TechWhirl: Technical Communication Recap for August 10, 2012

[TechWhirl Admin <admin -at- techwhirl -dot- com>]

*This week’s update on technical communication and the TechWhirl community
is supported by Platinum sponsor ComponentOne & their Doc-To-Help Help
Authoring Tool <http://goo.gl/QcMWA> | http://bit.ly/doc-to-help*



Last week I mentioned an old thread from the TechWhirl email discussion
list in which I claimed “It’s all Marketing.” This week one of the
continuing threads concerns how to label a role/process in which data is
analyzed and presented (usually visually). The role Steve Janoff described
<http://www.techwr-l.com/archives/1208/techwhirl-1208-00003.html#.UCUp2U1lRK0>sounds
a lot like Business Intelligence, at least according to how the leading
vendors describe it.  Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of discussions that
center on what we should call ourselves, and I’ve come to the conclusion
that there may never be one overarching term to describe what we do.  And
despite the inherent need to categorize and label everything for purposes
of findability, this may be a good thing.



So perhaps it’s time to evolve my statement to reflect some of the more
recent trends and discussions going on in technical communication. “It’s
all communications” or “It’s all integrated communications” seem like
better alternatives. It’s high level enough to allow lots of overlapping
sub-disciplines, and room for all kinds of wonderfully offbeat job titles
(Al is still Head of Janitorial Services and I’m still Chief Cat Herder, in
case you’re wondering).



Still, the adversarial nature of the relationship (or lack thereof) between
technical communication and marketing is worth exploring, to find common
ground that allow us all to work towards goals that benefit the entire
organization.  Take a look at the classic article from Brett Peruzzi
on Building
Bridges Between Marketing and Technical Publications
Teams<http://techwhirl.com/ecosystem/marketing/building-bridges-between-marketing-and-technical-publications-teams/>to
get a sense of how long the battle and the peacekeeping efforts have
raged. Take some time to tell us if in fact you actually create marketing
content by voting in this week’s technical communication
poll<http://techwhirl.com/business/polls/technical-communication-poll-creating-marketing-content/>.
If you’re as much of a tool geek as I am, spend some time with Mike
McCallister’s –in-depth review of Adobe RoboHelp
10<http://techwhirl.com/software/help-authoring/robohelp-10-help-authoring-for-the-modern-era/>.
Then cap it off with Craig Cardimon’s curation of top technical
communications and related
posts<http://techwhirl.com/technical-communications-news/this-week-in-tech-comm/tech-writer-this-week-for-august-9-2012/>from
around the web.



If there’s not yet much common ground between marketing and technical
communication (and by extension other areas), then perhaps we can find a
new role for technical communication professionals dissatisfied with titles
such as Technical Writer or Information Designer.  How about
“Organizational Diplomat”?



Have a great weekend

-The gang at TechWhirl
In Case You Missed it: This Week @ TechWhirl

*New features and articles on http://TechWhirl.com <http://techwhirl.com/>**
:*


   - Tech Writer This Week for August 9, by Craig Cardimon |
   http://bit.ly/MT7TQ2
   - Technical Communication Poll: Creating Marketing Content |
   http://bit.ly/O07EH2
   - RoboHelp 10: Help Authoring for the Modern Era, by Mike McCallister |
   http://bit.ly/MORk7O
   - Classic: Building Bridges Between Marketing and Technical Publications
   Teams, by Brett Peruzzi | http://bit.ly/OGjh4F



*Tech Comm News on http://News.TechWhirl.com <http://news.techwhirl.com/>:*


   - New Gleanster Research on Best Practices in Web Content Management |
   http://bit.ly/QMJhhY
   - TechSmith Launches Camtasia Relay 4.1 with Hosted Option |
   http://bit.ly/QIiHGw
   -  Vasont Systems Appoints Jim Braselman as Director of Business
   Development | http://bit.ly/RRLXFZ
   - STC Issues Call for Proposals for 2013 Summit | http://bit.ly/Rjf6Og

Social Media and the Chance to Follow TechWhirl:

   - Our Google Plus Page – what’s happening behind the scenes |
   http://goo.gl/SO0R4
   - Will you be our Friend? Please, you know you want to click |
   http://goo.gl/tDrW7
   - Want all this TechWhirl goodness a few characters @ a time |
   http://goo.gl/itjDg
   - Updates from TechWhirl delivered to your email in box |
   http://bit.ly/tjshxU
   - Or, try our RSS feed (great on Flipboard) | http://goo.gl/msLzu

SPONSOR-Luv

We want to send a very special “thank you” to our sponsors for their
support.



*Platinum*: Adobe Systems
Incorporated<http://www.runaware.com/clients/adobe/techsuite/>

*Gold: *ComponentOne Software <http://bit.ly/doc-to-help>,* *Madcap
Software<http://www.madcapsoftware.com/products/flare/overview.aspx#whatsnew>
**

*Silver*: Society for Technical Communication (STC)
<http://www.stc.org/>, Vancouver
Island University <http://pr.viu.ca/techcomm/>

-- 


TechWhirl.com
Online Magazine and Discussions for Today's Tech Writer

Follow TechWhirl on
Twitter:         @TechWriterToday
Facebook:     facebook.com/techwriterlist
Google+:     plus.ly/TechWhirl

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help. Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need.

Try Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days.

http://bit.ly/doc-to-help

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-leave -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com


Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwhirl.com/email-discussion-groups/ for more resources and info.

Looking for articles on Technical Communications?  Head over to our online magazine at http://techwhirl.com

Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions?  Search our public email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives