Shoap Technical ServicesBuzzwords are just like bad pop stars: they appear mysteriously, gain fans like the plague spreads, and seemingly vanish; yet new ones are constantly appearing. Why do we continuously go through this cycle?
STS has banned buzzwords. I learned quickly that even saying “buzzword” meant trouble—someone would be on a rant soon. So I made a list of the most-abused words with suggested alternatives. I hope I haven’t just created the new lingo.
There are certain standard practices in font choice that have become so ingrained that many of us now scarcely consider the alternatives. Writing a paper? Times New Roman. Building a website? Arial. Creating an invitation? Coronet. It seems obvious, almost innate, that printed texts should be written in serif fonts; that digital media should be written in sans serif fonts. But when should these standards practices be broken? When should boundaries be pushed?
Excitement and innovation aren’t really words that come to mind when you think of “technical writing,” right?
I didn’t think so. As interesting as the profession can be, we often find ourselves filling in the same template for the same type of document over and over again. And while it’s important to make clients happy and follow the standard formats, we must always keep sight of our goals – does our documentation serve its purpose? Does it teach? Does it explain? Does it do these things well?
I did not like change.
Last Monday I began a major new chapter: my internship at Shoap Technical Services. I was hired to do marketing for the summer and given a great deal of freedom. I was encouraged to let my mind run free and to tackle any project I thought I would enjoy doing to increase sales. It’s an aspiring PR girl’s dream. But like I said, I didn’t like change.
My new iPad 2 finally arrived over the weekend. It’s a pretty great device and I’ve been enjoying exploring all of the cool things you can do with it and all of the great apps available. One of the things that sold me on the iPad over an Android tablet was the new GarageBand app. I’m an extremely poor guitar player and have a little experience running a sound board from my days at WKCO, so I thought dabbling in songwriting would be a lot of fun.
As a technical communicator, I’m interested in the evolution of user assistance from the days of Big Tomes for PC Applications to modern apps running on smartphones and tablets. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that a well-designed, intuitive user experience and excellent copywriting on labels and controls obviates the need for formal documentation. For many small apps, this works out just fine, especially for “fun” apps, where exploring the interface to learn how it works is part of the enjoyment.
I recently completed a project to create a document defining the types of functionality and relationships associated with the various database columns and tables in the back-end of a client’s medical billing software. While the project was fun (at least in the sense that I got to work on something nerdy and technical), it was also a sobering reminder about the uncertainty endemic to the world of consulting.
Your employees work for you for a reason. They are good at what they do. What happens when they leave? What information are they taking with them that no one else in the company knows? Will everything run the same after they’re gone?
Recently, I’ve been attending lots and lots of meetings. I like talking to people, learning, brainstorming, smiling, etc. One thing that has been pretty consistent though is that people are not doing their “homework”. Teachers didn’t talk about the importance of homework in our 17+ years of schooling for nothing.
In a previous post, I referred to an inelegant solution we devised to get my BlackBerry 9800 to sync with my Microsoft Outlook Calendar. Since that post was mostly to complain about Research in Motion (RIM) and how poorly the BlackBerry Desktop Manager (BDM) worked, I thought about all the individuals who posted complaints on the RIM (lack of) support site and how they must be suffering. So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to devote one post to the solution we found to get the BlackBerry device to sync with Outlook.
After repeated insults about my Nokia flip phone, I broke down last week, went to the AT&T store, and purchased a new BlackBerry Storm. I also had a BlackBerry (that I used for mobile email, contacts, and calendar) so I figured I’d stay with what I knew — this despite repeated warnings from my colleagues that I should buy a droid.