New ways of collaborative working for technical authors

"Here is an announcement of a forthcoming STC UK Chapter event to be held in Birmingham on 10th March.

Bookings for the first major STC UK event of 2007 are now being taken. To use our online booking facility, visit the STC UK web site at: http://www.stcuk.org/programme/programme.htm

Our meeting will be about new ways of collaborative working. Specifically, about Wikis and Blogs. Our speakers will be Crawford Currie, a key player in the development of Twiki, and Ellis Pratt of Cherryleaf.

This will be the first event that STC UK has organised in Birmingham, and we are hoping that the central location will encourage many people to come along. The event starts at 10:00 in the morning, and runs through until 16:30. To maintain a long-standing tradition, we'll then head on to a restaurant for an evening meal. Our venue for the meeting will be the funky, high-tech Orange Studio in the centre of Birmingham.

Cost? For STC members, this one-day event costs just £50. For non-members, the cost is £75. (Students and members of INTECOM-affiliated societies - such as ISTC - are eligible to book at the STC member rate.)"

RoboHelp 6 released

In case you missed it, RoboHelp 6 was released yesterday.

New features in RoboHelp 6 include:

User-defined variables that enable you to define global variables for certain text elements, so you can quickly change multiple instances of a term throughout a help system or knowledge base

RoboScreen Capture, which combines a screen capture application with an advanced image-editing utility

Conditional build tags for table of contents and index items

Adobe Acrobat Elements, which has been included in the package to enable help authors and technical communicators to generate accessible PDF files

Adobe Captivate integration, so you can launch a Captivate project from within RoboHelp and easily integrate simulations into help systems and knowledge bases

Command line compilation, so you can compile help systems without launching the RoboHelp 6 application

Reports on build tags, which allow you to generate snapshots of the number and type of build tags used in your help project

Easier WinHelp migration support

Various compatibility and stability improvements, including an enhanced user interface, improved import of Microsoft Word content, improved installers, and improved publishing of projects

RoboSource Control 3: Multiple authors no longer fighting over files

RoboHelp 6 and RoboHelp 6 Server replace RoboHelp Office, RoboHelp Office Pro, RoboEngine, and RoboInfo

So what are Adobe's plans for FrameMaker support?

"We are still evaluating how these products will support each other and other products (such as Adobe Captivate and Acrobat 3D) in the Adobe technical communications portfolio."

Is there Vista support?

"When Microsoft makes its Vista Help plans available, Adobe will take the necessary actions to ensure RoboHelp compatibility with Vista. "

This is pretty much what was promised when the RoboHelp team conducted user site visits in the UK back in 2005. Overall, let's give it two cheers.

30 second commercial - take 1

We help technology companies worried about the perceived value of their software and the cost of supporting end users. It's often due to user documentation that is unclear, too big or missing vital information.

I don't suppose your company is experiencing any of these issues? I'm referring to having more support calls than you'd like, even missed sales. If so, maybe we should talk.

Is Linkedin Answers the answer?

LinkedIn Answers was launched this week. Today I posted the question:

"Will LinkedIn Answers reduce the need for user manuals and technical authors?
Or are these services needed as a result of the "missing manual" syndrome?"

See http://www.linkedin.com/answers?viewQuestion=&questionID=6759&askerID=39724

I received 13, very thoughtful, answers.

What do you think?