When tech comm does other teams’ work

Should documentation be expected to do the job of other teams and departments to make up for their shortcomings? That was the essential question in an interesting conversation I once had with a fellow tech writer. It’s basically a twist on the general idea that you often have to pick two of the three: High [...]

Organize bookmarks in folders by task

Make the most of bookmarks by sorting them by tasks. That’s the lesson I learned after months of trudging along with a looong list of bookmarks. I would add links for later reading, then randomly pick pages to read or otherwise process, and it was not working. Around New Year’s, I cleaned up the mess, [...]

Improvements in Kai’s Tech Writing Blog

I’m now maintaining a page about past and upcoming articles and conferences called Elsewhere. It’s always available via the header tab. And I have new header photograph which a couple of readers have asked about: I have a passion for the American Southwest and like to hike its deserts and mountains. The picture shows springtime [...]

Improve documentation with quality metrics

Quality metrics for technical communication are difficult, but necessary and effective. They are difficult because you need to define quality standards and then measure compliance with them. They are necessary because they reflect the value add to customers (which quantitative metrics usually don’t). And they are effective because they are the only way to improve [...]

How you can exploit the “Big Disconnect”

By way of consumers, web 2.0 and social media present a disruptive influence on corporate IT: Existing “systems of records” face challenges by new “systems of engagement”. The thesis is by Geoffrey Moore in an AIIM white paper and presentation, and I’ve come across it by following some links in Sarah O’Keefe’s post “The technical [...]

Recommended read: Practice technical writing

Becoming a better tech writer requires practice. Mike Pope, tech editor at Microsoft in Seattle, has a brilliant blog post about 12 ways to practice tech writing. The catch is he means “practice” like a musician, so you learn to do stuff better than yesterday – instead of just doing the same things over and [...]