Adam Hyde of FLOSS Manuals wrote up these instructions for how to get involved with the BookSprint going on this week. I’m hoping to write blog entries that describe the planning sessions and surrounding practical advice for this type of writing sprint, but I wanted to let my readers know the basic overview of how [...]

I have seen the eminent reinvention of technical documentation as we know it, which inspired me to begin chronicling my own observations and shifts in the field of communicating technical topics through conversation. One such revealing moment happened while I was working on documentation for the One Laptop Per Child project on their wiki at wiki.laptop.org. [...]

Tell me… and I will forget. Show me… and I will remember. Involve me… and I will understand. -Confucius Documentation as conversation means getting closer to the users and helping them perform well. Over the years experts such as JoAnn Hackos and Jared Spool have told us that this type of user-centered design and focus increases the [...]

Here’s a reading list for DITA materials when you’re just getting started. I’ve been fielding some questions via email and IM about DITA lately, and pulled this blog post out of my drafts. I hope it’s helpful. Learning more about DITA http://justwriteclick.com/2006/05/18/learning-more-about-dita/ Getting started with DITA http://justwriteclick.com/2007/04/12/getting-started-with-dita/ Structured writing, structured documentation http://www.mbwest.com/Rants-and-raves.htm BMC Case Study featured in The Rockley Report: http://www.rockley.com/TheRockleyReport/V2I1/Feature%20Article.htm [...]

I love this visualization toy, Woordle at http://wordle.net/, and as it turns out, I use the word “love” quite a bit. That and “really.” Who knew? It’s quite fun to make a Wordle because of the animation you see while the word “cloud” is added to, so I highly recommend trying it for yourself. [...]

This summer I had fun writing an article about writing AdWords ads - and seeing if I could use the AdWords network to sell my presentation audio and slide deck, A Technical Writer’s Role in Web 2.0: Wiki-fy Your Doc Set. The article is availabe on TheContentWrangler.com site - Managing Small Content:Counting Characters. Here’s an excerpt: As [...]

If you do a search on the Author-it Yahoo Group about indexing, you will find a wide array of knowledge about some of the best ways to set up indexes especially when you have multiple deliverables. If you do a Google search for Author-it and indexing, you find out about the Author-it Xtend™ Indexing Service, but [...]

Honestly, Sarah O’Keefe’s blog entry describing the new Scriptorium wiki at wiki.scriptorium.com doesn’t do the content justice - there is really, really good stuff on that wiki! I’d love to see this wiki become a hub and community for Framemaker users whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been maintaining Frame source for years. Hightail it over [...]

I’ve been busy lately working on plans for a Floss Manuals BookSprint. A BookSprint is a week-long concentrated effort of technical writers getting together to create a manual for free, libre open source software products. BookSprints are like a workshop where writers come together to learn how to write good user documentation. BookSprints are also [...]

Just updated my blog with a new green theme, Corpgreen from Blog Oh Blog. I think I’ve tweaked appropriately, such as changing the RSS feed URL in the welcome.php file, but do let me know if you see anything amiss. I also got the Identicons plugin working again, which are those neat icons for a comment [...]

Author-it uses a SQL Server database to house all of the source material that make up your deliverables. You can export that database content to XML and publish to Word or HTML and other outputs, but the source is stored in a database. For locally-run databases (meaning that Author-it and the database are on the same [...]

Thanks everyone for the great comments and feedback on our starting list of theme and article ideas for STC Intercom’s 2009 editorial calendar. I appreciate that comments are still coming in, from all around the globe. I’m enjoying the international and generational communication we’re seeing, so thanks very much! We posted ideas and requested feedback on [...]

At ASI, we’re working on book skeletons while we do task analysis for new documentation or feature updates that may change the way users do their work with iMIS. So, to get early feedback, we wanted a way to publish an outline of that skeleton book with no page numbers, but headings and subheading levels [...]

I just completed David Allen’s excellent book, Getting Things Done:The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. I found that some of his tips I do instinctively, yet perhaps not yet naturally, but this book helped me apply practical principles to time management. Plus, he shows us that it’s not always easy to get to “what is the [...]

I grew up in Goshen, Indiana, a college town of about 20,000 people with many Amish and conservative Mennonites in the surrounding communities. Seeing horse-drawn buggies parked at the local Wal-marts (yes, there was one on each side of town) was not uncommon. I learned to love the simple quilt designs and homemade Dutch food, [...]

Better late than never, I suppose. I’ve had these notes on my hard drive and want to post them to the cloud of my blog. John Hunt, DITA Architect in the Lotus Information Development Center at IBM and DITA Learning and Training Content Specialization SC chair, presented Using DITA Content for Learning Content Development at the [...]

Mashups and virtual worlds are more and more a part of Web 2.0, and perhaps as an extension, part of social media. An example of a mashup that is social is on Nikeplus.com, where I can map out running routes using Google maps. The “mashing” is defined by me, a user, using Google maps [...]

An interesting comparison and contrast with two recently added time-sink temptations while online. As of a few weeks ago, you can submit news stories to the new WriterRiver.com, a digg clone site with the clever Sink or Float capability on news stories, built by Tom Johnson who writes the IdRatherBeWriting blog. A few months ago, Scott [...]

Here’s my interview for GirlStart, highlighting a technical communication career for the “Check her out!” section of their website. The toughest question for me was the last one! GirlStart is a non-profit based in Austin that empowers girls in math, science, and technology. I was pleased to be able to say what a great career [...]

As a graduate student in scientific and technical communication, I was fortunate to have been introduced to many texts for learning technical writing at Miami University in Ohio. I have kept those books, keeping them on my bookshelf wherever I work, and have added to that bookshelf ever since. Perhaps this list could be considered [...]