TechWhirl: Technical Communication Recap for February 15, 2013

I bet if we did a survey, we’d find more than a few folks who prefer to let February 14^th pass as just another day of the month. But based on the technical communicators and content experts I know, as a general rule, we’d hang onto the chocolate. In my estimation this means we have our priorities in the proper order.

Priorities in the proper order this week means a lot of interesting debate on the Techwr-l email discussion list on a particular recruiting dilemma that many of us face, the most effective use of screen captures in documentation, and a shared discussion with the Framers list on a FrameMaker 11 intermittent crash problem (with thanks to Dov Isaacs and Kapil Verma of Adobe for providing useful insight). Getting a job, understanding methodology and working with tools—seems like a very good priority to us.

TechWhirl continues our focus on “when worlds collide” with a new poll about the number of different resumes you keep active. Craig Cardimon curates another great week of commentary on content, UX and technical communication, and Jacquie Samuels issues a call to action for content strategists. We’ve published more great material on our content management systems research area, and we’ve always got news and boatloads of opportunities on the TechWhirl job board.

So much to do, so little time… but first a little chocolate…

Have a great weekend!

-Connie and the gang at TechWhirl

Tech Writer This Week for February 14, 2013

The Valentine’s Day technical communicator has arrived with a armload of tech comm opinion and commentary for hearty (pardon the pun) readers of Tech Writer This Week. Enjoy some fragrant tech comm, sweet content strategy, and delicious UX with time left for career and life.

Technical Communication Poll: Resume Alternatives

During a recent video chat with members of the Special Writers Unit, we brainstormed for about 10 minutes on all the potential and actual job titles we’ve all held over the years (or would like to). In addition to the funny and realistic, but not necessarily respect-inducing titles, we came up with a huge range of titles and major responsibilities (30 in just 10 minutes) that helped serve as the basis for this week’s technical communication poll.

Content Strategists: A Call to Action

When I attended the recent Virtual Conference by the STC, I was left thinking, “Geez, we Content Strategists keep talking to technical communicators and budding content strategists about making sure we deliver the right content to the right people on the device of their choice (and that’s great)—but are we talking to the right people?”

Technical Communication News:

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