At Intellect (the trade association for UK technology companies) yesterday, there was a meeting looking at how UK software companies are faring in this current economic climate. At this event, a panel of software companies CEOs and directors discussed the key issues they are currently facing and the future economic climate for this industry sector. What struck me… Read more »
Cherryleaf Blog
Lessons for technical communicators from the telecommunications sector
It’s often useful to look at the economic and technological pressures in other industries, to see if the trends emerging there are relevant to the technical communications/publications sector. In recent Blogs, we’ve covered the issues emerging in education, but the telecommunications industry might also provide some useful insights. Lee Dryburgh, organiser of the Emerging Communications Conference, has been interviewed… Read more »
If your Technical Publications department was a business
Sometimes it’s good for managers to look at a department in a slightly different way from normal. What, for example, if the Technical Publications department was a business? If a business troubleshooter were to come in and ask key commercial questions, could they be answered? Questions such as: Would it know how many customers it had?… Read more »
“Push me, Pull me” dilemma for technical authors
There are a number of posts on various Blogs, at the moment, concerning documents as conversation and moving beyond the traditional manual. Some of the comments suggest implicitly that technical authors (aka technical writers) could end up having to resolve two conflicting views regarding communicating with users. The problem is that many technical communicators work in hierarchical organisations where… Read more »
Which model of communication will technical communicators employ in the future?
About 44 minutes into his presentation, Michael Wesch talked about network size and the effect it traditionally has on the ways teachers communicate information to students. He said as the audience size increases, teachers have found they’ve had to get their students to participate less and follow more. He argued educators should and could move back to… Read more »