Why you should write Help for your competitors’ products

At our “Developing your career as a technical author”  course yesterday there was a great discussion about meeting the needs of “Generation Y” – the part of the working population under 27 who have grown up with the Internet. It’s a group that makes up about 13% of the working population. We talked about the… Read more »

Lessons for technical communicators from the telecommunications sector

It’s often useful to look at the economic and technological pressures in other industries, to see if the trends emerging there are relevant to the technical communications/publications sector. In recent Blogs, we’ve covered the issues emerging in education, but the telecommunications industry might also provide some useful insights. Lee Dryburgh, organiser of the Emerging Communications Conference, has been interviewed… Read more »

If your Technical Publications department was a business

Sometimes it’s good for managers to look at a department in a slightly different way from normal. What, for example, if the Technical Publications department was a business? If a business troubleshooter were to come in and ask key commercial questions, could they be answered? Questions such as: Would it know how many customers it had?… Read more »

Workshop on on career development – an approach and key skills

I’ve been asked to present a workshop at the STC TransAlpine Conference on “career development – an approach and key skills”. This will be held on 8th June in Vienna. I’m a late replacement for a speaker who has unfortunately been taken ill. We’ll look at: Future trends in technical communication – where’s it all heading… Read more »

How can technical authors become part of technology ecosystems?

Jonathan Mitchener has written an article in Engineering and Technology magazine on the interest of technology providers in creating “ecosystems”. This is the concept of offering not just gadgets but also a range of related products and services, which can integrate seamlessly with each other in an overall system. The poster boy for this ecosystem approach is… Read more »