Musings and learning about technical communications issues from your TechCommGeekMom–a geeky mom who is into tech comm…since 2012.
Author: TechCommGeekMom
Danielle M. Villegas is a technical communicator who currently employed at Cox Automotive, Inc., and freelances as her own technical communications consultancy, Dair Communications. She has worked at the International Refugee Committee, MetLife, Novo Nordisk, BASF North America, Merck, and Deloitte, with a background in content strategy, web content management, social media, project management, e-learning, and client services. Danielle is best known in the technical communications world for her blog, TechCommGeekMom.com, which has continued to flourish since it was launched during her graduate studies at NJIT in 2012. She has presented webinars and seminars for Adobe, the Society for Technical Communication (STC), the IEEE ProComm, TCUK (ISTC) and at Drexel University’s eLearning Conference. She has written articles for the STC Intercom, STC Notebook, the Content Rules blog, and The Content Wrangler as well. She was very active in the STC, as a former chapter president for the STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter, serving and chairing on several STC Board committees, and most recently was the STC Board Vice-President before the organization closed.. You can learn more about Danielle on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemvillegas, on Twitter @techcommgeekmom, or through her blog.
All content is the owner's opinions, and does not reflect those of her employers past or present.
As an American, I’m often trying to learn and understand British and Canadian expressions. But I’m sure that I’m not alone in that some of the expressions in this list I thought were possibly understood by my British friends! Read this…it’s interesting. What might be some other American expressions that we Americans take for granted? List your suggestions below in the comments!
The vast majority of undergraduate and graduate students believe tablets will transform the future of higher education, but most still rely on laptops and smartphones for school work, according to a new study conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Pearson.
This is an interesting study. It shows that mobile is making a big wave in higher ed, but we still haven’t transitioned completely off of laptops. I suppose that there will always be a need for keyboards to take notes for a while still. Read this article–interesting insights.
With a combination of accessible features, smart packaging, and a $999 price point, it’s obvious that the Dremel Idea Builder is a machine aimed squarely at the mass market.
Wow! How cool is this? While the price point is still well out of my budget, it is certainly more affordable than many of its competitors, the biggest one being MakerBot. I think what appeals to me is that Dremel is a well-known brand associated with quality and with providing tools that are user-friendly in the creative arena. So, I have a feeling that this new tool will certainly be reaching for that same quality and user experience. Time will tell if it truly can compete with other 3D printers on the market in regards to ease of use as well as the quality of the final output products.
Dremel, if you are reading this, I’m more than happy to be a reviewer/tester for this product! 😉
Most likely you have a vague understanding of who your audience is. To bond with your blog community, you have to overcome this narrow knowledge. And, you can do it. The process isn’t easy. …
Darin Hammond has done it again! This excellent article articulates how to keep the humanity in blog writing. Darin and I come from a similar mindset, and I think he explains the part that empathy plays in the process of blog writing very well here. I’m thinking of taking much of this to be a mantra I should remind myself often!
See, even Martha Stewart needs to take time on her social media accounts.
I know I haven’t been on my blog all that much. What can I say? Life gets in the way. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve had a busy summer, and it is shaping up to be an even busier autumn.
“Why would that be, TechCommGeekMom?” you may be asking. I’m glad you asked.
Work has picked up quite a bit, in a good way. I’ve spent a large part of the summer working on three significant internal websites at work, and they are all near finalization. But the big news is that at the end of this month, I’ll be having training on Adobe CQ5–which is a new CMS for me to learn–and I’ve been given a high profile section of the external website for the company where I’m consulting. This is huge! In all my years of being a content manager/publisher, I’ve only worked on one “standard” CMS/WCMS, namely SharePoint. All the rest have been “franken-systems”. I’ve been told that eventually the company will be moving all its internal content to that SharePoint, but first they have to get all the current sites into the current system before they can make that move. In the meantime, the external site is moving forward in a big way using Adobe CQ, and I’m being brought into the fold with a big project.
There are several things that excite me about this project:
1) I get to learn a new WCMS, and I like the challenge of learning something new and useful.
2) This WCMS is one that will help bring the company’s website into the 21st century–there’s a big push on responsive design, social media, and localization for the website, especially the section that I will be working on. I’ve only been learning about these kinds of sites for the last two to three years, but not being able to put what I’ve learned into practice. Now I can!
3) I’ve been given a preview of how the website will be structured and how the content has been chosen and mapped out. I like the content strategy that’s been decided for the overall project and the direction it’s pursuing.
4) I can’t say what section I’m working on at this point, but when I say it’s a high-profile section, it’s a VERY high-profile section. I’m really honored that the company has asked me to work on building this section of the site. For me, it shows me that they like the work I’ve done so far, and they trust me to make good decisions. That means that it’s a big responsibility, and I can’t be lazy on this project. They’ve placed a lot of trust in me, and I can’t let them down.
So, that’s going to be taking up a huge part of my daytime hours. And quite frankly, work has been exhausting, but in a good way. You know when you have a really good workout, and by the end of the day you feel a genuine tiredness from being physically tired, as opposed to being tired simply because you’ve been up for a while? It’s like that, but it’s mentally. Well, it’s physically for me too, since I’ve started trying to squeeze in actual workouts into my daily routine, too, to try to lose weight since I sit on my bottom all day. Throw in responsibilites for my local STC chapter (which I’m still trying to get a handle on), and mom-related responsibilities–there’s a lot going on! So, getting info into TechCommGeekMom proves to be challenging these days.
I think I earned a cupcake for this–what do you think? Yum…chocolate cupcake….Maybe Martha Stewart can bake one for me!
I haven’t given up on this blog, but being as busy as I am, I’m sure you’ll understand. It was much easier when I started, as I was unemployed with plenty of free time that has slowly diminished as time has gone on once I became employed. Now, I’m taking care of my health and taking on other new responsibilities, so priorities change a little bit. This is still my connection to my tech comm family. And without this blog, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities I’ve had to learn about content strategy or social media practices that I’ll be applying to this project. Like I said, I’ll finally be able to use all the information that I’ve been learning post-grad school from all the conferences and online conversations in practice, and that is exciting to me! The trick for me right now is figuring out how to balance it all effectively, and I’m still figuring that out.
So, if you find that my postings are more intermittant, you understand why. Ultimately, when looking at the big picture of events going on, they are steps in a positive direction. In the words of Martha Stewart, “It’s a good thing.”
TechCommGeekMom 
You must be logged in to post a comment.