For Kai Weber, a good manager is pivotal in making a job satisfying: It’s the single most important factor in my satisfaction with a job. Nothing else shapes my memory and my judgment of a past job as much. What really tests the mettle of … Read More
Would you use just a gardening trowel to plant a tree?
As technical communicators, our ultimate goal is to create accessible content that helps users solve problems. Focusing on developing quality content is the priority, but you can take that viewpoint to an extreme by saying that content-creation tools are just a convenience for technical writers: … Read More
Authoring tools do matter
“I can write in anything.”“The tool doesn’t matter.”“I can learn any new tool.” Most of the time, I agree. But then, there are the exceptions. One of our customers is using FrameMaker to produce content that is delivered in HTML. (They use structured FrameMaker, generate … Read More
Webcast: Structured authoring survey results
June 16, 11 a.m. 1 p.m. Eastern time I will be reprising my STC conference presentation, “The State of Structure in Technical Communication.” This webcast will discuss some of the results from our industry survey on structured authoring. If you can’t wait that long, the … Read More
Back from Atlanta, STC wrapup
The STC Summit was fun as always. My slides are below, but first some other observations. David Pogue was an excellent keynote speaker. And he sang! Attendance was lower than last year, but traffic at our booth (and others from what I heard) was up. … Read More
Structured authoring in technical communication
I am pleased to announce the publication of our newest white paper, The State of Structured Authoring in Technical Communication. In early 2009, we conducted a survey on structured authoring; this document presents the results of the survey along with our analysis. Those who participated … Read More
DITA isn’t magic
The WritePoint staff blog makes a very good point about DITA: it isn’t a magic wand that fixes documentation problems. Also, it’s worth noting that: … DITA didn’t introduce something completely new. DITA incorporates achievements made in a wide variety of approaches to organizing content … Read More
Take our survey on structured authoring–and get a free report on the results
Curious about other folks’ experiences with considering, planning, and implementing a structured authoring/XML environment? Well, now is your chance to get that information by participating in our survey on structured authoring. We want input from everyone: those who have implemented structured authoring, are planning to … Read More
Mechanical versus digital publishing
My last XML Strategist article (PDF) briefly mentioned Gutenberg and movable type before moving on to the focus of the article–a discussion of the implications of XML publishing and the similarities with Gutenberg’s efforts. The Biblical Illuminator’s Guild blog provides a much more detailed discussion … Read More
Put the drawing tools down!
This list of technical writing myths has a decidedly DITA slant; I don’t necessarily like the idea of DITA driving what is and isn’t acceptable practice for technical writing. That being said, I endorse the information provided about myth #4: 4. The Callouts on Graphics … Read More
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