Tips and tricks on using Microsoft Word

Here is a link to tips and tricks on using Microsoft Word.

They are online flash movies, each about 45 seconds long

These animated guides can be redistributed freely on your Web site or intranet, on condition that they are not altered or amended in any way.

Your organisation as a node

There's a book that states you should think of yourself as a node - the link between one person and another.

It would be impossible to do illustrate an individual as a node, but it might be possible to describe an organisation in this way - how it can link things together.

So we had a stab at doing it. It's a work in progress and about my company as it's the organisation we know best.

Has anyone done anything similar for their organisation?
Is this useful?
Is this a clear way or describing the links or is there a better way?

Looking for diabolical documents

We're in search of some examples of diabolical documentation. We're looking for examples of poor user instructions, such as

On the bottom of Tesco's Tiramisu - "Do not turn upside down"
On baby's milk formula - "If the baby finds the milk too lumpy, boil it"

It can be from products, software or corproate policies. If you have anything we could use, then please let us know.

"Act like a consultant"

Many of the sales experts say "Act like a consultant" - Diagnose, prescribe etc.

We've always thought that was a great approach, but found it difficult to apply in practice. This is because we deal primarily in a specialist area (user documentation and online Help), and it's not something that people think about very often. They only want to speak to us when they need it. We want to, need to, speak to them before they get to that stage.

We thought about gaining knowledge about the other issues they deal with, so that we could widen the consultation discussions and make ourselves more attractive to them, but this isn't easy. We can't be experts in everything.

So how else can we make ourselve more useful to our prospects and clients? How else can we get to talk to them about their "big" issues?

We now talk to them about their big issues because we can connect them to people that do know about those things. We don't have the knowledge, these people do.

We can talk about market positioning issues and connect them to a positioning expert, email marketing issues and connect them to a marketing expert, selling skills issues and connect them to a soft selling expert, sales motivation issues and connect them to the UK's No 1 motivational speaker and coach, recruiting and supporting a sales force issues and talk to other recruitment agencies, direct mailing issues and connect them to an expert in this field, user training issues and connect them to me, conferences and connect them to other trainers or event managers, user documentation issues and connect them to Cherryleaf, outsourced selling and connect them to a flexible sales manager, finance issues and connect them to a flexible CFO, legal issues and connect them to lawyers, finance raising issues and connect them to a VC or a business angel, and so on.

It's changed the way we talk to our prospects, and it's certainly more fun to do.

Would you have invested?

Can you guess which one in the photo is the technical writer?

How to write a Help file

How to write a Help file - what advice you you give to someone who was looking to write a Help file for the first time?

New contract opportunity

We have posted a new vacancy for a contract technical author onto our Web site today. It's with a great organisation.

Can you imagine a world without WinHelp?

The Microsoft Assistance Platform team is asking for people's thoughts on this:
What if WinHelp didn't exist in the next version of Windows - codename Longhorn?

You can comment on their blog here.

Quadralay Launches WebWorks ePublisher Pro

"WebWorks ePublisher Pro opens new doors by providing greater flexibility and ease of use for Help authors, technical writers, documentation professionals, and other content providers wanting to produce content for common online formats directly from Microsoft Word or Adobe FrameMaker files. In addition, the new software features simple WYSIWYG controls and push-button processing that give authors full control of the look and feel of Help content and other online information."

"More details here

Letting users create their own paths to information

Tags and tag navigation could offer a new and better way of finding and organising information on Web sites, Help files, procedure documents and Intranets. del.icio.us, flickr, technorati are examples of sites that use tags. These sites allow more than one person to tag a particular entry, and create multiple navigation routes, although it is possible to build a site where all the tags are from the author.

Enabling the users to decide and develop the navigation routes in this way could lead to consensus or to anarchy. We think it could work well.

Our newsletter

We sent out our latest HTML newsletter this week, unfortunately with three typos. It's another why I (Ellis) don't do any chargeable client work and stick to sales and marketing.

The future of jobs?

Ginny Critcher and Justin Darley had a meeting with Ian Kemble of Portsmouth University this week, to discuss their new MA in Technical Communication and areas where we might help them.

One of the topics that came up was whether or not they should include technology related topics. On the one hand, you can argue that technology gets out of date very quickly, on the other you could argue that you're unlikely to get work if you don't know the tools of the trade.

Last week Ellis Pratt heard Thomas Power and Dr. Gerry Lemberg (of the London Business School) both claim that the concept of a job (i.e being an employee) will pretty much end in our life times. If so, the education system will need to change considerably in order to prepare students for the real world. Are they right?

Guidelines - Technical Communication

The EU sponsored TecDoc-Net project has published guidelines on Technical Communication, the state of the profession and future challenges. It lists a "Potential for jobs in the field of Technical Communication" for each European country. The guidelines could also be used to develop job descriptions and study programmes.

It claims there is potential for 38,000 Technical Communicators in the UK alone, which we believe is hugely optimistic.

Blogs as a business tool

Weblogs now seem to be finding commercial applications as marketing tools, and the business press is starting to pay attention to it - it is claimed to be the new market research, the new branding and the new R&D rolled into one. There's a debate raging as to whether blogging should be done by journalists, copywriters, PR agencies or in-house staff. Of course, there's another group who could be doing it - technical communicators. They can write clearly and they understand the organisation and the users.

We have always run the front page of our Web site and this newsletter as a hybrid blog (without a comment facility), and this month we have implemented a Cherryleaf Blog in order to complement this newsletter.

Blogging may also offer a better way for sharing knowledge *internally* around an organisation. Blogging is quick, easy, often informal, and collaborative. Microsoft has been an early pioneer of this approach, and it will be interesting to see if it is adopted by others.

What do you think of the future for blogs?

Legislation - Your right to be informed

As from 6th April 2005, employees in organisations with 150 or more staff will have a right to be informed and consulted on a regular basis about issues in their workplace. Organisations with 100 or more employees will come within the scope of the legislation in April 2007 and ones with 50 or more in April 2008. The requirements in the legislation do not apply automatically. A request for an "internal communication" must be made by at least 10% of staff (15 people) in the organisation. More - http://www.dti.gov.uk/er/consultation/proposal.htm

How do you see this unfolding in reality?