RE: The future of tech comm: podcasting? -- YES!

["Sarah Stegall" <siliconwriter -at- comcast -dot- net>]

Steve: Your point is well taken. After the laughter dies down, and one
thinks soberly (what, on FRIDAY?) about this, I can see a case for it. It's
possible that non-native English speakers/readers might have a better time
of it *hearing* instructions read aloud in a clear, well modulated voice.
Right now all our customers are in north America, but we anticipate overseas
sales soon, including Asia. Possibly an audio version of the documentation
would work better for them. I don't know; does anyone have any experience
here?
One idea that occurred to me was to use my Mac's text-to-speech capability.
I can select the text I want it to read and then the Mac will speak it
aloud. Of course, it sounds like a deranged robot, but it's an improvement
on, say, William Shatner reading it aloud. My real question is: how would I
capture this? I'm not sure my Mac can record *itself* reading aloud.
I think I'll call up a chapter of the user manual, select it, and leave the
text-to-speech function running while I go to lunch, just to see how this
play here in the office. Who knows? I may have a whole new future in
multimediacasting here...

Sarah

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Brown [mailto:stevenabrown -at- yahoo -dot- com] 
Sent: Friday, August 12, 2005 6:15 AM
To: Sarah Stegall; TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: The future of tech comm: podcasting? -- YES!

We should not should laugh too hard or too long at
ideas like podcasting. If we want to ensure the
long-term viability of our profession, we have to
think beyond "documentation" and realize that what we
really do is educate. We need to be open to
educational and communication media that transcend
FrameMaker files and the traditional online help
systems that we've grown used to. (Heck, our users
aren't reading much of it anyway.)

If my customers came to me and said they'd be open to
a podcast to explain new features and functionality,
I'd be crazy for not giving it a try. While not
suitable for every situation, it could be interesting.

Steven Brown
Technical Writer (or something like that)


--- Sarah Stegall <siliconwriter -at- comcast -dot- net> wrote:

> After posting a recently completed document to the
> company internal website
> for review, I find myself getting several requests
> for an *audio* version of
> the document.  The document is a 135 page SDK,
> complete with code examples.
> Since when do developers get audio versions of a
> developer's guide??  And
> these guys aren't kidding. They're serious.
> I've told them I'm contacting Bo Bice (American Idol
> runner-up this year) to
> see about having him sing the audio version.  Maybe
> we should put up a
> podcast on the company website?
> 
> Sarah


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