TechWhirl has a bit of a career and jobs focus this week (well that may be true for most weeks), which is a good thing for those itching to make a move or soon-to-be grads trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up. In our communication recap, Yehoshua Paul describes the advantages of being bi-lingual on a team where English is a second language. And we offer new technical communication poll on the roles that technical communicators can or should play in enterprise content management. Many of us have (excuse the cliché) worn a lot of hats in the organizations that employ us. Today, the trend seems to be towards breaking down content creation silos in ways that benefit the company and the customer, but also may open up new possibilities for us. And as always, Craig Cardimon curates some interesting, thoughtful and sometimes controversial commentary on tech comm, content strategy and user experience in Tech Writer This Week.
TechWhirlers on the email discussion are having a grand time coming up with a collective noun that describes a group of technical writers—personally I’m leaning towards a “quibble” of tech writers. They’re also a bit more serious when it comes to advice on billing clients, justifying FrameMaker, and real-world adoption of EPUB. If you haven’t already checked it out, subscribed and become a part of our vibrant technical communication community.
Have a great weekend!
-Connie and the gang at TechWhirl
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Tech Writer This Week for April 11, 2013Tech Writer This Week looks at some good, and not-so-good stuff that you might want to ponder, or at least be aware of from around the web. Everything from tech comm influencers to workaround warnings, to resources for usability folks and writers. |
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Technical Communication Poll: Roles in Enterprise Content ManagementIt’s trendy, it’s controversial. And it appears to be “the next big thing” that will impact the field of technical communication. Content management at the enterprise level, in some ways, is a no-brainer. Reduce the time and effort it takes to create and maintain content for all the various stakeholders of any organization, and the benefits are tremendous. And technical communicators are best suited to this enterprise content management stuff, right? |
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Being Bilingual Helps: ESL, Localization and Technical Communication“‘Following your privies e-mail,’ is ‘privies’ the correct word?” Questions like these are pretty common in ESL (English as a Second Language) environments, where you are one of the few, and possibly the only native English speaker in a team, department, or even the entire company. Working in an environment where everyone else is communicating in a strange language (i.e. not English) poses several challenges, especially during this age of globalization. |
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