Chatting at the Royal Institution just before Christmas, someone asked me “But do you do anything important?”. They were slightly embarrassed when they realised what they’d said, but it’s still a valid question to ask.

As it happens, there are a number of projects Cherryleaf is involved in that illustrate Technical Authors can do things that are important.

A recent project involved creating a four page user guide for military equipment that is being used by infantry soldiers in the British and Pakistani armies. If the soldiers don’t attach the equipment correctly, then it might fail in the field and leave them vulnerable. We changed a very wordy guide into something similar to an Ikea installation manual – containing pictures and arrows to explain, simply and clearly, how to install and use the equipment.

An upcoming project is for a charity that provides support for those who are feeling suicidal. They want to make sure their procedures are presented in a form that mean their volunteers can always find out the right action to take, should they ever be unsure of what to do.

Another project involves communicating to staff working in mental health, policies to ensure patient records are kept private and confidential – that they are never sent to or seen by the wrong people.

I could mention medical equipment we’ve documented, and software applications that fulfil important tasks, as well.

Often, the more important the job, the more important it is for people to have clear information to hand, explaining what to do and how to do it.

Cherryleaf is curating and hosting a programme of talks on trends in technical documentation. At these sessions, there’s a presentation from a respected member of the Technical Communication profession, plus the opportunity to network with your peers.

We’re looking for people who would like to present a case study or share their view of the future trends in technical communication with their peers. It’s a great place to practice a presentation you’re preparing for a conference later in the year.

Each talk is hosted by Cherryleaf in central London, and lasts approximately two hours. Spaces are limited to 12 delegates.

The first talk was held on 24/1/2012: on What will be the future for Technical Communicators if everything ‘just works’?

The second talk is likely to be on technical authoring in The Cloud (if we can find an additional speaker).

If you’d like to explore the idea of speaking at one of these talks, then contact us and we’d be happy to discuss it with you.

The funeral for Carol Johnston will be held held at 2.15pm on Tuesday 31 January, at chapel at Oxford Crematorium. Our office will be closed on that afternoon.

It will be a Humanist service, with singing from Carol’s choir. All are welcome, but Carol’s partner has asked if we could let him know anyone who is planning to come. Carol’s family has asked if anyone who wanted to bring flowers instead made a donation to the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust.

Thank you for all your kind condolences.

Carol Johnston, one of the founders and a director of Cherryleaf, passed away today.

It’s naturally terribly sad news. However, Carol had more than 40 years of life – a life to be celebrated.

Carol was naturally gifted. She studied Mathematics at  the University of Cambridge and she was a very good pianist (she had studied at weekends as a child at the Royal Academy of Music). She also had a Post-Graduate teaching qualification.

Carol spent over 15 years working in the information design and technical documentation field, where she gained a reputation as an expert in XML, single sourcing and running documentation projects. She was also an accomplished trainer, developing many of Cherryleaf’s courses.

In October 2011, a change in the condition of her tumour meant she required another operation. Although the operation was successful, a few weeks later, Carol took a turn for the worse and she passed away on 22 January 2012.

It was a privilege to have known and worked with her. Carol was fundamental to the creation of our company and helped enormously with its progression over the years. She was also a friend.

Carol had first been diagnosed with a brain tumour when she was studying at Cambridge University. Although she was diagnosed with Grade 3 cancer (which means a 6 month life expectancy), she became what the doctors called ‘a statistical blip’; she had a successful chemotherapy course and an operation, which resulted in the tumour remaining benign for more than 20 years.

We first knew Carol when we were all working together at digitext. She didn’t hide her “blob”, as she called the tumour, and we soon came to realise that, if occasionally, she stopped talking or moving, then she was experiencing a mild epileptic fit. However, she did not make a great deal of her condition either – she made an extraordinary situation seem ordinary.

Carol was a strong supporter of the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust - the UK’s main charity dedicated to brain tumour research, information and support. She felt this was an area which didn’t get the attention and support of other cancer charities.

Our thoughts go out to her partner Dave and to her family. Carol, we miss you.

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Ginny Critcher has also contributed her personal thoughts:

Carol taught me so much about many aspects of technical writing; not only was she very knowledgeable she was always extremely patient and helpful. She had the enviable knack of explaining things in a clear, understandable way and always with a sense of humour. She loved to solve technical problems and liked nothing better than being given a tricky problem to solve – which she inevitably did in half the time it would take the rest of us.

Carol had many talents, not least of these was her beautiful singing voice; she sang with the Thame Chamber choir and performed with the choir many times, her voice was truly inspiring to listen to.

Cherryleaf will not be the same without Carol, she will be greatly missed by all who had the privilege to work with her.

We have a number of projects running at the moment that involve us improving organisations’ policy and procedures documents. It may not seem likely, but these projects are enormous fun.

The best analogy I can find is that it’s like rearranging someone else’s record collection. Or in a more modern setting, it’s like creating a playlist from someone else’s mp3 files. Everything ends up in order, or as Hans Christian Anderson said, “everything in the right place”.

The trick with policy and procedures documents is to break them in to small chunks of information, each of them preceded by a heading that describes the topic. The key factor is: each topic must only contain the information described by the heading. This activity results in the equivalent of a big bag of lego bricks – giving you, as your next step, the pleasant task of connecting and arranging all these topics into the right order.

To work in this modular, object, based way it’s best to avoid tools that take a more linear approach, such as Microsoft Word. We’d recommend, instead, you use a ‘modular’ authoring tool that enables you to generate a Word or PDF document once you’ve finished.

Mindtouch has compiled an updated list of the most influential techcomm bloggers. The top six most influential bloggers are based in the USA; Cherryleaf’s Ellis Pratt comes in at No. 7, making him, according to this list, the most influential techcomms blogger in Europe.

It does conjure up images of someone stroking a white persian cat in their mountain lair – do bloggers and tweeters really have a great deal of influence on their community?

One of the emerging trends in the 2010-2020 decade is the emergence of the ‘Maker Generation’. According to The Economist:

The maker movement is both a response to and an outgrowth of digital culture, made possible by the convergence of several trends. New tools and electronic components let people integrate the physical and digital worlds simply and cheaply. Online services and design software make it easy to develop and share digital blueprints. And many people who spend all day manipulating bits on computer screens are rediscovering the pleasure of making physical objects and interacting with other enthusiasts in person, rather than online. Currently the preserve of hobbyists, the maker movement’s impact may be felt much farther afield.”

One could argue that this is the obverse side to the “It just works” closed ecosystem philosophy of Apple. In the world of making, hacking and bodging things together, people will want the ability to ‘open the box’ and  adapt products for their own use.

According to Nokia’s Sondre Ager-Wick, large corporations will embrace this trend:

Take Microsoft. Within weeks of launching Kinect, someone had hacked it and there was open source code on the Internet. Instead of freaking out, they decided to run with it and create a software development kit. It’s thinking like this that will make personalization and co-creation a key driver for how brands and companies create closer relationships with their customers.

To be able to make, hack and adapt products, people need information on how and what to do. This information will come in part from puzzling things out for themselves and sharing knowledge with others, but a key part will also come from product information – the reference and user guides.

Again, from The Economist:

The parallel with the hobbyist computer movement of the 1970s is striking. In both cases enthusiastic tinkerers, many on America’s West Coast, began playing with new technologies that had huge potential to disrupt business and society

As in the early days of personal computing, the user documentation become very important. If this can be integrated with the community-based support forums, we might see new approaches to User Assistance that could ripple back into more traditional technology products.

See also: Big DIY: The Year the Maker Movement Broke

The current edition of Autocar (14/12/11) contains an interview with David Woodhouse, head of Ford’s London Strategy Concept Group, a semi-secret team that looks at emerging consumer trends.

From the article:

Woodhouse said “One of the rising trends is the search for authenticity. How does it (the product) tell you what it is?” Woodhouse points towards the trend for simple, but beautifully engineered, fixed-wheel bikes….He believes every component on such bikes is an example of the authenticity that will mark the tastes of future customers.

If Woodhouse is correct, then how do you ensure a product has authenticity, and what role does the Technical Author play in all of this?

Essentially, the ‘customer experience’ (every situation where the customer uses the product or engages with the company) needs to be consistent, credible and communicate the ‘message’ the company wants to send out. The values of the product need to be also reflected in the post-sales experience, and the User Assistance in particular.

This is more than making sure the ‘look and feel’ of the documentation matches other forms of company communication. It could mean the user guides need to speak in the same ‘voice’ as the rest of the organisation. It could mean it needs to function (act/react) in a manner consistent with rest of the organisation.

If Woodhouse is correct in predicting the increase in the importance of product authenticity, then ensuring User Assistance is at the same level of quality as other ‘customer experiences’  may become a bigger and bigger issue for technology companies.

Did you know the compiled Microsoft HTML Help format was launched back in 1997?

In 1997, you’d be using Windows 98 and Internet Explorer 4. Microsoft was buying a $150 million share of a financially troubled Apple Computer, and the first colour photograph appeared on the front page of the New York Times.

Almost 15 years on, this format has, apart from a few very minor updates, remained unchanged, and today, it is still the primary format for delivering online Help.

It’s possible to publish online Help in more present-day formats, using Help Authoring Tools such as RoboHelp, Flare and Author-it. These offer Technical Authors opportunities to be more innovative in their approaches towards assisting users.

So why are so many Technical Authors still using compiled HTML Help? Is it so good that nothing else can beat it? Or is there a reason why they haven’t moved onto other formats?

We have clients looking to recruit Technical Authors for the following positions:

• #4102 Technical Author, Antwerp, Belgium, circa €44000 Permanent
• #4101 Technical Author, Leeds, £25K-£30K Permanent
• #4093 Technical Author / Writer Nice, France €35K-€45K (2 vacancies)