TechCommGeekMom

This article comes to us courtesy of @AMAnet. For anyone who says that there are no such things as learning styles, I respectfully disagree. When you work with children or adults who have learning difficulties, these learning styles become much more apparent, and one learns not to take these cognitive instincts for granted. I know I don’t!
–techcommgeekmom 

This one comes from @ProEdit by way of @edudemic.  Even though I might not be writing many academic/professional papers these days, I think it’s good to know how to do these citations properly. The world is changing where content does come from social media, so it’s important to know how to do such citations. 

–techcommgeekmom

This article comes via Tim Klapdor on ScoopIt. This article he found is a very well-written piece about iPad’s strengths and weaknesses as a learning tool. His main point is that iPad is more versatile than a Mac or PC laptop/desktop, but it will never replace the power of a desktop or laptop. Do read this one–it’s good. 

–techcommgeekmom

This article comes by way of @felixjacomino on ScoopIt. I really like this article, because it’s main point is that people are trying to adapt old ways of writing to new technology. I believe the author, at some point, even points out that in education, it doesn’t matter what software package a child learns as long as they learn technology and the basics of how to use word processing. I started out on WordPerfect years ago, and then had to adapt to Word 1.0 (what version are we up to now?). Same with CMS systems that I’ve learned in the past. People are always so stuck on knowing specific products in tech comm instead of realizing that if you know one software package, you can probably adapt fairly quickly to a new one if you are just shown the differences. That was definitely the case with my current position. 

But back to iPads and writing–I took copious notes on my iPad during the STC Summit, and wrote several long blog posts on my iPad as well. Yes, it was easier to type with a wireless keyboard, but that’s only because I type very fast and legibility is important to me. It’s a sensory thing for me.  I found that for basic writing tasks, I can use the iPad with ease, and that’s the point of this article. No more excuses! Mobile is definitely an option. 

–techcommgeekmom

The more I read Darin Hammond’s blog, the more I love it. It truly speaks to me, especially as a fellow blogger! This is a great blog post about how to get over writer’s block. I know that I get stuck quite often, but when I do have some ideas to approach later, I start drafts of the blog post to finish later–similar to Darin’s one suggestion of when and how to jot down notes for ideas. I have about three or four items lined up for if the current well runs dry, and I can pick up those topics later as they are not time-sensitive. 

Bravo on another fantastic, must-read post, Darin!

–techcommgeekmom

Mark provided a handout which showed an example of how to support a business plan using these metrics with the example of using corporate goals. Common corporate goals often entail reducing costs, processing improvement, creating automation, and mitigating risk. Using the XML metrics that he’s suggesting, Mark says there will be a reduced time to market with reuse as compared to using content without reuse.

Mark pointed out that in DITA, you can measure documentation by topic or by topic type.  XML-based metrics can help to determine the cost of a DITA task topic, including the number of occurrences.  An average time frame for a documentation procedure by traditional measuring methods would be about four to five hours. By taking advantage of reuse of content, that time frame is reduced dramatically, but the savings go up. It also helps businesses understand  how pages are being viewed. For example, if there are seven page views, does that mean it was seven tries to get information, or one try plus looking at six more pages to find information?

Mark had given a similar presentation at Adobe Day at Lavacon back in the Fall of 2012, and I can see why Adobe invited him back to give his presentation again. It seems that a big theme that I continually hear about in the tech comm world in the idea of reuse of content to help with the ROI, and in these economic times, that’s understandable, and fairly common. In other words, in many companies, technical communicators have to prove in a substantial way that we can provide “more bang for the buck” with fewer resources.  Mark’s information is a clear-cut, no-nonsense way of showing–with mathematical proof, no less–how the value of technical communication delivers in business, more than any other departments in a corporation. This is a message that needs to be delivered several times until companies get the message, and Mark has armed us with substantial proof.

I want to thank Rahel Bailie and Maxwell Hoffmann for also taking Twitter notes during this session along with me, as I used some of their Tweets along with mine as reference. This was especially important because in the middle of Mark’s presentation, my Twitter account died and kept kicking me out! I was having a very hard time keeping up while trying to recover my Tweet-ability! So thanks to both of them for helping also taking notes simultaneously, so I didn’t lose too much ground.

And as always–Mark, if you have anything to add or correct, please feel free to comment below!

Stay tuned…I’ll be revisiting John Daigle’s Adobe Day talk about mobile documentation next!