In this video clip, Ecademy’s Thomas Power talks about how business leaders will have to switch between “institutional thinking” (closed, selective and controlling) and “network thinking” (open, random and supportive). There’s a similar challenge for technical communicators – between traditional “closed” user documents and collaborative, conversational, “open” online user assistance. Thomas claims: You have to be very… Read more »
Category: trends
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 »
Why are there so few UK technical authors on Twitter?
At a rough guess, there no more than 20 UK technical authors using Twitter on a regular basis. Given the Social Web is going to play an increasing role in User Assistance and Customer Support, that’s a surprise. What’s stopping them, I wonder? It may be they don’t understand how to use Twitter, they might… Read more »
Google Chrome OS Help – What will it be like?
Techcrunch has reported on an early glimpse of Google’s upcoming Operating System, Chrome OS. So, you are no doubt asking, will Chrome OS come with online Help? Will it be initiated in a similar way to Help in Windows or by some sort of new means? From the screen shots on the Techcrunch site, it appears, yes, there… Read more »
Google Wave – A case study in 21st Century User Assistance
Google’s latest product, Google Wave, provides a case study in how User Assistance is sometimes provided to users for popular Web-based applications. It is a useful case study, because: The application contains unfamiliar concepts and tasks; Google hopes it will be used by many people; and It’s from a major provider of software. While the… Read more »