In this episode, Heretto CEO Patrick Bosek explains why pure techcomm is going away, why being a CEO is like being an eight year old with a lemonade stand, and more.
Note: This episode was recorded before Patrick’s company changed its name to Heretto.
Mentioned during this episode:
Elizabeth Fraley runs Single-Sourcing Solutions in Sunnyvale, Ca. We geek out about the history of structured authoring, how her opinions have changed in 17 years of technical writing, and how many books a year are too many to read.
Single Sourcing social media and public projects
TC Camp
TC Dojo
Liz’s books
Continue reading Same mess different tools with Liz Fraley – Content Content episode 19
I’m evaluating WordPress plugins for our STC chapter’s web site migration. I use WordPress for edmarsh.com, but the requirements for a personal blog as opposed to a full-on web site – particularly plugins – are quite different.
A post recently appeared on Facebook, advertising the 57 best WordPress plugins. The list felt a bit too self-promotional, but there were some good selections, and I implemented a few. The very first plugin on the list, Yoast SEO, changed the way I feel about writing, particularly for the web.
Continue reading What technical writers can learn from a WordPress plugin
In this episode, a truly great and fun conversation with prolific and influential technical writer Tom Johnson. Tom joins us from Silicon Valley to talk about his interesting path to technical communication, failed Career Day booths, being a leader in techcomm, content management systems, DITA, static site generators, and much more.
Subscribe to the Content Content podcast in iTunes
Mentioned during the show: Continue reading Content Content podcast episode 4 – Curse of knowledge with Tom Johnson
Alan Houser, technical communication consultant and former Society for Technical Communication President, drops by on a very cold President’s Day holiday to talk about his experiences in STC leadership, web standard steering committees, structured authoring and DITA, Markdown, tools, podcasts, and more.
Mentioned during the show:
Content Content podcast, episode 1 featuring Sharon Burton
Alan’s business, Group Wellesley
Society for Technical Communication (STC)
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Sara’s book Content Everywhere
Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)
Tom Johnson – I’d rather be writing
XML and the web: drifting farther apart?
In our inaugural podcast, technical communication and customer experience consultant Sharon Burton tells us about California law, offices without tarantulas, documenting the obvious, the file name field, buying buckets of DITA at the DITA Store, and the renaissance of content.
Mentioned during the show:
“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.” – Dolly Parton
I wanted to create an Outlook 2013 email rule to respond to emails sent to a specific account. The rule requires an email template. Not knowing how to create one, I looked for the help icon. And kept looking. I felt old. And as a tech writer, I almost, almost yearned for the days of Clippy.
Then, in the top-right corner, it appeared. Sort of. Now don’t get me started about the ALL CAPS MENUS in Office 2013 (and also Adobe’s Creative Suite), but it’s surprising how the help icon is almost an afterthought.
Continue reading Microsoft Office and the amazing shrinking help icon
I’m proud to announce a site I developed for content and communication professionals is live, called contentcontent.info. It’s a site that aggregates news from the most popular blogs and news sites for content professionals. You can currently get content and design news from 30 sites and counting. You can add your blog or your favorites today!
Continue reading A News Site for Content Professionals – Contentcontent.info
I’m a fan enthusiast of Drupal. I’ve been part of the community for four years now, and the amazingly supportive community is what keeps me engaged, as I wrote after attending the Drupal NYCCamp earlier in 2013.
As I started a new personal project that I hope to launch soon, I wanted to use it as a learning experience not only for myself, but for the Drupal community. Though I’m active in the Northern New Jersey Drupal User Group, I’ve been largely a consumer of the group’s knowledge (other than sharing my knowledge of beer). I wanted to give back, especially as this year our host, the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, is moving a lot of their tech infrastructure to Drupal and their computer science students are showing an interest.
When I decided to create the site, instead of creating it on a web server with all of the typical installation and configuration issues (and expense), I started with a free, open-source software called VirtualBox, and the Drupal Quickstart project, both of which I could run locally on my Windows PC. From this, I created a short presentation that I shared with the NNJ Group.
Continue reading Creating a Drupal sandbox with VirtualBox and Drupal Quickstart (Presentation)
I love Evernote, the popular, cross-platform note-taking application. I use it on all my devices (desktop, Android phone, and iPad) for many reasons:
But there’s one more possibly overlooked use for Evernote that I find invaluable: conferences. I attended three conferences this year, including the Drupal NYCCamp and the huge Lavacon conference (see my Lavacon-related posts here and here), with nothing more than an iPad.
It used to be that you had to lug a laptop around — in addition to pen and paper — to take notes from each conference session, but no more! So what makes Evernote so useful at conferences? Continue reading Evernote – the Ultimate Conference Tool
