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.
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Danielle M. Villegas‘s insight:
This is a great inspirational book. I will have to follow more of these suggestions myself! It’s cool to see e-learning friends and acquaintances in the book, as well as many of the top e-learning pros out there that I recognize. Well done, Christopher Pappas! –techcommgeekmom
Matt Sullivan presented the last individual presentation for Adobe Day at Lavacon 2013, and it was a little different than what I had seen before. To me, it was like Portland’s Crystal Spring Rhododendron Gardens, because while Portland is known for its rose gardens, here’s something that’s different, but not out of place either.
Matt Sullivan doing his presentation.
Matt recently co-authored the book, Unstructured Framemaker 11 with Sarah O’Keefe, and took the time to show us some of the more special features of Framemaker 11, specifically in reference to the use of rich media and XML. What made this a different presentation from what I had seen before was two-fold. First, Adobe prides itself in presenting these Adobe Day Thought Leadership events as the antithesis of a long commercial for the Adobe Technical Communications Suite applications, so having this presentation about Framemaker specifically seemed to go against that. But the deeper the presentation went, it was obvious that it wasn’t as much about how to include rich media in Framemaker (although that was certainly presented), it was about opening up minds to the idea of using rich media in digital documentation, and Framemaker happened to be the tool used to demonstrate this. Matt Sullivan is one of the foremost experts out there on the use of Framemaker (he did co-author a book, after all, and I’ve seen the book–it’s a hefty tome), so this made a lot of sense. The second part that seemed different was that it was a demonstration at all. As mentioned before, I was a little confused that an aspect of Framemaker was being demonstrated. For those who were familiar with the product, it was easier to follow along. For those who weren’t as familiar with the product, they could keep up, but it didn’t necessarily have the same impact, but opened eyes to possibilities.
All that aside, Matt gave a lively demonstration of how one can produce rich media output from DITA/XML. Because this was a live demo, it was hard to track all the nuances of the presentation, so there weren’t a lot of notes taken as it would be difficult to describe the processes step-by-step as he was doing them. The audience went along for the journey through these processes, and we could see how Matt used Framemaker to include of rich media. Matt showed us how one can place videos, flash components, and other multimedia into Framemaker docs. He also showed us how to integrate these into the DITA map, and how a PDF document can be produced for both print and interactive versions. One of the best examples Matt showed us was how 3D models can be used in Framemaker documents in addition to control tables. Matt explained that the beauty of the ability to add rich media to documentation is that it’s all about the single-sourcing features to be able to integrate the rich media. The other part of what makes it optimal is that rich media can be saved to online formats. He stressed that rich media can be used in unstructured Framemaker as well as structured Framemaker.
Matt has also done several Adobe webinars covering much of the information presented in this presentation and more. As a refresher, he offered a 45-minute demo with the details found at http://wp.me/p1KX8V-4P, which is also available on his blog at http://mattrsullivan.com.
While it was a little difficult to cover and summarize this presentation (no fault of Matt’s–he did an excellent job), as I said before, this was something new for me to experience at an Adobe Day. I learned not only about how to include multimedia objects in Framemaker specifically, but Matt was also showing how valuable rich media can be when used correctly and methodically in almost any kind of documentation and content out there, which is really the more important part of the bigger picture. As technical communicators, we need to remember that we don’t have to be limited by text and stand-alone images.
(Matt, if you need to correct anything I’ve said here or would like to add anything, please feel free to add in the Comments section!)
Next in the Adobe Day -Lavacon 2013 coverage: Val Swisher’s presentation.
(Yes, I’m going backwards with how everything was presented. Why? Because I can. 🙂 )
This is a great article that I first saw posted via Technical Writing Word on Google +. The author talks about a problem that many technical writers have as we move from position to position and job to job–and that’s having to revitalize skills that you’ve used in the past, but have not used in a long time. I know this is DEFINITELY an issue that I’ve had–and will probably continue to have as I establish myself as a technical communicator.
One of the caveats the author mentions is to not try to revitalize too many of those skills at once. I know I’ve definitely fallen victim to that. When one is on an intense job hunt, a prospective employee wants to be all things to all people as much as possible. These job hunters find themselves overwhelmed by the prospective of reigniting some of these skills, or firing up new ones related to the old or current ones, because demands by prospective employers are so high. Employers today want to have someone be able to jump in and run with a project immediately without any learning curve, and in so many instances, that seems to be asking for too much.
It also doesn’t allow capable people who might be the best for the job to have an opportunity to show their worth simply because they are not versed or very proficient in a specific type of software. I know that what actually worked for me in my current job was the fact that I knew many "custom" CMS systems, because the client’s CMS was custom–I just had to understand the foundations of how a CMS worked, and within 2 weeks, I had mastered the CMS to do my job. I even know a few tricks that my trainer didn’t know now. Will I find another opportunity like that? Not from the way I’ve read some local adverts.
This is an excellent article to read for both prospective employees and employers.
I got this from a reader : I recently applied for a job I felt I was a perfect fit for. I had a phone screen that lead to an interview. Everything went well. I was so sure I would get the job that
Danielle M. Villegas‘s insight:
I know I have fallen into this trap more times than I could count, and knowing me, I will again. The trick is to try not to let it happen, if possible. Another great opportunity might come by, and you don’t want to miss it. In this economy and with the job market as it is, one can’t afford to take any chances…y’know?
This is definitely a good article to read if you are in the job market, no matter your career path.
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