You're probably saying to yourself, Am I in the right blog? You are. One of the things I see in this business are companies who hear about DITA and the benefits of an XML-based publication system and say, Yes, verily. Make it so! They believe that it's just a matter of taking their current content and converting it to DITA and they're done. ...

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Today I answer interview questions from Ugur Akinci in his Technical Communication Center blog.  I talk about my career, the current state of technical communication, and why I got into the profession.

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I heard this song this morning and it got me thinking about things. The big question that I had to answer for myself had nothing to do with my personal relationships but with my career. It's a simple question that everyone needs to answer at one point or another. Why are they in their chosen field? The basic answer is because they love what the...

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I'll admit it quite readily. More often than not, I'll recommend to clients that they should convert to DITA. I'll also recommend in most cases, the task, concept and reference model DITA provides fits their needs. I'll usually not constrain those models or use DTD shells for a client because I'm of the mind that somewhere along the line the client...

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Building a personal brand, Greg Hartle tells us, requires greater self awareness, less talking, and more doing. Look at the top people in our profession -- the top personal brands, if you will -- and you'll see that they follow this formula.

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Larry Kunz asked a very important question last week. If video is important to technical communications, how do you get the knowledge to produce video? While I think this is a good question, I think that Larry doesn't realize that he has a portion of the skills. The first key to all of it is the ability to tell a good story. Why do I say that? W...

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A new project brings new challenges: coordinating the work of a worldwide team, developing new technologies, and building something that enables my client to delight its customers. Will it be stressful? No - it'll be fun!

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