Callwave.com is a pretty cool service. When people leave voicemail messages on your cell phone, rather than having to listen to the messages on your phone, Callwave sends the voice message to your email inbox. The following image shows a sample delivery of the message. You click Open and the message plays. Setting up Callwave (which is free) took me all of 2 minutes. You just enter a string of digits in your phone, and voila. To sign up,...
The Suncoast Member mashup map is finished. Several people commented how cool it is. You can create a mashup map in 5 minutes from http://www.batchgeocode.com/, and there are Google plugins for WordPress that also facilitate the map. But I used the Google Map API because I wanted a list of scrollable names on the side. The method was much more arduous (right-click the map file to view the source and see the code for the individual marker...
Brian Oberkirch has interviewed some really cool people over in Silicon Valley. In this podcast from Oberkirch, Guy Kawasaki reveals some thought-provoking dilemmas about his blog habits. Guy is a big name in tech — former evangelist for Apple, now a venture capitalist. During the first 20 minutes they talk about startups, why some succeed and others fail (basically no one knows), they cover Guy's previous books (The Art of the Start, Rul...
I listened to an awesome podcast today. Brian Oberkirch from Edgework talks with Matt Mullenweg about WordPress. Of course I love WordPress so it was great to hear from Matt, the WordPress lead. Matt said a few things about Akismet and accelerated development cycles that were interesting. Akismet, the spam-blocking software packaged with WordPress and produced by Automattic (the company behind the open-source WordPress application), is re...
This podcast from Podcast Academy talks about integrating podcasting into your company's mix of marketing deliverables. Schwartzman talks about how, for an opera site, his company added podcasts that consisted of opera singer interviews. He says the main purpose of a podcast should be to drive listeners to your website—the website should be the center of your activity, not the podcast. A little shocking was the cost. Schwartzman says hi...
One of the responses in our recent chapter survey showed that members want more information about other members (see #3). I think this means members want to interact more, to get to know their peers better. But going out to the meetings each month isn't always possible given the remote locations of some members. And others have family commitments or other obstacles that prevent them from interacting. To get around this, I've added a chat ...
Jakob Nielsen offers 10 principles for weblog usability. But it's #9 that really jumps out: Whenever you post anything to the Internet -- whether on a weblog, in a discussion group, or even in an email -- think about how it will look to a hiring manager in ten years. Once stuff's out, it's archived, cached, and indexed in many services that you might never be aware of. Years from now, someone might consider hiring you for a plum job and t...
In a recent survey we did with our chapter, 75% of the members said the blog was sufficient, and that we don't need to bring back the chapter newsletter. We archived our newsletter about 2 years ago because each newsletter editor kept getting burned out. When we converted our site to a blog, members contributed to it but the posts were not really articles as much as announcements., job listings, or requests for advice. I asked the newsle...
As a technical writer, I use styles for almost everything. That's why I almost died when I learned about this WordPress Easter egg in the visual editor. Go to where you would write a new post and look at your visual editor. Press alt+shift+v. You'll suddenly see an additional toolbar appear that wasn't there before. Uhm, isn't restricting heading tags and other formatting options one of dumbest omissions in a WYSIWYG editor? If it's poss...
Boagworld shares some worthwhile advice on podcasting. If you skip ahead to minute 37, you'll get to the part about podcasting. Here's what Paul and Marcus said that I found interesting: Your listeners are listening to your podcast while doing something else, such as driving, exercising, or working. So you only have part of their attention. The implication is that your content has to be somewhat light, not requiring 100% attention to abs...
You probably saw the brief descriptions of the two keynote speakers at the STC Conference in March, but did you know one is a podcaster. Or a videocaster, or a new media artist. The show with zefrank is an interesting new video art form. He does some creative, theatrical commentary while looking at your straight in the eye. Click the image above to see Ze Frank talk about Google and Valentine's day and "Googe." The show is a satire on Go...
I read a few STC articles from Doug Davis on the business side of technical communication today. He had some interesting things to say. The following 15 cities are where 50% of the technical communication jobs are found. So if you're looking for a job, you might have better luck living in one of these locations: San Jose, California ( Silicon Valley) Boston, Massachusetts Seattle, Washington Washington, D.C. Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minneso...
Like taking surveys? Even if you don't, there are two more that you might just want to take: The Innovations survey. This survey is an eye-opener as to what features are out there in help systems, and what features you believe are innovative. (Side note: The Hat-Matrix site, which lists a lot of the features of different help systems, is pretty interesting.) The WritersUSA Salary survey. This survey is particularly important because it h...
I have been thinking about how to monetize Tech Writer Voices. Most podcasters spend a lot of time creating and editing audio for their podcasts. What's the return on investment? You can make money with podcasting, but the ads (such as ads for hosting services or other products), don't seem to generate enough profit to be worthwhile. However, I just stumbled upon an idea that may prove to be a powerful revenue generator: selling job descr...
I just posted a first cohost podcast with Heidi Hansen, a technical writer in Seattle and my new co-host. If you listen to the podcast, let me know what you think of the new cohost format. I think it went well; it was different from a regular interview, and the new style is something I'll have to work on. We also tried a little recording trick to try to make the voices clearer. Heidi's voice sounded crisper and clearer than mine, so I wil...
