My New Email Strategy: The Email Game and ActiveInbox

A while ago I tweeted about how poor I am with email. I've tried various methods. I tried automatically filtering all the non-essential email into subfolders, but as some commenters pointed out, I soon never checked these subfolders. I tried unsubscribing from everything, but this seemed an impossible task. Then Will Sansbury recommended that I try The Email Game, and I actually love it. The Email Game The Email Game works only with Gmail...

Webinar Recording: Designing Quick Reference Guides

Listen here: A couple of weeks ago I gave an STC webinar called Designing Quick Reference Guides. This was a general STC webinar, and usually I am not allowed to repost the recording, but due to some audio difficulties, I had to re-record it, and the STC gave me permission to post the re-recording. Here are the files to watch or download the webinar: zip (includes mp4 video) Slides only Audio only

Webinar Recording -- Organizing Help Content: Breaking Out of Topic-Based Hierarchies

Quick reference guides 1.0 Quick Reference Guides: The Poetry of Technical Writing 1.1 Quick Reference Guide Formats -- Tips for Finding Attractive Layouts 1.2 STC Presentation this Thursday: "Quick Reference Guides: Short and Sweet Technical Documentation" ...

Looking at The Peter Principle, Dilbert Principle, and Parkinson's Law

After my last post about being an individual contributor, a reader asked if I had heard of the Peter Principle or Parkinson's Laws. I hadn't, so I read about them on Wikipedia, as well as a related principle, the Dilbert Principle. The Peter Principle The Peter Principle states that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." In other words, employees who perform their roles with competence are promoted int...

On Being an Individual Contributor

For someone who has the job of "technical writer," I spend very little time writing. It amazes me how quickly the day fills up with non-writing tasks. Meetings, reports, issues -- they seem to surface again and again at work, requiring my attention. I sometimes try timing myself and find that if I can get in three hours of writing during the day, that's good. This seems utterly ridiculous to me. I get a lot of satisfaction from writing. T...

A Life of Its Own: An Essay About an Article That Was Never Published

Last year I worked on a news article that showcased certain technologies at my work. The news article was an assignment, the kickoff of a series of articles. I worked especially hard on it, as it was the first one to introduce the series. I came up with a sensible structure, gathered interesting facts and information, and then meticulously crafted the content. I structured the information in a logical way, making sure each paragraph conta...

A Reverse Approach to Help Authoring: Writing Documentation Post-Release

When I first started as a technical writer, a senior writer taught me how to write documentation. Her approach, which aligns with the traditional way of doing technical writing, generally followed these steps: Get involved as early as you can in the software development process. As soon as prototypes are available, or a functioning development environment, start the documentation process. Think of all the main tasks users will do with th...

Brainstorming Solutions to Volunteer Management/Engagement

I am constantly reflecting on the answer to this question: How can I draw upon the enthusiasm, intelligence, and skill of willing volunteers all around me to take our organization's site to the next level? This goal mostly relates to my involvement in my organization's technology blog, which has about 80 volunteer writers. In my post about what I learned during 2011 as a technical communicator, I wrote: Community collaboration is extremel...

Messages from Sponsors -- January 2012

Below are a few messages from my blog's sponsors. Check them out and see if any interest you. Many of them have upcoming webinars. News from Madcap MadCap Software is pleased to present free live webinars from industry experts covering a variety of topics essential for today's technical writers.  Sign up today to advance your professional skills and learn about the latest trends in technical communication. Moving from FrameMaker to Flare ...

STC Certification: An In-Depth Interview with Steve Jong

The following is a guest post by Steve Jong, chair of the STC Certification Commission. What does the certification program involve? First, for an introduction to the subject, I recommend the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_certification. Our Certified Professional Technical Communicator™ (CPTC) credential provides assurance to employers and the public that the certified practitioner possesses the knowledge...

Interview with Ugur Akinci about Technical Communication

Ugur Akinci The following is an interview with Ugur Akinci, a technical writer for Honeywell Corporation. Ugur asked me these same questions for an interview on this site. After answering them, I was curious about how he would answer the same questions, so I asked Ugur to respond to the questions for my site as well. (1)   How long you've been a technical communicator? Where do you work right now? How would you characterize a typical day...

Upcoming Webinar: Designing Quick Reference Guides

I'm giving an STC webinar this week on designing quick reference guides. Here are the details: Designing Quick Reference Guides Date: Wednesday, 25 January | 1:00–2:00 PM EST (GMT-5) Condensing a manual into an attractive quick reference guide requires a poet's precision with language, but it also requires you to exercise skill with visual design and page layout. These short guides blend marketing with instruction, allowing you to combine...

Graduate Research Findings about Technical Communication and Blogs in the Workplace

The following is a guest post by Michelle Tompkins. Earlier this year she asked me to post a survey about technical communication and blogging. I posted it here, and then asked if she would follow up to share her findings. This guest post shares her findings. Earlier in December, Tom Johnson was nice enough to help me with my graduate research on how blogs are used with the workplace of a technical communicator. I received great feedback...

Using JIRA to Track Writing Assignments

We had a couple of writing interns join our group this month. To track writing assignments for the technology blog, I've been using JIRA. JIRA is a bug tracking tool from Atlassian (the same company that makes Confluence). It's typically used by software teams to track bugs during software development projects. You can add comments to items, assign items to team members, assign the items to sprints, create advanced viewing filters for the...

A Lifetime of Reading Versus a Lifetime of Writing

This past week I traveled to Florida to help clear out my dad's house. He recently fell and hit his head, and now he's in a rehabilitation center while his memory recovers. It may take him months to return to his normal self. When he does, we want him to live closer to my sister in Tampa. I spent an entire day clearing out his office. I boxed up about 15 boxes of books, which will be donated to Salvation Army. While sorting through his li...