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Mark Baker Male Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Canada: Like

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Cubicle-Friendly Videos?

Started this discussion. Last reply by Mike Phillips Aug 2, 2011. 3 Replies 1 Like

Obviously, videos are one of the hottest topics in technical communications today. But there is one issue with videos in technical content that I don't see being discussed. How do you make…Continue

Tags: sound, cublicle, video

How many books are you in the middle of?

Started this discussion. Last reply by Eddie VanArsdall Jul 6, 2011. 7 Replies 0 Likes

Slightly off topic, I suppose, but it is a holiday weekend and the middle of summer -- days made for reading -- and I have a pile of books with bookmarks somewhere between the covers. It's not a…Continue

Tags: bookmarks, books

10 jobs that make people happy -- Guess what's number 10!

Started this discussion. Last reply by Craig Cardimon Jul 8, 2011. 4 Replies 3 Likes

http://lifewise.canoe.ca/Investopedia/2011/05/03/18097326.html Who hear feels almost as happy as a dental hygienist?Continue

Tags: happiness

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Mark Baker replied to Gursheesh's discussion 'How important is to give an "Objective" i the beginning of a document?'

If the Objective is not clear from the title, people will not read the document. If the objective is clear from the title, people will not read the Objective section.

5 hours ago

Mark Baker replied to Tiffany Shoemaker's discussion 'Survey Questions for our customers'

Tiffany, I would express the same kinds of reservations as Richard, and I would add this: by and large users don't actually care about the layout or format of the documentation. What they care about are: Can they find the information they want…

Friday

Mark Baker replied to Thomas Mauser's discussion 'Estimating a Writing Project'

Hi Tom, It definitely varies. There are averages that may provide rough guidance over a sufficiently large project or a number of projects, but for a single project those averages may be useless. Indeed, an organization's internal metrics based…

Friday

Mark Baker replied to Daniel Berman's discussion 'Receiving feedback on Online Help'

Once, long ago, I worked for an Apple dealer and the local Apple office decided to bring people together from all the local Apple dealers in the area and create a forum where they could exchange information and help each other out. The meeting where…

Feb 16

Mark Baker replied to Daniel Berman's discussion 'Receiving feedback on Online Help'

Richard, I agree that there are a great many important issues to figure out with this model. We an in our infancy in this in many ways. Of course, companies have been creating communities or users for years with everything from user conferences to…

Feb 15

Mark Baker replied to Daniel Berman's discussion 'Receiving feedback on Online Help'

Sarah, I agree it is an issue. I suspect that it may strike writers as a bigger issue than it is for readers. Forums have been like this forever, and they still thrive. But there is still definitely a balance to be struck here. I just think we would…

Feb 15

Mark Baker replied to Daniel Berman's discussion 'Receiving feedback on Online Help'

Sarah, I agree that comments are the best way to go. Comments reward the person who posts them and assists other readers who read them. What interest me in you post is this phrase: "and ideally we should incorporate useful information from the…

Feb 14

Mark Baker replied to Sarah Maddox's discussion 'How often do technical writers speak at their own organisation's conferences'

When I worked at OmniMark Technologies, I used to speak regularly at the OmniMark User's Group Conference -- but only after I had become a sufficiently proficient OmniMark programmer that I could speak authoritatively enough from my own…

Feb 14

Mark Baker and Fena Maucieri are now friends Feb 14

Mark Baker and Susan Campbell are now friends Feb 10

Mark Baker replied to Daniel Berman's discussion 'Current trends in documentation structuring'

Hi Daniel, I would suggest that the deep underlying trend in tech docs today is a move away from worrying about structure and toward worrying about navigation. In the paper world, of course, structure was the primary means of making content…

Jan 25

Mark Baker replied to Chris Heath's discussion 'iBooks Author'

I'm struggling to see how this is significant for tech pubs, for two reasons: 1. The traditional manual is rapidly being eclipsed by topic-based content, much of it produced by the community in the form of forum posts etc. The two basic…

Jan 23

Mark Baker replied to Chris Heath's discussion 'iBooks Author'

It seems to me that most of the discussion of this is missing the point. The reason for that Apple wants exclusive rights to publish content created with this tool is not that they don't want the author to sell it elsewhere, but that they…

Jan 23

Mark Baker replied to Sarah Maddox's discussion 'What is collaboration?'

Denis, you describe exactly the kind of approach to collaboration that I describe in my post on How Content Producers Get Collaboration Wrong. Everybody talking to everybody else and nobody finding any time to get actual work done. But not…

Jan 15

Mark Baker and Kai Weber are now friends Jan 10

Mark Baker replied to Stephan Quist's discussion 'Software Admonitions – International Standards vs Corporate Rules?'

Karen, A standard applies to what it says it applies to, neither more nor less. To use a standard for something other than what the standard says its applies to is not following the standard. In some cases, doing so may undermine the…

Jan 9