What makes a good user document?

That’s the question I’ll be asking myself this week. I have been asked to be a “remote judge” for a technical communication competition. In the judging guidelines it states: “Two judging criteria are basic in the competitions: – Judge the work the contributors actually did.– Judge how well the work does what it is intended… Read more »

Be careful what you post to the Web!

According to a survey by CareerBuilder.com (www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/10/jobs_internet.html), 26% of recruitng managers say they have used Internet search engines to research potential employees. Of those who used Internet search engines to research job candidates, 51 percent did not hire the person based on what they found. Of those who used social networking sites to research candidates,… Read more »

Tech writing 2.0 – Graphics with hotpsots

Zooomr is a photo sharing application that offers picture in picture zooming and audio narration attached to files. Zooomr also lets you define who or what is in a photo so that later on, you can find photos containing that person or object. It’s accessible in 18 languages.

Tech Writing 2.0: Getting other people to create your content

Graham Jones pointed me toward this: Google has acquired JotSpot. JotSpot allows you to get other people to create your website content. If you change the word “website” for “user manuals”, then it could be an interesting tool for a technical author. JotSpot’s wiki allows you to create rich web-based spreadsheets, calendars, documents and photo… Read more »

TICAD 2006 Presentation

Ellis has been asked to be a speaker at TICAD 2006 on 22nd November. His presentation will be: “The next wave in documentation? Applying Web 2.0 technologies to Technical Documentation” The TICAD conferences are always good events, and it’s great to be asked to speak there again.