Tag: social media

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Blast From The Past – Volume 3: Interior Design Influence on…Tech Comm and Social Media?

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

For this week, I decided that I would post another one of my “Blast from the Past” entries from my graduate school blog. When I go back to review these, many of which were written when I was just starting to understand what technical communications were all about, I see some pretty decent reflections.

I’ve lost direct contact with the person in this entry, as life moves on, and Twitter exploded, but I still learned a lot from the experience. Perhaps I still need to follow-up on the blog entry I proposed at the end based on his books! He’s still out there and making the most of social media and media at large, and has always been ahead of the curve in this regard, continuing to make the most of both marketing communications as well as instructional design with his television shows and now instructional videos on his website.

Enjoy this entry that was originally from March 20, 2010, originally titled, “Interior Design Influence on…Web Design?”:

Recently, I’ve struck up a Twitter friendship with renowned interior designer, Christopher Lowell. He is a very thoughtful, sweet guy. He also posts these great dishes he’s having for dinner that make me hungry! But I digress…

Christopher has always been a little bit ahead of the curve when it comes to media and the wave of the future in communications. He was revolutionary in breaking down the basics of interior design in a user-friendly way, and bringing it to the public on the then-new media outlet of cable television. Between his shows and his books, which eventually branched out into his own product lines of furniture, fabrics and other home accessories, his goal has always been to make interior design about making a home, and making it with your own special stamp. All these years later, he still has that goal of bringing things that seem so lofty down to earth for all of us to enjoy.

One of the things I like about corresponding with him through Twitter is that he really seems to be exactly who you see on TV and read in his books. He’s down to earth, he can be silly, but he really does care about important issues and cares a lot about other people and really using social media as a means of communications. I know that I’ve certainly enjoyed getting to know him little bit by little bit.

So, today he posted on Twitter that he had a new blog post, in which he talked about how he likes how reality TV is starting to be used more constructively, and used Jamie Oliver‘s show about how Jamie is trying to change the diets of school lunches to more wholesome foods for kids as a good example.  He segueways into how he feels that the internet is what the next big wave of information and entertainment will be– more so than it is now, much like cable TV was in its infancy. He alluded to the fact that part of the reason we don’t see him on TV (cable or otherwise) much these days is that he’s exploring these new media. He wrote, “As we continue to open new portals and refine new media platforms, you can bet, I’ll be there, doing what I do best.” That seems appropriate for a guy who has always been on the cutting edge of things.

So what does this have to do with technical writing? Well, a lot. You see, I feel inspired by what Christopher has been talking about, because it’s not only about what he’s doing, but where the future in technology is going, and technical writing is part of that.  I’ve thought of two projects that he’s inspired me to do, but I don’t have the reason to do it other than “just because I feel like it” at the moment, so since I’m busy enough, I’ll have to wait until I have a little more time to work on them, or can work it into a school project for my e-Portfolio. The first idea was just to interview him, and get more details of where he thinks internet media is headed, and the sorts of projects he wants to do, or sees happening. You know, get inside the head of one of the big “movers and shakers” to understand future trends. The other idea is to write a piece called, “The Seven Layers of Technical Writing” or “The Seven Layers of Web Design,” or some similar theme, as Christopher was the one who revolutionized the idea of the “seven layers” of interior design. (Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if he invented the Seven-Layer Dip!) In my mind, it would be an article that would show, especially for the newbie technical writer, that by sticking to some basic rules of thumb, like the Seven Layer of Design, that you too can master what it takes to be a technical writer.  I’d really have to think it through, because I’m sure it’s not that easy to whittle anything down that has so many variables, like tech writing, like web design, or interior design.

Kudos to you, Mr. Lowell, for giving me some inspiration outside the (technical) box, and getting a new dialogue started in my head…

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Do you speak the Queen’s English? It’s a Rhetorical Question.

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom
William and Kate,
aka The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

I’ve been a big royalty follower for 30 years. It started the weekend before the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer, and it hasn’t stopped since that time. Nor has my interest in royals been limited to just the Brits. I’ve always been fascinated by any royals, no matter the nationality, and keep up with the “royal gossip” reading Hello Magazine online.

So, what does this have to do with anything, especially something related to technical communications? A friend of mine found the following article in the Telegraph, which talks about how the received pronunciation of how the Duke of Cambridge’s elders speak is starting to change to a more modern pronunciation, with less crispness and precision than in the past–more like how the Duchess of Cambridge and many average Brits speak.

Prince William’s cut-glass accent is a little less polished than Kate Middleton’s

To me, this fact is of notable significance. English, like any other language, is a constantly evolving language. While the same base language is spoken among those claiming to speak English, there are significant differences not only in pronunciation, but also in how it’s used. Those speaking English in India, Australia, and New Zealand greatly differentiate from their fellow speakers in Canada, the U.S. or South Africa. Heck, just within my own state of New Jersey, there are different pronunciations of certain words! Different vocabularies and different expressions are used often, but the foundation of the language is the same. This also applies to other languages as well that are used globally like Spanish and French.

This is an important thing to note, as rhetoric is a good part of technical communications. How language is presented in spoken word, whether by a recording, audio file or video file, can make a difference as to whether the message being delivered is clear to the audience.  This also has an impact on the translation in technical communications. Recalling Val Swisher’s talk on Adobe Day, the choice of words when writing documentation that needs to be translated into other languages is critical. Using expressions or colloquialisms is frowned upon, as often these expressions cannot be translated directly.

However, I’ve also seen this happen within different English dialects. For the past two months, I’ve been teaching a virtual technical and business writing course to Asian-based employees of a very large global software company. Of all the students I had, only one was a native English speaker. Knowing that typically British English is used outside the Americas to learn English, I did my best to adapt my vocabulary accordingly. (Good thing I’m such an Anglophile and watch a lot of British television these days!) Even with that, I could hear from my students–who usually spoke English well–that certain nuances from their particular locales still came through their speech, and I don’t mean just accents.  Students from India and Singapore were much more formal with their words and phrase choices than their colleagues based in Korea or Kuala Lumpur. There’s nothing wrong with that, but merely an observation.  I also thought about how American English has changed. If one watches an American film made in the 1930s or 1940s, much of the rhetoric used was very different from today, much like the American equivalent of the Queen’s English described in the article above. There are still very good speakers in the U.S, but that crispness of speech is more relaxed and modern.

For me, I think my rhetoric holds up decently enough. I know that I will slide into some bad habits now and then, but not too often. I don’t have a pronounced “Jersey” accent that’s put forth on television shows, but I am a native Jersey Girl through and through. (You can judge for yourself on the home page of my e-portfolio, where I’m featured in a video for NJIT’s MSPTC program.) One of my younger sisters is an actress, and while she has had extensive elocution lessons, she doesn’t necessarily have a particular accent, especially a “Jersey” accent. So when a famous British actor met her years ago and spoke with her at a book signing, he swore she was from Sweden and not from New Jersey!

As we become more globally aware, thanks to Internet connectivity, we need to become more aware of how we communicate to each other rhetorically to make sure that we understand each other as clearly as possible. As technical communicators, we should be setting the standards and leading the way for others.

So as you speak to fellow English speakers that you know locally and globally, how does your rhetoric stand up to the rest?

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Being a specialist or a generalist? Which is better for a technical communicator?

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

I feel like I’ve stepped into quite the conundrum by entering the technical communications field. As I continue to search for full-time work, a problem that I seem to find almost everywhere I go is that technical writing jobs in my area seem to require that one be a specialist in their field, or do very, VERY specific types of work. Both before and after my technical communications studies, I had always been taught that with few career exceptions, being a generalist was more often a desired skill set, simply because I couldn’t get stuck in one specific direction and find little to no work. Having a broad range of skills and abilities made one more marketable, flexible, and thus desirable as an employee. I know the last place that I consulted for full-time appreciated that generalist ability of mine, because I ended up being the go-to person for web editing, web design, and general graphics design. There were those who had the title of “web publisher” but didn’t even know basic HTML, and I actually did.

However, I’m finding that as much as I did my best in both my career and my graduate studies to study a broad range of subjects, including social media, e-learning design, content management strategy, UI strategy, and technical writing and editing, to name a few, I end up as a Jack of all trades, but master of none. However, it seems that because I don’t have specifically five years of medical or proposal writing background in XYZ software, I’m useless. I was recently criticized for having an “unfocused” resume because it was so broad. When asked what specialization I wanted to follow, I listed all the subjects I mentioned above and then some others. I feel I have the skills to start out in any of those fields if someone gave me a break to go in any of those specific directions.

One of the things that stuck out in my mind from Adobe Day at Lavacon last month was commentary by the panel at the end of the morning, in which the group said that one of the issues right now in tech comm is that there are too many tech comm specialists instead of tech comm generalists. When I heard that, it was music to my ears, and I felt vindicated for taking the approach I had with my career! I’ve already taken steps–specifically getting a Master’s degree in Professional and Technical Communication–to provide myself with an education on understanding all the available possibilities in the technical communications field, and be able to adapt to it. However, one of the other challenges listed in the panel talk was the general resistance to progressive change. I fear that the resistance to change is far more widespread than anticipated, based on my own experiences. Every job listing and every recruiter I talk to seems to want to pigeonhole me into one specialty, and I don’t want to do that. The reason I went to graduate school was to allow me to gain opportunities beyond my knowledge of content management alone, and allow me to flex my editing, writing, design and e-learning muscles some more.

Perhaps because I’m a “newbie,” I don’t understand this strict adherence to being a specialist in only one kind of tech comm. Becoming a specialist is a double-edged sword. On one side, being able to work in a niche field makes your skills more desirable for that niche. However, on the other side, it limits the kind of work one can do if there are layoffs or one finds him/herself out of work.

Since I’ve been looking for full-time work for almost a year now, I talked to my husband recently about this idea, and questioned whether I should commit more to one particular area of technical communication than another. While I’ve done a lot of content management work, I find it constraining when I want to be able to edit what I see as just plain BAD writing, and I feel limited to not flex my brain muscles on all the things I’ve learned in grad school in the last two years. I’ve tried to immerse myself in the tech comm world and the e-learning world to varying degrees, but again, I find myself as a generalist since I don’t have any job to help me hone my professional focus as of yet. Even so, I wondered if I should just resign myself, and just try to figure out what specialty I should focus on, perhaps in the hopes of increasing my job prospects. After voicing this concern, my husband vehemently disagreed, feeling that it was better just to continue to be able to look at a little bit of everything and do a little bit of everything, as it broadened prospects by giving me multiple directions to follow.

It makes me wonder how other graduates–whether they are from undergraduate or graduate school–find a job at all. How is someone supposed to be able to do a technical communications job with little to no experience? How the heck can they become specialists without first being generalists given a direction from their first jobs? I know I have the flexibility and know-how to go into many jobs, but it’s autobots that read my resume instead of people more often than not, and autobots don’t understand the value of what I can do and my ability to learn on the spot. I’m sure I’m not the only one in this rut, and yet there doesn’t seem to be any flexibility on the part of employers. There are plenty of us who are more than willing to be dedicated employees with a strong skill set foundation, and we aren’t given a chance.

So, what is better? Being a specialist or a generalist? Write your opinion in the comments below.

For me, I’m still torn, and my problem is that if I do need to be a specialist, I don’t know what direction to follow, because I like so many aspects of tech comm. Should I find work as a full-time blogger, pursue my desire to be an instructional designer, go back to content publishing and management, become a technical evangelist, become a teacher or trainer…or what?

(If you know of any telecommuting/remote jobs or jobs in the Central NJ area along these lines, let me know!)

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Structured Content is Like Your Closet | Content Rules, Inc.

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

See on Scoop.it – M-learning, E-Learning, and Technical Communications

Structured content is a lot like a new closet. No amount of organization will work until you put everything in its rightful place.

This is a fantastic article that my new friend, Val Swisher, wrote about understanding structured content management. She is a marvelous speaker that I saw at Adobe Day at Lavacon, and spent some time with her afterwards. She’s a creative and smart person, and knows a lot about this subject!  I love her analogy with the closet in this article! I definitely encourage you to read this article, because it’s a great breakdown of how the whole concept works.

Happy reading!

–techcommgeekmom

See on www.contentrules.com

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Lady Shotgun: taking on childcare and capitalism

Posted on by TechCommGeekMom

See on Scoop.it – M-learning, E-Learning, and Technical Communications

How one indie studio is killing crunch and sharing profits…

Thanks to @cfidurauk for pointing me to this article.

One of the tough things about being a mother in any industry is how to balance responsibilities of being the primary caregiving parent and giving full attention to a job/career. Ann-Marie Slaughter, formerly of the US State Department and now back at Princeton University, wrote a controversial article for The Atlantic magazine (I think it was the Atlantic) which gave her case of while she had it all, she felt she really didn’t.

In this day and age, we need to rethink and rework what the work process is. I’m sure the hours of “9 to 5” were based on daylight hours during the 19th century or something. I’ve always tried to work different hours than that–usually earlier hours so that I could be home at a reasonable hour for my child. Additionally, I have found that there are very, VERY few things in this world that depend on work being done RIGHT NOW or needed to be done YESTERDAY. (Immediate emergency medical care is the only thing I can think of that is THAT urgent.) I applaud Lady Shotgun for their endevour, and hope that more and more people–not just moms, but dads too–start thinking in the terms that this outfit set up shop.  If I could find a place like that which could use the skills that I can offer and paid decently, and had the flexible hours that are presented here, I would jump on that bandwagon in a heartbeat.

As technical communicators and e-learning/m-learning specialists, this seems like it should be a viable work solution for so many of us–all parents alike. There are rare instances that documentation has to be out THAT quickly because someone’s life is in jeopardy. Lady Shotgun should be a model for us going forward.

See on www.gamesindustry.biz