A river. And, apparently, Tom Johnson.
At the STC conference last week, I had the good fortune of chatting with Tom over the topic of marketing vs. influencing. Neither of us cares much for the term marketing when it comes to promoting oneself in the workplace. This could be related to the word, our personalities, or where we work, or all of the above. We do seem to agree that in our positions, we prefer the more subtle role (responsibility?) of influencing decisions and activities regarding design, workflow, architecture, communication strategies, content, and so on.
Outside the office, though, Tom has a much greater influence, for he's doing more to promote our profession, and us as professionals and individuals, then he probably realizes.
Today, for example, he unleashed WriterRiver.com, a social news site for technical communicators, where you can submit news stories. On this river of news, you can also vote to float or sink a story. Most excellent.
This new site complements growing suite of other technical communication resources, such as the I'd Rather Be Writing blog, Tech Writer Voices podcasts, WordPress QuickStart Guide, and Tech Writer Blog Directory.
Namaste!
ReplyDeleteGlad to see that you made it safely home. Hope the trip wasn't too exhausting!
It was a pleasure meeting you at the STC Summit in Philly. Hope we'll be able to keep up our conversation over this long distance!
Cheers!
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-- Rahul Prabhakar
prabhakar.rahul@gmail.com
http://2brahulprabhakar.blogspot.com
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PS: You are encouraged to join my technical writing listserv called TWI (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/technical_writers_india/). Your presence on the list shall be highly cherished.
It was a pleasure meeting you, too! You're doing amazing work, and I'm most impressed - keep it up!
ReplyDelete