Despite the failure of these doc reports and meeting notes formats, I hardly fault myself. I was simply following the same conventions that nearly any group does inside the corporation — stuffing all updates into a long email and blasting it out. Different spaces have different communication mediums, and inside the corporation, this was the expected form and delivery.
I recently gave a presentation called How to increase awareness of tech comm inside corporate walls at the MEGAComm 2022 conference, which is a conference for tech comm professionals in Israel. The recording, slides, and description of my presentation are available below.
I recently updated the Metrics and measurement section of my API course to remove the section on scoring the various API documentation criteria. I also consolidated the first- and second-level checklists into a single checklist.
Recently I posted a short survey trying to identify trends that faded or fizzled. About 300 people took the survey. As I was creating the survey, I thought there would be some clear trends that failed. To my surprise, I learned that anything that once surfaced as a documentation trend is still "hanging in there" as a common practice in the field. About the only thing you can say is that tech comm has become more fragmented, plural, diverse, and multifaceted than ever. There are superseded technologies, but apparently no non-trends.
In preparation for a presentation on trends that fizzled or faded, I launched this short survey to get some help in identifying fizzled trends. The survey is still open (so feel free to take it), but I'm not longer actively monitoring the results. The survey is here. The survey has you rank the trends using sliders.
'Using MadCap Flare to Generate API Documentation' provides an excellent introduction to API documentation, along with an example implementation in Flare. This webinar, hosted by MadCap Software, was presented by Athena Adiksson and Jana Cromer of VAS. The webinar focuses on the basics of API documentation content, not necessarily on OpenAPI specifications or integration. VAS provides a farm management API. You can view the recording here. (Note that MadCap Software is one of the sponsors of my site.)
In the previous post, I debated about the type of content that engages an audience versus the type of content engages the writer. I said the thinking/writing process is probably more valuable than the subject, but also that the subject should be something you, the writer, should be naturally drawn to because you'll be most productive being in that space. At the same time, if you want to engage a particular audience, you need to find topics that both you and the audience resonate with, which might be challenging. In this section, I'll get a little more down-to-earth about my audience and focus.
In the previous post, I explained some web fundamentals, such as having a website, learning SEO, capturing subscribers to your newsletter, and so on. However, given that documentation reports and meeting notes failed to engage my readers, I wondered about the key ingredient to influence: engaging content. What types of content would readers find engaging? This turns out to be a complex question with no easy answer other than to focus on what engages you and hope that someone else has a mutual interest. The problem is that those with a mutual interest are likely outside the target business audience.
In the previous post, I explained how email fails as a communication channel in the workplace, and how solely relying on email-based content can cause you to miss out on my analytics and other common web techniques. In this post, I'll look at a few aspects related to content production on the web. Although these techniques all seem basic, hardly any of them are followed in the workplace.
In my previous post, I explained that anyone can create content and broadcast it on the web, gathering up an audience and building a reputation of expertise. I wondered if these techniques could be implemented in the workplace. In my initial attempt to create content in the workplace, I focused on two efforts: (1) creating documentation reports and (2) sharing meeting notes. The efforts sort of failed because I neglected some web fundamentals.
This is a multi-post series exploring a hypothesis about influence on the web and in the workplace. The main question I'm exploring is whether the same techniques for visibility and influence on the web can have a similar effect within the workplace, which has different dynamics, cultures, tools, and expectations.
Many themes surfaced in 2021, but I want to address two: working from home and podcasting.
I updated my site analytics page for 2021. As far as noteworthy metrics, not much that has changed, but there are a few small trends worth reflecting on.
PDF and eBook formats are now available for my API doc course. People have long-requested these formats, and I finally decided to create and make them available.
A few people have asked me how I like Seattle and how things are going after the move. Given that it's been a year since we moved to Seattle, I thought this would be a good topic to write about. Overall, the move was a good decision, and we've all adjusted well. As I head into the next year, one thing that concerns me is that I've been writing less, so in 2022 I plan to rekindle that energy.
