In this podcast, I talk with Anne Gentle about her forthcoming book, Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation. Anne explains how we’ve transitioned from the Age of Information to the Age of Interaction, using social web tools to find the information we need. She builds on her experiences with One Laptop … more »

For those interested in learning more about wikis, Anne Gentle is giving a virtual presentation on documentation wikis for the NY Metro chapter of STC.  Her presentation is titled “Wiki-fy Your Doc Set: A Writer’s Role in Web 2.0.” Members are charged $5 and nonmembers $10. You can register through the following link: http://www.stcnymetro.org/events/messages/2009-016.htm

Alan Porter’s Weblog » WIKI Publishing White Paper – now available in eBook format..