Key Concept Archive

From Open Source Volunteer to Full-Time Tech Writer

In this talk, Gale describes a little bit about what open source software is and how she used her volunteer experience as an Apache Taverna committer to become a technical writer at Facebook. She describes the tangible and intangible skills she gained, as well as how she got noticed when…

Top 3 Things a Presenter (and Booth Staffer) Needs on the Road

Updated: 2018-07 – I found an even better booth bag. It’s conference season and that means many of us who present frequently are on the road at some point in the next few months. For me, the season starts with a 9-day trip that begins at STC Spectrum and ends…

The Art of Personal Branding: How to Tell the YOU Story and Gain New Customers

If you want someone to hire you or your company, you need to be able to tell your story: who you are, what your plan is, and what defines you. There are key points to address at each point in the story in order to gain customers. Whether you’re the…

How to use root-cause analysis to promote information supply chain methodologies

If your documentation process is implicated in a customer quality incident (CQI), Congratulations! You have the platform needed to shine a light on the problems you’ve been escalating for years. In this presentation, Seth Park will argue that errors in documentation are actually symptoms of underlying data flow issues. If…

Publish High-Quality, Print-Ready DITA in less than a day

b Post Summary Everyone says, “Publishing DITA is Hard!” But the truth is you can publish DITA content for ePub and Print output with very little work. The promise that vendors (like us) have been giving for 20 years is real today. I published Arbortext 101 in less than one day for…

Technology that solves the top technical problems for presenters (My Presenter’s Tech Kit)

b Post Summary Updated: 2018-07 This post details what is in my Presenter’s Tech Travel Kit. As a frequent presenter, I want to be prepared for any situation and I want it to always work. Ultimately, I’m responsible for solving any technical problems for presenters that arise because of the device I choose to…

Inclusive vs Exclusive Language and Corporate Culture

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA.gov) website recently published an article about how they customized a Slack bot to gently correct people who use the word “guys”. The GSA has a big job and a big audience and they wanted to make sure that the people writing content for that audience were aware…

What happens when you skimp on documentation?

In the TC Dojo last week we found out: Your company is at risk of debilitating lawsuits that, in the worst case, can put you out of business. Joe Devney, forensic linguist, editor, non-fiction writer, and previous STC chapter chair shared stories of companies who delivered insufficient, poorly-written documentation or who failed…

Herding Tigers – How Salesforce Let Go of Inline Links

Did you know that every manually-coded inline link comes at a cost? Did you know that customers don’t use them nearly as often as technical writers do? Join us to learn how we let go of manual links as a primary navigation tool, and as a result spend more time…

Fit the most information in the least amount of space

Writing instructions for products you can hold in your hand isn’t the same as writing for the software industry. In many cases, you’re creating paper documents to fit in small boxes, so page layouts matter. This session addresses the unique needs of writers in the manufacturing industry, but these tips…