Is there a traditional greeting for welcoming summer? Happy Summer Solstice? Merry Summer Solstice? Good Summer Solstice? According to the trusty Wikipedia, Midsummer is a very popular holiday in Scandinavian and Baltic countries, with lots of celebrations and partying – sounds a lot like the American Halloween. Anyway, any excuse for a good party works well in our world. But I doubt if most employers will recognize it as an official holiday… kind of a shame really.
If you’re postponing your Midsummer merriment to the weekend, we can help. As you’re relaxing by the pool, or picnicking near a cool mountain stream, or couch potato-ing in your nice air-conditioned condo, you may need some summer reading fare, or at least some items to get you thinking and debating when you’re back in the office. In honor of Midsummer, I’d like to humbly suggest you peruse Mark Baker’s latest Users’ Advocate on treating the Buyer as a User. Take a few minutes to vote and comment in this week’s tech comm poll—we’re really curious about what kind of content you’re publishing to your company blogs or websites. And then round it all out with a trip through Craig Cardimon’s Tech Writer This Week, a curated look at what others are saying and doing in the worlds of tech comm, user experience, content strategy and customer experience management. And of course, you’re always welcome to join the conversation on the email discussion list.
Have a great weekend!
-Connie and the gang at TechWhirl
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Tech Writer This Week for June 20, 2013In my office job as a tech writer, I strive to create solid technical content. Larry Kunz (sdicorp.com) lends me a hand by talking about the trend of treating content as a business asset. I hope this trend becomes established corporate practice. And other folks in the tech comm, content strategy, UX and CXM blogosphere lend their own helping hands to technical content developers and producers across the spectrum |
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Technical Communication Poll: What Content Do You Publish to Your Corporate Blogs?Now that you’ve had a chance to take a stand on the corporate blog content you search out as a consumer, it’s time to turn the question back to technical communication and content management and corporate blogs. If you work for a traditional technical communication department, a trendy content management team, or some as yet-to-be-named hybrid communications function, we want to hear from you about what kinds (and formats) of content you publish to your corporate blogs. |
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Users’ Advocate: We Have to Treat the Buyer as a UserTraditionally tech comm has tried to steer clear of marketing and all its works. Many tech writers still seem to have a strong aversion to anything that smacks of marketing, regarding it as either fluff, or outright dishonest. Here’s the problem, though. The buyer is a user too, and what works for the novice user, or for the expert user, does not always work for the buyer. |
Technical Communication News:
- MadWorld 2014: Call for Papers & Early Bird Registration
- IGC Brava!® Released for IBM Content Navigator
- SDL Enhances freetranslation.com with SDL Language Platform
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