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HP hit with age-discrimination suit claiming older workers purged – Mercury News

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

Four former workers have filed an age discrimination suit against the Palo Alto tech icon.

Source: HP hit with age-discrimination suit claiming older workers purged – Mercury News

Thanks to both Rahel Bailie and Tina Howe for posting this on Facebook originally.

Reading this article gave me shivers down my spine. It truly bothers me (which is an understatement) that workers over 40 years of age are considered “old” in the workplace now, especially at a tech giant like HP. Some of the precendents that are outlined in this article seem outdated (even if it’s only been 3 years) and misinformed somehow. Yes, in the U.S., we still have a retirement age of 65 (for now), but as time goes on and the population ages, the average life span continues to get older and older, which means that potentially, we could work longer if we wanted. Why cut us off mid-span, when we are just starting to hit our peak? As I’ve mentioned in other places, I can agree that younger people can bring in fresh ideas and know-how, but the 40-plus age group can bring wisdom and can still have that curiousity that the young’uns have as well. We are not limited by age at all. We just become more expensive due to our experiences, is my best guess, and companies are more interested in profits than people more often than not. It’s sad that HP is turning into one of those companies.  I’m hoping this is not going to start being a bad trend similar to when Marissa Mayer decided that telecommuting was a bad thing, but then built a nursery next to her office so she could be with her kids.  She set a bad precendence that damaged the progress made with remote workers everywhere. While I’ve heard of unofficial rumors about similar practices at other companies, I hope that HP is not one of those companies, and will come to their senses if they are engaging in this practice.  It will end badly if they are found to be guilty of age discrimination. It will be interesting to see how this case goes forward.

What do you think? Include your comments below.

–TechCommGeekMom

 

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What technical writers can learn from a WordPress plugin – ed marsh dot comed marsh dot com

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

The Yoast SEO WordPress plugin made me rethink not only about how I write for the web, but also in my technical writing career.

Source: What technical writers can learn from a WordPress plugin – ed marsh dot comed marsh dot com

My buddy, Ed Marsh, has written and excellent article about the benefits of using some of the WordPress plug-ins out there, and how one tool in particular helped him see inefficiencies in his own WordPress site, as well as with other WordPress sites he’d been working on.

I use the WordPress hosted site for my blog, so I haven’t tried in this plug-in, but knowning Ed, he put this particular plug-in through its paces, and it sounds like a great resource.  Read more at the link above.

Do you know of any other good WordPress plug-ins that are helpful? Share them in the comments below.

–TechCommGeekMom

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Instructional Design Certifications Don’t Teach These 10 Tools

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

Ever enrolled in instructional design certifications and elearning classes but you still feel that there are a few things missing? Maybe this can help you.

Source: Instructional Design Certifications Don’t Teach These 10 Tools

Thanks to Ken Ronkowitz for posting this on Facebook.  When I read this, I thought it did explain a lot of tools that are needed, and where there are gaps.  One of my first blog posts here on TechCommGeekMom was about how I didn’t have access to the tools to put to practice much of what I had learned on a foundational basis. Between experience and education, I had most of the abstract tools needed to become an instructional designer, but evidently not enough of the physical tools described (although I had most of them). The other problem, which I’ve mentioned many times before is that even getting all or most of these skills in takes time, and even once you have them, there’s no such thing as an entry-level instructional designer position. Believe me, I looked for four or five years and gave up. It’s not that what is being outlined here is unreasonable, but gaining the knowledge outlined here still takes a lot of time and effort that yes, a certificate isn’t going to necessarily teach you.

What do you think? Include your comments below.

–TechCommGeekMom

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Technical and social challenges of conversational design — uxdesign.cc – User Experience Design

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

I made my website conversational. Here is what I learned.

Source: Technical and social challenges of conversational design — uxdesign.cc – User Experience Design

Thanks to Madonnalisa Gonzales Chan for posting this on the Content Strategists’ group on Facebook.  This is an excellent article that starts to delve into the idea of how one would create UX content to interact with people.  As I’ve been working in UX creating some of this style of text (but definitely not anywhere close to this deep), I found this fascinating, and the journey that the author took in exploring this brought up points that I hadn’t thought of, as well as points I could relate to.

What do you think? Where do you see conversational design going as we start to write more content for help, IoT, and other content outputs? Put your comments below.

–TechCommGeekMom

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Is Now the Time to Take the Plunge From Full-Time to Freelance?

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

In many ways, the rise of freelancing as a popular and lucrative method of working is the global economies worst-kept secret. After all, an estimated 53 million U.S residents currently work as freela…

Source: Is Now the Time to Take the Plunge From Full-Time to Freelance?

Thanks to Craig Cardimon for posting this article on LinkedIn. If you read my last post, this is something that I’m seriously thinking about, and have been thinking about for the last year or so, but haven’t been able to quite get off the ground.  There are some interested pointers in there.

What do you think? Is there some good, sound advice in here? Post your comments below.

–TechCommGeekMom