The Supernova 2008 conference is currently running in San Francisco – on the theme of “the Network Age”. Professor Kevin Werbach has outlined ten challenges: “In the Information Age, computers and communications networks produced a global village and astounding gains in economic productivity. The Network Age incorporates those advances into an environment where anything connects… Read more »
Category: Technical Communication
Is this video on advertising-customer break up also true for technical communication?
Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley, has posted a blog on the need for organisations to listen directly to the needs of the customer. Solis states: “You can’t manage a relationship, you need to be a part of it, fully engaged… …If a conversation takes place online and… Read more »
Failure in technical communication
JK Rowling made a great commencement speech recently at Harvard University – on the topic of failure. Failure is something that stalks the world of technical authors. Failure affects our clients. Users often have to feel they have failed before they call up online Help. It is said that Microsoft nearly renamed “Help” in Vista,… Read more »
Trends in Technical Communication – Peering into the crystal ball
I’m starting to think about a conference presentation I have been asked to make later this year. Sometimes, our talks are about “big picture” issues, such as “what makes a good technical author?” or “what’s the value of documentation?”, and I’m currently considering whether I should talk about the future trends in technical communication. The… Read more »
Open source economics
In this video, Yochai Benkler explains how collaborative projects like Wikipedia and Linux represent the next stage of human organization. Is he right? Could the same economic rules be applied to the technical writing projects, where there is a large user base?