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It’s a good thing.

Taken from http://www.today.com/video/today/51786904#51786904
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....
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.”

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The Top 6 Questions to Ask When Creating Your Content Strategy

WOW!

I will admit that there are a lot of content strategists who have been doing content strategy for a much longer time than I have.  Val is one of those people, and she’s someone I consider to be one of my many wonderful tech comm mentors. So you can believe me when I say that it’s been a great honor to be asked by Val Swisher of Content Rules to do a guest post on the Content Rules Blog that will also be in the Content Rules Newsletter soon. I’ve learned from her and many others over the last few years, and I have some experience under my belt as well now, which has culminated in this article. I hope you enjoy it!

The Top 6 Questions to Ask When Creating Your Content Strategy

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Adobe Day@STC Summit 2014 – We Went Back to The Future

We definitely didn't hear this panel say to any of us, "I'm afraid you're just too darn loud!"
We definitely didn’t hear this panel say to any of us, “I’m afraid you’re just too darn loud!”

I apologize for my blog coverage of the 2014 STC Summit edition of Adobe Day being delayed–it’s been a busy month! But hopefully, you’ll feel it’s been worth the wait, and you had a chance to see my live Twitter feed as it happened.

The STC’14 Adobe Day felt a little bit different this year. One of the things I noticed was that as much as Adobe says that these Adobe Day events are Adobe-product free, lately, they haven’t been. HOWEVER, they are still not one big, in-person infomercial either. Adobe products are not brought up much, but if they are, it’s to show that they can be tools to use to create solutions to common tech comm issues. So, it might be an inadvertant infomercial in that respect, but it’s not done in a blatant way that screams, “YOU NEED TO BUY ME!!!!!! PLEASE BUY OUR PRODUCTS!!!” Adobe continues to do a good job in showing what tech comm issues are out there, and as leaders in the software field, they are tuned into these issues and are creating products that benefit the technical communicator. I think that’s fair enough. The talks, overall, were broader topics that in some instances used Adobe Tech Comm Suite tools to provide solutions. And you have to remember, while these talks are aimed to be product-free for the most part, it’d probably look pretty bad if you had someone declaring all the glories of a competitive product when Adobe is hosting the event. Y’know?

With that out of the way, I observed some other things that made this a little bit different. First, there were fewer speakers this year. I felt that was a good thing, because in the past with more speakers, each speaker would be racing to get his/her presentation completed in a very short amount of time, and there would be little time for questions or discussion. Since there were fewer speakers this year, each one could elaborate more on their topic, which allowed for more time for questions and discussion. More networking time during the breaks was also a benefit from having less speakers.

The other difference I saw dealt with the speakers themselves. While they were all familiar, established voices in the tech comm world, it wasn’t the same crowd that one usually sees at Adobe Day events. All of them have participated in Adobe events or other tech comm events before, but in the past, it usually is most of the same speakers up on the podium. While I like all the “usual suspects” very much, and consider them my mentors and have become friends with several of them, seeing these new “players” was actually refreshing to me. I hope that Adobe continues to change up the speaker lineups with future Adobe Days, as all the speakers I’ve heard have a clear voice that’s worth listening to, and hearing as many of those voices as possible provides both variety and fresh perspectives going forward. As I go through each presentation in forthcoming blog posts, hopefully you’ll see what I mean.

But as tradition in this blog dictates, I always start with the panel that capped off the Adobe Day event. I find that these panel talks bring an umbrella perspective to where we are as a profession through several points of view, and seeing where there are agreements and disagreements in the issues at hand.

This year, the panel was moderated by Matt Sullivan, who has been an Adobe Day speaker in the past. He did a great job, as this was the first time I’d seen him as the moderator of an Adobe Day panel. The panel consisted of Adobe Day speakers Marcia Riefer Johnston, Bernard Aschwanden, Kevin Siegel, and past Adobe Day speaker, Joe Welinske. The theme for the panel was looking ahead to the future of where tech comm seems to be going.

The Adobe Day Panel L to R: Matt Sullivan, Bernard Aschwanden, Joe Welinske, Marcia Riefer Johnston, and Kevin Siegel
The Adobe Day Panel
L to R: Matt Sullivan, Bernard Aschwanden, Joe Welinske, Marcia Riefer Johnston, and Kevin Siegel

Matt started with the point that tech comm is more than tech writing now, so what do we need to improve short-term and long-term? Kevin responded first, saying that we need to do more with less on smaller displays and adapting the content appropriately for mobile. Marcia added to that, saying that using less can mean writing tighter as well. (She has a technique she taught during the STC Summit, in fact!) Joe agreed with Marcia, adding that technical communicators need to put in the time to make concise content meaningful, and to look at simplified English as part of that objective. Bernard felt that attending workshops and demonstrations were important, because technical communicators need to continually learn and adapt in this industry! He added that SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) should contribute to content, but technical communicators should control it. Kevin also agreed with Bernard, saying that SMEs are writing content more often now, so teaching them to write tighter will help. Marcia chimed in that many people are now being required to write, but don’t have the skills. We need to help with that.

Moving onto topics about how technology affects technical communication, Kevin said that new technology, like Google Glass and other wearables, is emerging, and we need to understand how these work. Joe pointed out that the Pebble watch now is starting to have user docs now, and more will be emerging. Bernard added that gesture based technology similar to the Xbox Kinect will need documentation.

Matt then asked, “What should we look forward to in the next five years?” Bernard felt that less specialization will be needed so that the right people write the right content, such as an engineer who can write. Specialized writing will be very important. Joe added that we need to agree on taxonomy and terminology, and use style sheets more often for consistency. Marcia believed that topic-based writing will be emerging more as a growth area. Kevin explained that in e-learning, there is a need to develop learning for new devices that responds to user displays, thus accomodating multiple screens.

The next question asked about how to help educate and help with adapting certain generations adjust between print and digital writing/designing. The consenus was that we just need to adapt. The panel encouraged the audience to get to know your UX/UI people, as they will help you learn to adapt, especially if you aren’t as tech-adaptive.

The last question centered on customers customizing their content–is this a trend? Bernard leapt into a response with, “GOOD! DO IT!” He encouraged us to help customers to start doing personalized help, or personalizing any information, for that matter! Moderator Matt closed by saying that rich media that engages users is going to be about content strategy, but it will also be about content marketing. The group agreed that personalized, concise information going forward will be best!

"I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet--but your kids are going to love it!"
“I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet–but your kids are going to love it!”

And that was it! The session went by quickly, but as you can see, there was a lot of great information that many technical communicators can take and use going forward in their own work.  While it might take some time to adapt, sure enough, it will bring the field forward as technology and the way we access it moves ahead.

Coming soon: The individual presentations at Adobe Day #STC14 Edition!

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STC-PMC 2014 Conference – Better than last year!

NJIT's MSPTC program in the house at STCPMC14! L to R: Dr. Bernadette Longo, director of the MSPTC program; Jamil Wilkins, current MSPTC student; Danielle M. Villegas, MSPTC alum and STCPMC presenter.
NJIT’s MSPTC program in the house at #STCPMC14! L to R: Dr. Bernadette Longo, director of the MSPTC program; Jamil Wilkins, current MSPTC student; Danielle M. Villegas, MSPTC alum and STCPMC presenter.

In a nutshell, the 2014 STC-PMC Mid-Atlantic Technical Conference was better than last year, in my opinion! A slightly different format, a different day, more networking, and excellent speakers made for a fantastic event.

Okay, now for more details.

First, having been a member of the conference’s planning committee this year, I know that a lot of work went into making this event a success. Kudos to my fellow volunteers! Special care was taken to choose the best proposals submitted, and it definitely was reflected in the best of the best! There were so many great subjects to choose from that even among the presenters, some were saying to each other, “I want to go to your presentation, but I’m presenting at the same time!” I think some of the attendees also had hard choices to make, since sometimes they couldn’t decide between topics during a given session!

Nicky Bleiel, who is currently the President of the STC, gave the keynote address for the conference. She talked about flexible content with responsive design. The main message of her talk was that with responsive design, technical communicators can create and deliver a single responsive output that will work on thousands of devices, including new devices, old devices, and even ones that don’t exist yet. She showed us a few examples, such as Microsoft and Lycos websites in which the content remains the same, even though the output in different browsers changed to work with the size of a particular browser size. Many companies started making separate mobile sites, but the content was not the same as the full site. Responsive web design is Google’s preferred configuration when ranking sites. Mobile users want content parity, meaning they want everything that desktop owners have, thus they want one Web. Fluid layouts, fluid images, media queries in the coding, and stacking or collapsing grids are the key to creating responsive design.

During the first breakout session, I gave my own presentation, “Blogging Out Loud: The Basics of Blogging,” so I didn’t get a chance to see anyone else’s presentation during that time, obviously.  I did have a lot of people in my room, which pleased me, and we had a great discussion during the question-and-answer time. It was a great group, and smart questions were asked.

After a lunch break filled with awards, volunteer recognition, food, and networking, I chose to attend Todd DeLuca‘s talk about volunteering your way up the career ladder.  Todd kept the presentation fairly open, sharing some of his own insights about volunteering from his personal experiences and how they were able to apply to his professional life. The group attending participated by sharing ideas and experiences themselves about volunteering, bringing about a great conversation. Todd’s main idea was that it doesn’t matter how big or small the contribution, or if the volunteer opportunity is inside or outside of work. The experience fulfills you when helping others, but also fulfills you by allowing you to gain skills and experience that helps yourself. I think one idea he presented resonated with me, which was that volunteering is an offer to help, but it’s also a promise that evolves, as it’s a commitment that is followed through and builds trust. I also liked his point that volunteering is a safe environment to grow because usually there is less risk and some mistakes are expected, so the environment is often more nurturing than work. That’s a great environment to learn! Todd has been volunteering for things inside and outside of his job for years, related to tech comm as well as unrelated, and felt that he’s reaped benefits that apply to where he is professionally. I know that Todd will be speaking at the 2014 Spectrum conference for the STC Rochester chapter in a few weeks, and he’ll also be speaking at the STC Summit on this topic, so I encourage you to attend to get more details and ideas!

The last presentation I saw for the day was by Neil Perlin. Neil and I have known each other through both e-learning and tech comm social media circles for a while now, but hadn’t met before. It was a real treat to meet and chat with him, but to also hear him speak, as I know he’s rather popular on the e-learning and tech comm circuits. Neil’s talk was about emerging technologies, which is a subject he’s excited about and presents frequently. Neil covered a wide range of topics that are currently in use now and look to be expanding in the future. These topics included more mobile content that needs content strategy to steer it, more use of analytics to understand what our users need and use, using social media extensively, augmented reality, wearables, the use of the “cloud” and cloud-based tools. He also stated that there is a need for standards in order to future-proof our materials to avoid problems as technologies come and go, since it’s so hard to predict what will everyone use. He advised us to stay current by going to conferences and staying on top of general business issues and trends. Business issues can kill a technology, so staying current on your company business is a show of tech comm’s support of corporate strategy. His last bit of advice was to review your tools regularly for environmental change, accept the rise of content and social media, don’t denigrate tools in favor of writing, and embrace and help shape change!

After the conference, WebWorks and Publishing Smarter hosted a nice post-conference get-together at the Iron Abbey, a pub-restaurant down the street from the conference venue. It was a great treat of libations, appetizers, and networking further with tech comm peers.

Overall, it was a great experience. I liked the format this year because it felt more relaxed with fewer breakout sessions. Presenters weren’t rushed as they often are at events like these, and more time was allowed for networking with everyone. Perhaps it’s because I’d had a different experience last year as a total newbie that it was so different to me, but I don’t think so. The topics of the conference, the agenda, and the camaraderie of those hosting at the “City of Brotherly Love” came together into a pleasant Saturday of learning. As a smaller, regional conference I think the more intimate setting helped it be a more personalized experience for all, thus it was a big success.

(To any of the fellow speakers I reviewed here–if you’d like to add or correct anything that I summarized here, please feel free to do so in the comments area below!)

If you are in the Philadelphia area next year around mid-March, I highly recommend coming to next year’s STC-PMC Mid-Atlantic Conference. I guarantee you’ll enjoy it.

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Adobe Day @ Lavacon 2013: Scott Abel’s 5 Technologies Tech Comm Can’t Ignore

voodoodonutsignI realized as I was writing this post that this would be my 500th post on TechCommGeekMom. Who knew that so much information and thought could accumulate through original posts and curated content?  I’m also very close to my all-time 15,000 hits mark (only a few hits away at this writing). I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me that I’d hit these benchmarks when I started this blog, but of course, I’m going to keep going! I debated about what I should write for my 500th post–whether to finish my Adobe Day coverage or do something else, and in the end, it seems fitting to finish my Adobe Day coverage, because in many respects, knowing and writing about the presentation of Scott Abel, aka “The Content Wrangler”, shows how far I’ve come already in my tech comm journey from beginner to covering internationally known presenters.

Scott is one of the most prolific and vocal speakers out there on the conference circuit speaking about content–whether it be content management or other technical communication topics.  It also seems like he has written the forewords of many of the best tech comm books out there. He’s everywhere! To boot, he’s an accomplished DJ, and I found myself “bonding” with him over dance remixes and mash-ups while at Lavacon, because I always enjoy when he posts either his mash-ups or his favorite mash-ups on Facebook. (I’ll be writing a post about the relationship between tech comm and dance mash-ups in the near future.)  He is a person who is full of so much kinetic energy that you wonder when he’s going to explode, but he doesn’t. Even the time I saw him at the STC Summit last spring with a bad cold, he was still more on top of his game than a lot of people would be on a good day.  Much like Val Swisher, my love for all things Scott Abel also knows no bounds.  He knows how to stir things up at times, but there is no denying that in his frenetic pace of delivering a presentation, you learn SO much. I’m lucky that he’s so kind to be one of my cheerleaders!

ScottAbel
Scott Abel checking his files before his presentation

So when it came to thinking of a garden in Portland to use as an analogy to Scott, I had to deviate. In my mind, he’s the Voodoo Doughnuts shop located about four or five blocks away from the Chinese Garden. Scott’s talks always have lines going out the door, and like many of the Voodoo Doughnuts themselves, the unique flavors dispensed open your mind up to new and delicious possibilities and ideas, and you come back wanting more (hence, more long lines!).  They are both crazy and sweet at the same time. You can’t beat that combination.

Scott was the keynote speaker for Adobe Day as well as the moderator of the discussion panel later in the event. Scott’s topic for his talk was called, “Five Revolutionary Technologies Technical Communicators Can’t Afford To Ignore.”  If Joe Gollner went fast during his presentation, then Scott went at lightning speed, so my notes below are the highlights.

Scott started by telling us that translation is going to be an important part of automated content going forward. It’s important to understand that for the web, the World Wide Web (WWW) is equal to the “land of opportunity.” The WWW can reach a global market reaching new consumers. As American users, we forget that 96% of web users are not in the US. We don’t all speak English globally. In fact, less than 6% of the global population speaks English well, but don’t necessarily read or write it well.

Scott’s list of the five technologies the Tech Comm can’t ignore were as follows:

1) Automated Translation
Why would be need automated translation? We write for the *worldwide* web.  There are over 6000 languages in the world, so translation is a big deal for a global reach and global connection. We need to recognize that content is written for both machines and humans. Even though we write for both machines and humans, we need to write for machines first, as they are the “gatekeepers” of content, such as for searches. Everything goes through the machine first. We need to recognize that writing rules learned in elementary school are no longer sufficient for a world in which language science is needed.  We need to examine our content from the vantage point of a rules-processing engine and ensure it’s optimized for machine translation.

2) Automated Transcription
Automated transcription involves software that translates speech to text for machine use. Without transcription, content is locked and hidden from view. Transcription allows for better searchability of content.  Scott recommended Koemei as a good transcription software tool for video and general transcription, as it can help transform editable content into other languages.

3) Terminology Management
Terminology management controls words in a central place, namely the words used the most and used consistently for branding, products, etc. Terminology management is important for consistency as well as for regulatory reasons. This is an instance where seeking a global content strategist is needed to help standardize processes.  It’s best to adopt a terminology management system, such as Adobe partner and Scott’s suggestion, Acrolinx.

4) Adaptive content
Adaptive content is content that is structured and designed to adapt to the needs of your customer; it’s about substance of the content. Adaptive content adapts to the devices, e.g. laptops, GPS, and smartphones.  Customers are demanding exceptional experiences, so we need to meet their expectations, so it’s up to responsive designers to meet that challenge. Adaptive content makes it possible to publish to multiple platforms and devices.  It is content separated from formatting information. By allowing authors to focus on what they do best, adaptive content makes content findable and reuseable by others who need it. We need to rethink content, as the move to adaptive content involves work, but the ROI (return on investment) can be realized in months instead of years.

5) Component Content Management
Component content management systems are needed. They focus on the storing of content components that are used to assemble documents. Components can be in all sizes, and can be photos, video, and text. It’s about managing CONTENT not FILES.

Scott provided these slides as his example to show this:

ScottAbel_ExampleA ScottAbel_ExampleB

Structured content, combined with a component content management system, supports personalized content and  targeted marketing, which in turn increases response rates. In this end, this process can save money! The key is to remember that all customers are not the same! Reusing content without the “copy and paste” methods produce the best results. You can ensure that content is consistent by seeking a content strategist who understands content and is a technologist. Implement a component management system. Scott suggested checking out Astoria Software for a good component content management system. 

At this point, Scott’s talk had pretty much finished, but in answering audience questions, he pointed out that there’s a lot more than just these five technologies to watch. He suggested that we should look out for wireless electricity, flexible surfaces, more wireless devices, wearable computing, and augmented reality as well. He also said that in order to mature as a discipline, we need to be content craftspeople, content designers and content engineers. We need to leverage using content and code. We need to think more like engineers, and less like writers and editors. Even websites that are very localized still need to be written for global purposes to improve the English used for the native speakers as well. Controlled vocabulary helps all end users!

Scott covered a LOT of information in a short amount of time, and he set the tone for the rest of the session, as the presentations that followed repeated much of the same information. (This is a good thing, because then we know that the information is valid, coming from several experienced technical communicators!)

Scott posted on Twitter than his presentation was available on SlideShare, but I have it below.

And as always–Scott, if I misinterpreted or misquoted any of the information I summarized above, please let us know in the comments!