It's been a while since I've written in this blog. I was going to write this article last week but there were things that demanded my attention so I had to put it off until today. Now that the apology is out of the way, let me get to the topic. On April 18, I attended a meeting of the local STC chapter and the topic was about the experience that C...

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When was the last time you really sat down and tried to understand the purpose of the information an SME wanted in a document? Did you really look into the motivation behind the plethora of content you're wading through to create what you think the user needs? One of the keys to successful technical writing is understanding why information is impo...

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I don't usually look at oil change stickers but just recently I did. Take a look at the image on the left. Do you see the problem? (Hint: It's not the blur or the mileage.) That's right; the date is not right. If I hadn't dealt with the merchant that put this sticker on my windshield I would probably never go back to them. I'm usually pretty forgi...

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In nature, everything has a balance. Most of this is because the nature of energy; it can be converted but never destroyed. Even looking at the human body, when part of it becomes damaged, the rest of it adjusts to compensate for the damage. My knee reminds me about the search for balance almost daily. What does this have to do with technical co...

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There's an interesting discussion going on in the DITA Awareness Group on LinkedIn about whether there is a need for DITA certification. I found this to be an interesting question and the discussion is a pretty good one with voices on both sides. I think that the original poster was looking to answer the question, "How do I know whether someone of...

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A little while back I wrote about taking the plunge and letting go of the hardcopy of my local newspaper in favor of the e-edition. In that post, I talked about some of the benefits but I mostly bemoaned the experience because it wasn't quite what I thought it could be. Today, I have to report the opposite. I now have a reading experience that's su...

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Those who follow me on Twitter might have noticed that I mentioned the vehicle on the right as a great Christmas gift. It was a joke and possibly a dream but it got me thinking about things in general. Those of us in technical communications and information architecture do strive for some great things at times. While we don't exactly think our w...

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