Find, Follow, Finesse, Feed: The future for technical authors?

A number of commentators have suggested that, in the near future, content curation will play a key role in technical communication. As more content is generated by users, there needs to be someone who manage this content and ensure users will be able to find the right information. Techcrunch has just reported on how YouTube is dealing with… Read more »

Transatlantic video interview with Anne Gentle on the Social Web for Documentation

We’ve just uploaded a 15 minute extract from a transatlantic video interview I recently conducted with Anne Gentle, where we talked about The Social Web for Documentation.  The sound is a little patchy on the first slide, but it improves afterwards. A longer, 37 minute, version will be available to anyone who purchases the Cherryleaf Learning Zone… Read more »

Is search dying? Your manual within 140 characters?

Internet Psychologist Graham Jones wrote an article last week, in which he stated, search is dying, and is being replaced by sharing information socially. “So worried is Microsoft about Google that they haven’t realised that Google is not their real competition any more. It is the likes of Twitter and Ecademy…Google already knows this. Much… Read more »

Why bother with end user documentation for Web Applications?

In Rahel Bailie’s excellent presentation at the STC Conference (“The New Face of Documentation“), she looked at the “No Documentation” approach to software user assistance. This, she summed up, as the “we don’t document it; we just fix it” view of software development. She argued that a “No Documentation” approach doesn’t lead to no documentation. Users soon… Read more »

Trends in technical documentation – Is technical writing broken?

Cherryleaf and Ovidius are in the early stages of organising a free seminar for the technical communication community at the Møller Centre in Cambridge. The themes for the event are likely to be future trends in technical authoring, and related to this, is technical writing broken? We’re liaising with the ISTC’s Cambridge area group on… Read more »