Writing Over a Lifetime – Now to e-Raves!

Posted on January 29, 2012
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Now here’s a thought (and a little change of pace). Writing is good for the soul, including the souls of technical writers. “I’ll do it forever even when I’m not exactly sure where the story is taking me,” says John Piccarreto, who works in quality assurance for UCB Pharmaceuticals.

In addition to his day job, Piccarreto writes as a hobby and last May published his first novel, Beer Cart Girls Save the World. The tale was five years in the telling. “It has no really deep messages,” he says, “but it keeps people reading.” Piccarreto’s personal story comes to us via a feature in The Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y.

His novel is a satirical spy thriller set in Canandaigua, N.Y. (near Rochester). Britney Milazzo, who writes Piccarreto’s profile, says, “The short novel, set in Canandaigua, is about two aspiring beer cart girls who help a high-powered businessman figure out a string of different strange events after he purchased a golf course.”

“It’s designed to make you laugh and make you think,” Piccarreto says. So there you go. Ideas are all around us.

Following up on our last Insights post on writing and publishing from tablet computers, Piccarreto writes on his home computer and published his tale via Write Words, Inc., an e-book house on the Internet.

“June at Shimmering Lake Golf Club on the shore of Canandaigua Lake and the five-week beer-cart-girl certification program is in full swing. It’s a very popular program and a great way for any college girl to start her summer, but this year it could also turn out to be very dangerous…” is how the tale’s promo begins.

Now, suppose you were a technical writer in a nuclear power plant…What a setting!

“E-books are the best way to do things,” Piccarreto says. “In this day and age, everyone has an e-reader. The Internet is changing everything.”

Well, you stil need some verve and style. But a lifetime is a lot of time to develop your writing prowess, if you keep at it. “When will I write or publish another book?” Piccarreto reflects. “I can’t say, but I’ll write forever.” So ends Milazzo’s piece on him, and this admiring post, with our hearty thanks! – Doug Bedell

Expect to be Writing and Diagramming on Tablets

Posted on January 26, 2012
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Apple’s education event in New York City this month had striking implications, not only for high school and college students and their teachers, but for technical writers as well. That’s how we see it anyway.

Written and graphic communication and learning, it’s clear, are going to become increasingly tablet-based, especially iPad-based. To glean the possibilities, we invite you to watch the video on iPad learning that Apple has posted on its website. You’ll be wowed by the fluidity and currency that can be added to texts and illustrations by formatting them as idocuments. (You’ll need to use Apple’s Safari browser, though, it’s the only one the presentation plays on.)

Not only will you be impressed; over time your clients and colleagues will be expecting you to present the same clarity and timeliness in your tech documents and presentations. We’ll bet on that. Why? Because fluidity is much more inclusive and engaging in the insights and understanding it promotes. And learning at its best is a fluid and engaging process. (We’ll always remember the college professor who took us down the road with a column of knights festooned in the banners and bunting of their duchies.)

iPads are only in their early versions. But they’ve already become widely adopted in enterprises, including both corporations and the U.S. armed forces. If soldiers are being sent into the field with iPads in their packs, why won’t technical writers be expected to arrive at factories and power plants with them in their briefcases? (Our colleague, Dennis Owen, noted the inevitabilty of iPads as procedure carriers in a note at the end of our last post.)

iPads are becoming mini computers. There’s a keyboard stand available for them now, though their built-in on-screen keyboard isn’t hard to use. This post isn’t meant as a commercial for Apple, just as a presentation of some thoughts the company’s education event and our own experiences with an iPad thus far have prompted.

The challenges for technical writers are clear. You’ll need to learn the software techniques for animating drawings and diagrams – but that just means following other drawings and diagrams, your speciality. More importantly, you’ll need to think a bit differently, as a lecturer and curator rather than as “simply” a writer. – Doug Bedell

Procedure Writing for the ‘Masses’

Posted on January 9, 2012
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On ffeathers, one of the technical writing blogs we visit, a question’s been raised about whether comments should be allowed on documentation pages, from, we presume, just about anyone in an organization, and maybe customers, too. Sarah Maddox, who presides over ffeathers, is a technical writer for Atlassian, an Australian software company.

So here we have another example of the web’s ability to promote an international discussion. The question of who might have access to documentation these days becomes wider than when paper, or a personal computer file, was the medium of expression. Atlassian produces its product documentation on a wikki – it happens to produce Confluence, one of the leading wikki software packages.
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Writing to a ‘Cloud’

Posted on December 12, 2011
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We’ve been accused occasionally of writing on a cloud, but writing to a cloud is something new in the annals of technical writing. The term refers, of course, to writing to an offsite server that functions as a supposedly eternal storage hub and allows ready access from anywhere to you and your colleagues or clients.

The “Cherryleaf” blog, like many other web-based scribal centers, notes that, “There are a number of reasons why a Technical Author might want to use a cloud-based application.”They’re “inexpensive, allow new authors to get integrated quickly, facilitate collaborative authoring and allow for third-party groups to log in and make minor edits.”
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A Halloween Diversion – For Next Year

Posted on October 27, 2011
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Put this aside for Halloween – next year’s Halloween. Because if you’re going to observe Halloween as Shawn Thorsson does in Petaluma, CA, it takes a full year to get ready.

This post is a bit of a spooked diversion, true. But we’re indebted to MAKE magazine for introducing us to Shawn, who evidently goes BIG into whatever interests him. As MAKE puts it, “This guy doesn’t make costumes and props, he creates something of a reality distortion field around him and his creations.”
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A Mac (and a Lisa) Helped Build TMI’s Safety Culture

Posted on October 9, 2011
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Along with all the tributes to Steve Jobs, and a virtually inexpressible sadness at his passing, comes a memory of the first Macintosh I encountered, and quickly came to love. At the time I worked at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Station, where I was the post-accident communication manager. That was not long after Apple Computer introduced the Mac early in 1984.

We were preparing to defuel the damaged reactor core and to restart the undamaged companion reactor. Permeating all the activity at TMI in those days was a renewed commitment to quality, to absorbing the lessons of the Unit 2 accident and building a strong safety culture. Employee communication was important to that end, and helping to improve communication was the Mac’s role.
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Technical Writers As Pencil-Pushing Listeners

Posted on September 13, 2011
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It’s great when a technical writer can produce a pristine new procedure from his or her first-time observation of a new piece of equipment and capture what it takes to operate it safely. But it doesn’t always work that way, especially in settings where large numbers of veteran workers are retiring.

The “vets” have a great deal of stored knowledge from their many rounds at the plant, and they’ll be taking it all with them unless technical writers serving as reporters can capture it before they leave. (“Valve 1AS-65 is a pain. When you open it, never open it all the way, because the valve stem leaks.”)
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Writing Engaging Employee Handbooks

Posted on September 1, 2011
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Ever been asked to write an employee handbook? That’s a special challenge because you’re writing on behalf of an organization for the people whose enthusiasm, support and creativity are vital to its success. They don’t cotton to legalese or strictures. An effective handbook needs to be more than simply a recitation of rules.  We’re talking, in effect, about technical writing with a human face.

In this context, we’ve come across a website – klariti.com – with a page on “How to Make Employee Handbooks More Human.” It’s selling an employee handbook template, but it’s modestly priced ($9.99) and might be good to have on hand. Beyond that, though, Ivan Walsh, the writer, has some pertinent tips for putting an engaging handbook together.
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‘Crowdsourcing’ – the New, Bigger Water Cooler

Posted on August 28, 2011
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Infographics take specialized skill to design and execute, but when they’re done well, are they helpful! Here’s an example from The Content Wrangler site: an infographic on crowdsourcing.
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Take Time For Clarity

Posted on August 10, 2011
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Technical writers writing for employees working, say, in factories or power plants may not be too concerned about expressing themselves in what, to mere mortals, would be jargon. “‘Techies’” are supposed to understand what we’re describing, that’s why they’re here” they may feel, and plunge on. After all, there are deadlines to meet.

Yet this is an inhumane and inefficient approach to writing, technical or any other. Writers need to write to be understood simply and effectively. That’s how time is saved and information is efficiently circulated in virtually any setting. Take enough time to achieve clarity.
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