Another eventful week in the TECHWR-L community, and we are looking forward to the long holiday weekend in the U.S. The discussion list woke up again for some lively debate after a very light week during the STC Summit. Our first ever webinar with Gold sponsor Vancouver Island University was a success, and we’re liked by more and more of our Facebook and Twitter Friends.
Kudos to Julie Clarke from VIU for providing a short and really informative talk on the Technical Communication Certificate Program offered by Vancouver Island University. If you missed it, we will be posting the webinar online in the near future or you can contact Julie (julie.Clarke@viu.ca) to find out more about increasing your skillsets and propelling your career forward.
You could hear the virtual crickets chirping on the list last week, but conversation returned with a bang this week. The most talked about topics? Help for mobile apps (including iPhone), where to learn about HTML, how to depict inter-dependent entities, gotchas in moving to Windows 7, issues with Framemaker 7.2 and expanding into usability to make yourself more marketable. Folks posting requests for advice on low-cost online help alternatives and mass stylesheet application in Word would definitely appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.
During the last six weeks, we have been making constant progress toward our goal of creating the place for Tech Writer discussions and online content. We’d like to extend a special hello to those of you following us on Facebook and Twitter. It means a lot to us that we’re seeing steady growth in page views and friends. Welcome. In case you haven’t joined our Facebook Page it can be found at Facebook.com/techwriterlist and for Twitter we’re @TechWriterToday.
To all of you who are or were armed service members in the United States or those of our allies – we send you our sincere thanks and gratitude.
This Week’s Articles & Poll Question
• New: User’s Advocate Article by Geoff Hart, Taking Advantage of Social Media. Part II: The Media Aren’t the Message, goo.gl/ME4eA
• Classic: Jean Hollis Weber’s Classic: Developing a Departmental Style Guide, goo.gl/85D9h
• Poll: Are you preparing to use HTML5 in your technical communications? Techwr-l.com
Upcoming events & Articles
• Tech-Whirler Online Survey (better late than never –eh?)
• New: “Know Your Audience … and How They Consume Content in the 21st Century ” by Connie Giordano
• Classic: “A Book of Your Own” by Herman Holtz
SPONSOR-Luv
We want to send a very special “thank you” to sponsors. Without them, we couldn’t do that voodoo that we do.
We had a good time chatting with the guys from ComponentOne during the STC Summit, and encourage you to check out Doc-to-Help when looking for solutions to publish press-ready manuals, searchable web content and desktop help.
Platinum: ComponentOne, Adobe, Madcap
Gold: The Society for Technical Communications, EC Software
Silver: Vancouver Island University
