This is more quick hits than a real review. I opened The Non-Profit Narrative: How Telling Stories Can Change the World on my Kindle yesterday and ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting. It's by @DanPortnoy and it's about why organizations MUST get their stories right. 

Portnoy addresses non-profits who struggle with their version of…

I've been in the industry for a while and along the way you stumble on some decent websites, such as this one, thought I'd share a few others here:

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Technical_writing_courses#Topics_in_Technical_Writing

http://www.grammarcheck.me/…

In my organization, technical writers are shared resources. We provide a little bit of baseline support and a whole lot of surge support to several different projects. It's a dance of shifting priorities and erratic pace, but most days I wouldn't trade the challenge for any other environment.

I do have one persistent complaint, though. My bosses (meaning the individual project managers) don't understand me. It's not the angst-ridden cliche. It's that they don't understand what I do.…

Anyone know of a good reference site linking to Documentation samples? For example, samples of Online Help or samples of Getting Started guides? 

Hi everyone!!

Yes, it`s me again. Back with another question.

Our service manager would like to create an interactive learning tool that would closely resemble a Programmable Logic Controller.

In essence, it would be a series of screen captures. The user would click on a button on the image to go to the next screen and so on.  Additional text could be added to facilitate learning. Output would be a stand-alone application that could be put on a CD.

Your thoughts?…

As per my experience, very few people take documentation seriously. A lot of people opine that documentation is tideous and boring. Nobody has time to go through pages and pages. People want something interesting and easily accessable.

A few days ago, I was invited to my college as a guest speaker. The college had organized a career guidance session. I was asked to share views on technical writing as a career. I also had some instructional designers with me who had come to talk about…

Technical writing refers to a very useful form of writing and communication for projects, lab reports, instructions, diagrams and many other forms of professional writing. This style of writing is geared towards communicating information related to fields such as science and technology. The challenge lies in the ability of the writer to explain the facts about technology or science in the most simplistic and understandable manner. Actually, technical writing is not an easy task for college…

Hi all,

I need the services of a Joomla web designer. If you know someone, can you point me in their direction?

Every year my company hosts a large user conference where our customers are invited to attend.  The goal is for them to attend sessions that furthers their knowledge about our applications through demos and round tables; sit one on one with key company contributors for information exchange; and attend brown bags and networking events where they can freely exchange information amongst themselves with how they use our software.

An email was distributed this week by my Director with…

“Some people strengthen the society just by being the kind of people they are.”

John W. Gardner

Let us remember why our career choice of technical writing it’s so great by briefly surveying how technical writers contributed to the world’s education, technology and scientific development. Due to our ability to transform complex technical ideas into orderly and easy-to-understand information we have been key contributors to the development of our modern…

I just recently discovered this site – thanks, Arnold, for helping gather such a great and supportive community!

I’d like to start a support forum on my blog for those in my situation: transitioning into Tech Writing from a non-writing career. Being at the steep end of the learning curve, I’m feeling the need to sort out the huge volume of available information, including here on TWW, and compile a list of links to and, when possible, reviews of the best of the available advice and…

Hi everyone! I've heard a lot of good things about this site from my co-worker Sarah Maddox, so here I am!

I just did a basic documentation analysis using Google Analytics and thought I'd share it here too: http://t.co/3qoNHmOt

Do your companies carry out any documentation analysis? We've just started exploring this area and it's been quite fun.

I work for a Web hosting company and am in charge of creating KB articles, online Help, etc. Several times a week, I look at the Support pages for other hosting companies to keep my finger on the pulse, and it looks like online tutorials are very popular. Personally, I think they are over-used. I just find it hard to believe that the average user would sit and watch a three to six-minute demo on how to do really simple, intuitive tasks, like setting up an e-mail account. To me, watching…

The Programme Committee for Technical Communication UK 2012 (TCUK 2012) is delighted to announce that it is now inviting proposals for speaking at the conference. The conference takes place at the Marriot Gosforth Park Hotel in Newcastle (http://www.marriott.co.uk/hotels/travel/nclgf-newcastle-marriott-hotel-gosforth-park/), from 2nd to 4th October 2012.

Regardless of whether you want…

Hey All,

We're trying to get a feel for what conferences everyone will be attending this year. I've comprised a brief 1 question survey asking which conferences you'll be attending in 2012. We'll be posting the results in a week or so, so please take a few seconds to let us know.

Survey

Thanks!

Hi Folks!

WebWorks just released a new whitepaper entitled:

Beyond Technical Communication

Beyond Technical Communication is an inside analytical look into the contributions a Technical Writer can make to maximize the customer experience while at the same time minimize associative costs.…

I need some practical advice on writing revision notes and document versioning. What information do you include in revision notes? Do you have any reference info on document versioning (vs. product versioning)? Thanks.

Greetings.

Another post got me curious:  What percentage of your time do you spend writing "traditional" documentation--user guides, online help, quick-start guides, and so on--vs. more bleeding-edge stuff, such as social media, wikis, etc.?

Thanks for your feedback!

New Years Resolutions.  What to say about new years resolutions.  I hate them.

Ok, so that might be a little strong, but I don't particularly care for them.  I don't swear at midnight on January 1 to lose a few pounds.  You'll not hear me promise to lower my cholestoral (although I probably should), nor will I make any other sorts of promises.  I find that once real life kicks back into high gear after the holidays resolutions become secondary and somewhat unimportant and often fall…

Hello all!I am currently a first year masters student in technical communication. I was wondering if anyone has any advice for obtaining an internship in technical writing. I don't have a whole lot of experience, however I am seeking an internship to gain experience. I would also greatly appreciate it if you all could respond with names of companies that hire technical writing interns. I am most interested in working in the software industry.- Daniel