I'm not sure why, but I've decided to keep a better journal, and to carry my camera around taking lots of pictures. For one, taking pictures is a lot of fun. But also, I sense that my kids are growing up, cementing their sense of identity, and soon they will be going off to high school, and then college, and then they will be gone. I guess I am trying to capture and preserve these moments. I love how these flowers droop. I'm not sure why -...
When I think about my past, the only thing that matters -- or at least so it seems -- is family. Looking at old pictures of the kids, how they have changed. How Shannon and I have changed too. It puts life in perspective. I need to prioritize my life so that, going forward, I do things that have the most value. It almost sounds cliche to write it, but when I think of the past, all that seems to matter is family, family, family. Everything else...
Aaron and Tara Carpenter and their kids are visiting. After we came home from Church, they and Shannon all wanted to take a nap, but the kids had a lot of energy. I had good sleep the night before, so I decided to take them on an adventure while the others slept. We went to the Spring View Farms Trail. This is the trailhead at Spring View Farms Trail -- about 14400 S and Redwood It was about 95 degrees out. The kids were practically melting in...
Work has been up and down lately. I was distressed to see the new dress and grooming section for sister missionaries, as it seemed much more a fashion catalog than something designed for people entering spiritual service. But perhaps I overreacted, and my post on the internal social network led to quite a stir. In the end, I probably made more enemies than friends. I've also been pondering the best way to go -- focus on writing, on screencast...
This week was the first time I've actually seen our usability labs used. We have a new usability research group led by someone with years of experience doing usability engineering for Microsoft. I watched in our observation room as he led a handful of users through 60-90 minute usability tests for an application I documented. What is surprising about usability testing is how much valid information you can gather from so few subjects. With...
Shay Shaked The following is a guest post by Shay Shaked. I've been messing around with Google Plus for about two weeks now. It occurred to me, after reading Tom Johnson's latest post about content strategy and listening to his podcast about the same topic, that Google Plus is, perhaps unintentionally, the best professional social network with the right usage of content strategy. I'm not going to explain what Google Plus is in this post....
I received the following email from Anna, a literature PhD candidate who is considering changing career paths from teaching into technical writing. This is a collaborative post, so if you have advice to share, please add it in the comments below. 1. What is it like doing tech writing on a freelance basis? (My understanding is that you have a full-time, permanent position, but since you're so active in the community, I thought you might ha...
The many directions one can go I have a lot of flexibility and freedom in my job. That's part of the appeal. The other day I was reflecting on the best route to take, the most fruitful path I should follow. There are quite a few directions I could go. I could become meticulously detailed about style, knowing the ins and outs of every handbook (and being able to compare them with wit and perspective). I could become a tools guru in skinni...
Valeria Maltoni from Conversation Agent recently wrote about Groupon as an example of a business employing a strong copywriting strategy. Valeria writes, Great copywriting is the secret sauce of successful email newsletters. Groupon is an interesting example of promotional writing that sells, when attached to the right deals. (See Conversation Agent: How Content Seals the Deal at Groupon.) If you're unfamiliar with Groupon, it's a daily d...
A couple of months ago, I realized I would be playing a larger role in web publishing at my work, moving more towards a user awareness role. Realizing this direction, and knowing I had some budget, I decided I should attend Confab, the first conference on content strategy. It was sold out, but by a stroke of luck the organizer offered me one of thirteen tickets held in reserve. I never wrote much about the Confab conference. In part I was...
He mentioned this during one of our lazy afternoon meetings, which dragged on much longer than the scheduled time. The central problem of writing help, my colleague Derek explained, is how you make it so Joe user can find the answer to his one question among 50,000 other answers in the help. Every user seems to have the one or two questions he or she thinks should be at the top of the help file, he explained. A lot of users think a help f...
I told Avery tonight that I want to be a spy, and asked for her advice. I said it half jokingly, because it seems ridiculous, only an idea from watching too many spy movies on TV. Still, life as a technical writer is pretty boring. I want more. Avery said I probably am just interested in mystery and adventure. She noted that it would be hard to be a spy and also have a family, and she is certainly right about that. She pretty much said I can't...
I was talking with a colleague the other day about how to increase the number of hits per article on our organization's technology website. We get about 800 hits per article, which isn't much given the potential audience. To increase hits, I said we need to send these articles to all users via a newsletter. Email is the only way to reach a lot of people. People aren't subscribing to RSS anymore. On my own blog, I can't seem to go beyond 3...
For the past few weeks, I've been obsessed about building a technology blog for my organization. But this past week I had a sobering wake-up call that has made me rethink what types of content readers find valuable. It turns out, if you look at the metrics for the site, that the blog isn't hardly read at all. Instead, many people read the forums and help content. Really? Yes, I think in comparing content value, an informative set of help ...
In reading the Book of Mormon (children's edition) to Callie and Lucy, I noticed that both Lehi and Nephi prayed to received their revelations. I don't pray nearly enough. I usually wait until I'm tired and then say a 15 second prayer. I used to be much better at praying. On my mission I discovered that if I sang and prayed, sang another hymn and prayed, sang another hymn and prayed, until about 10 minutes, I could invoke the warmth of the spi...
