Reputation Management – Can user documentation help quash rumours?

In the ‘Whispers’ episode of BBC Radio Four’s Digital Human programme, Aleks Krotoski explores how rumours spread both online and in the physical world. As an example, she looked at how two people were able to spread a rumour that a tiger was running loose in London during the 2011 riots. Hope untrue!! RT @Twiggy_Garcia: #LondonRiots… Read more »

Assessing the potential savings from single sourcing

One of the main benefits from single sourcing is the ability to reuse existing content. Different departments can avoid duplicating work, which means they can save time and money. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to quantify these savings before you move to an authoring or content management system that enables you to single source. Analysing… Read more »

Changing times in technical communication

We’ve been on the road in recent days and weeks, visiting different documentation teams, and we’ve found there are distinct signs of change. In previous years, most documentation managers have effectively been saying to us their organisations weren’t really clear about the value of documentation. As the Technical Publications team usually amounts to less than… Read more »

The hidden cost of technical writing – localisation

I met up with a Technical Author at the Technical Communications UK 2013 conference whom I’ve been talking to on the phone over recent months. She’s been trying to convince her bosses that they should take a less chaotic approach to producing user documentation. I’d previously suggested she look at how much it was costing… Read more »