Tech Comm Friday (June 22)

First off, thanks to all of the STC Chicago members who made Thursday's June Celebration possible. Thanks, also, to everyone who attended. I had a great time, and I hope everyone else did too. I have since recovered from the appetizer-induced fried food haze enough to bring you some equally tasty TC links.

• In "Writing User-Centered Documentation, or, My Best Days as a Technical Writer" Tom Johnson reminisces about the ease of end-user integration on a project team and offers ways to bring the user perspective back when isolated from the project.
• Julio Vasquez advises that one should plan content with the same care taken to plan one's vacation.
• Following the Summit, it is clear that TC is rife with opportunities to use social media; Theresa Pojuner discusses some of these opportunities.
• In a similar vein, EContent magazine's Steve Goldner describes some types of social media tools and recommends some that are worth paying for.
• Finally, in "Fuzzy Martians and good instructions: Yepyepyeyepyep," Rachel Williams shows us what we can learn about writing clear instructions from the Sesame Street Martians.

Tech Comm Friday (June 8)

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope those who went to yesterday's First Thursday meetups had a grand ol' time. Sorry for the late post this week; there were so many great posts this week to pick through. But with the help of Graffiti Owl (whom I found next to the river at State and Wacker), I found some posts to help you stay aware of the past week's goings on in tech comm.

• With Twitter being such a widely used tool at the 2012 Summit, it has become vital to understand how to use it. Roger Renteria's guide provides a great introduction for the Twitter Luddites among us (myself included).
• In a related blog post, Sarah Maddox asks for help in crowdsourcing a wiki Twitter guide for technical communicators. It's as easy as signing up for the wiki and adding missing information.
• Vinish Garg, writer of the blog Enjoy Technical Writing, expounds on the benefits and limitations of utilizing WordPress as a platform for documentation.
• Smashing Magazine's Rian van der Merwe talks about when it's okay (or even necessary) to break longstanding Webdesign rules in favor of something better.
• Finally, here's a blast from the past: a classic article from American Scientist, "The Science of Scientific Writing" by George Gopen and Judith Swan.

Also, in case you've been in a hole the past week, many LinkedIn passwords were hacked. If you use LinkedIn, be sure to change the passwords of ALL other services' accounts that shared passwords with your LinkedIn (of which there ideally should be none), and also change your LinkedIn password.

Tech Comm Friday (June 1)

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Contrary to the current weather, it's officially summer here in Chicago: the beaches are open, festivals are all over the place, and Navy Pier is doing its twice-weekly fireworks show. Shall we start the season off with some juicy tech comm links?

• Ellis Pratt's video on the history of technical communication in 7 minutes
• An interesting discussion on Technical Writing World about the value of professional tech writing/tech comm courses and/or full-blown tech comm degrees
• Mark Baker's blog post on the not-so-fine line between novices and casual users and how documentation should be better tailored for the latter
• A post on Colum McAndrew's blog on where on "the curve" Europe's tech comm industry lies in comparison to the US
• Finally, in case you need even more 2012 Summit, the published conference Proceedings

Tech Comm Friday (March 16)

Man, another week in the books. March is flying by. But as most of the US is spending more time outdoors enjoying this unseasonably warm weather, don't forget to look back at what's occurring in the world of tech comm. Here's your rundown of five attention-grabbing stories and resources from the past week.

• The Future of Technical Communication - Check out www.dozuki.com, a new way to make quick and easy manuals, how-to guides, or procedures. This puts documentation creation in the hands of the people, which isn't always a bad thing. After all, they're the ones performing the tasks.
  


• A set of shinies for technical documentation on a wiki - Sarah Maddox explains some simple, yet innovative, ways to make your wiki documentation that much better. She uses Confluence, but you can apply her tips to almost any wiki platform.
  


• Writers UA Conference Recaps - Lauren Hart is blogging about each day spent at the Writers UA Conference in Memphis, TN. Head on over to her blog to check out what she's learning and what we're all missing out on!
  


• Poor Documentation Formats (PDF) and the Encyclopedia Britannica - Damien Howley from MindTouch wiki software explains how the fact that Encyclopedia Britannica announced that it'll no longer print hard copies of its encyclopedias proves that print documentation is a dying form of documentation, including PDFs.
  



• Technical Writer Meme
   

And that's a wrap for this week. Have a great weekend, folks. 

Tech Comm Friday (March 9)

If you're like me, you do your best to keep up with the latest and greatest in our industry, but who has the time? In an effort to make your life just a little easier, I've compiled some of the most attention-grabbing tech comm items from the interwebs in the last week. Behold:

• Worst. Name. Ever. - Andrew Brooke explores Apple's decision to name the new iPad "The New iPad" and what he thinks a technical writer's approach to this marketing conundrum (is it really that hard?!) would be.
  


• Writer's UA Salary Survey - Show me the money! Everyone's looking to pad their wallet, but in this economic climate, you're probably more concerned with keeping your job than getting a fat Christmas bonus. Check out Writer's UA Salary Survey to see how you measure up.
  


• Troubleshooters: Resistance to Knowledge Sharing - Have you ever feared that sharing your knowledge with others might make you less valuable? If so, Raymond Calbay writes about some of the common reasons people don't share knowledge and provides some trouble shooting tips to combat such fears.
  


• PDFs: Artifacts of a Digital Dark Age - The article title says it all. Michael Stewart explains why PDFs are a thing of the past, and if you're still using them, what you can do about it.
  


• A Gift From our Grammar Geeks - Lulu Blog provides a grammar refresher for those of you who might be struggling with the basics. Never refuse a reminder.
  

And that's it for this week. What did you think? Did I miss anything? Let me know your thoughts and send me your favorite articles from the last week in the comments.