Download - Webcast: Trends in Technical Communication 2011

Trends in tech comm for 2011 and beyond

Sarah O’Keefe, Scriptorium PublishingNicky Bleiel, ComponentOne

background imageflickr: thelastminute

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Housekeeping notes

❖ Everyone is muted except for the two presenters

❖ Please ask your questions through the Questions area in the webcast interface

❖ The presentation is being recorded; attendees do not appear in the recording.


How is this webcast organized?❖ Three trends from each presenter.

❖ Discussion follows each trend.

❖ We expect audience participation via the Questions tab and in responding to polls.


Nicky Bleiel

❖ Senior Information Developer, ComponentOne

❖ Director, Society for Technical Communication

❖ Highly rated speaker at STC, WritersUA, tcworld, LavaCon, and DocTrain

❖ Articles published in STC Intercom,tcworld magazine, TechComManager, WritersUA website, and the Content Wrangler.


Trend 1, Nicky


Word is the new black

flickr: TPWP


Word is the new black

❖ Always part of the TC toolkit—but now more people are embracing it.

❖ Fits into Agile projects. Used widely in software and non-software doc TC projects.

❖ Plays well with SharePoint.


Sarah O’Keefe

❖ Founder and president, Scriptorium Publishing

❖ Content strategy fortech comm

❖ Interested in collision ofcontent, publishing, andtechnology


Trend 2, Sarah


The age of accountabilityPhoto: Saralyn Tett


Tech comm must prove business value.❖ Expect increased use of metrics/

analytics to measure effectiveness.

❖ Software/systems must show ROI, not just “ooh, shiny!”

❖ Basic tech comm will be commoditized, outsourced, or crowd-sourced.


Trend 3, Nicky


SharePoint as a content management system

flickr: keithroper


SharePoint as a CMS

❖ Many companies already have it and are using it enterprise-wide.

❖ New version (SP 2010) is easy to use and feature rich.

❖ Can tag files with metadata; features for versioning, workflow, permissions, translation management built-in.


Trend 4, Sarah


Schism?

flickr: aenima


Schism in tech comm?

❖ Traditional technical writing

❖ Help and books

❖ Modern tech comm

❖ Content strategy, screencasting, XML, content management

❖ Collaboration

❖ Business relevance


Trend 5, Nicky


Screenshot: blogs.msn.com/b/thehelpguy (Paul O’Rear)

Tripane help is here to stay


Tripane help is here to stay

❖ Exhibit A: Microsoft Help Viewer

❖ Workarounds for web-based scripting issues

❖ TOC, Index, Search = web navigation


Trend 6, Sarah


Cloud-based tech commflickr: fifikins


Cloud advantages are compelling...❖ Easier management of software

configuration and backup requirements

❖ Lowers overhead especially for smaller groups

❖ Eliminates requirement to work on a specific computer

❖ Hosting requirement an issue


Poll

❖ Your assessment of our trends.


Your turn: What trends do you see in tech comm?


Final notes

❖ scriptorium.com/resources/webcasts for the webcast recording in a day or two

❖ Check scriptorium.com/events for upcoming events


Contact information

❖ Nicky Bleiel, [email protected]

❖ Sarah O’Keefe,[email protected]


mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]