A couple of months ago I created some documentation on Joomla for some web admins using Joomla to build country sites. After delivering the documentation, the users needed something more visual, so I set about creating screencasts. I created 30 screencasts to match the tasks in the documentation (which I transferred from InDesign to Mediawiki). I then integrated the screencasts with the various pages of the wiki. You can see a list of the...
Google Custom Search can dramatically improve the search results for your WordPress blog or any other site. WordPress is a great blogging platform, no doubt about it. But the built-in search feature is terrible. As I've searched for keywords from past posts to respond to reader questions, I would continually come up empty-handed. As a solution, I incorporated Google Custom Search, which is a free service that allows you to embed a Google ...
Some months ago I created a half a dozen quick reference guides for an application that would have a potential audience of thousands of users (after it cleared the beta phase). The size of the audience gave me hope that I would actually create documentation to be used by more than a handful of people outside the internal workings of my organization. I created the guides in Adobe InDesign because it seemed to make sense for the situation -...
Given that it's a new year, a lot of people are writing about trends and predictions in technical communication. Ellis Pratt at Cherryleaf has an interesting post on the Top 10 Trends in Technical Communication for 2010. Larry Kunz has a post on Technical Communication Trends in 2010. Sarah O'Keefe chimed in with 2010 Predictions for Technical Communication. And Ben Minson has Ten New Year's Resolutions. Rather than predict or comment on ...
At a department Christmas social the other week, we had a special meeting following lunch. During the meeting, people spontaneously shared their feelings about working for the Church or other thoughts they had. More than a dozen people stood up. Although it wasn't called such, the meeting was similar to a "testimony meeting," which is something that Mormons do once a month for their church meetings. During these meetings, rather than list...
One of the tough paradoxes of the technical writing field is that you can't get a job without experience, but you can't get experience without a job. Or so it seems. A reader recently wrote to me explaining how she decided to write manuals for her existing job as an account maintenance clerk, even though the task of writing documentation wasn't in her list of required duties. Doing so transformed her role. After learning more about her ex...
Most people take time off during the holidays, so if you don't, you end up mostly sitting alone at work, wondering why you're not taking time off too. I wanted to follow Penelope Trunk's advice about pursuing your pet projects while working during the holidays, but instead I was trying to finish a project with an end-of-year deadline. The project I'm working on is critical, but it has only about 3 to 4 users, most of whom are already fami...
How to get a job in technical writing 1.0 Introduction to getting a job in technical writing (TW Job) 1.1 Learn the basics of technical writing (TW Job) 1.2 Get real experience doing technical writing (TW Job) 1.3 ...
How to get a job in technical writing 1.0 Introduction to getting a job in technical writing (TW Job) 1.1 Learn the basics of technical writing (TW Job) 1.2 Get real experience doing technical writing (TW Job) 1.3 ...
How to get a job in technical writing 1.0 Introduction to getting a job in technical writing (TW Job) 1.1 Learn the basics of technical writing (TW Job) 1.2 Get real experience doing technical writing (TW Job) 1.3 ...
I have mixed feelings about Christmas. People in our neighborhood have been bringing over treats all week -- a chocolate pie, a peanut butter pinecone bird feeder, sparkling apple cider, brownies, rice crispies, honey, marmelade jam, Stephen's hot cocoa, sugar cookies, and other food. They bring them with such pace and vigor you would think we were either starving or desperately in need of fattening up. Jane has been making a list of ever...
How to get a job in technical writing 1.0 Introduction to getting a job in technical writing (TW Job) 1.1 Learn the basics of technical writing (TW Job) 1.2 Get real experience doing technical writing (TW Job) 1.3 ...
In a recent email to me, Jake from California (not his real name or location) writes, I've spent most of today exploring the world of technical writing, and I find that you're very central and visible. I've read, listened to, and watched a good deal of content you've produced, plus viewed snippets of threads on the STC listserv where you either weighed in or were referenced. If I can prevail on you for just a few minutes of your time, I'd...
Listen here: In his controversial post, The Myth of Single Sourcing, Michael Hiatt explains: Single-source publishing is a zombie idea that revives itself periodically and refuses to stay dead. Its zombie supporters chant its purported benefits as a “write once, publish to many” promise and ploddingly follow it as their ultimate goal for mechanized authoring and machine translation. As an object-oriented writing methodol...
How to get a job in technical writing 1.0 Introduction to getting a job in technical writing (TW Job) 1.1 Learn the basics of technical writing (TW Job) 1.2 Get real experience doing technical writing (TW Job) 1.3 ...
