When you’re a technical communicator you need to know what are the right questions to ask – and who to address those questions to.
This is the topic I’d been thinking about when my very good friends at Firehead Ltd. asked me to be their guest blogger and write something for them, which I was delighted to do. I clearly wrote too much for one article so they have published it in three parts:
All three parts have now been published. Please follow this link to read the first part, follow this link to read the second part, and this link to read the third part. (Sharp-eyed readers will note that some of the text is identical in all the posts. This was a decision taken by Firehead’s editors.)
If you’re a technical writer in a hurry, you may be interested to know that the third part has had the most positive responses from other technical writers.
I was surprised and flattered to find myself included this week on MindTouch’s list of the Top 25 Most Influential Technical Communications Bloggers (and I have added a badge to this blog to prove it!). It’s a great honour to be included in such illustrious company, especially as the rankings were computed from a number of different social media metrics. So my thanks must go not just to Mark Fidelman who compiled the list, but more importantly to people like you, who read my blog and follow me on Twitter.
The list is international, including tech comm bloggers from the UK, Australia, and India as well as the USA, and I’m pleased to say that I already knew almost every name on the list either as a personal contact or as a regular correspondent through professional mailing lists or on social networks. I was also very pleased to see that four of the people listed (Ellis Pratt, Gordon McLean, Colum McAndrew, and myself) are presenting at Technical Communication UK 2010. Read more
Although I’ve been part of an agile development team for the last few months, until recently my user documentation tasks have not been part of the sprint backlog. But this time, my tasks are on the board! (I realise that if you are not au fait with the arcane language and practices of agile, you may find this post a bit obscure.) Read more
I’m pleased to report that my proposal to speak at Technical Communications UK 2010 (TCUK) has been accepted. I’m going to speaking on the theme of Content Strategy for Everyone. I won’t be alone in following Kristina Halvorson’s exhortation to “bang the big drum” for content strategy – Roger Hart will be speaking there about his experiences as well. Read more
The US military were reported last week to have found out something that many of us involved in information design and technical communications have known for a very long time: over-use of PowerPoint obscures the truth rather than reveals it, and confuses an audience rather than educates it. But the reports from the military suggest that the results of misuse may actually endanger lives. Read more
