Jan 11, 2012 in Society
Thanks, MindTouch for including me (as Twitter: @techcom) in the Top 50 (#24 of 400) Most Influential in Technical Communications and Content Strategy for 2011.
I am most excited that I have met most of the 400 on the list face-to-face, and respect them as mentors, colleagues, and friends.
Continue reading: Way cool! I’m Influencer no. 24 of 400 #TechCommm and #ContentStrategy
May 12, 2011 in Society
I can’t believe it’s already been a year since I was caught gushing about last year’s Summit 2010 on video by Kevin Cuddihy, the STC Media Manager (and STC Notebook blogger). Many of the sentiments I made back then, about being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of interesting sessions causing conflict in my schedule, are […]
May 28, 2010 in Productivity
One of my really cool projects is to harness the collaborative CMS features of MediaWiki as a means to store comments within an HTML-based help system. I thought I’d start by implementing a forms-based entry that created wiki pages when first loaded, but after getting so far I’ve been banging my head against the wall.
Let me explain what I’ve done so far, with the hope that someone out there on teh Interweb would be able to help me out. I’ll post an update when I get it sorted out. (Sorry, I’m not posting screen shots to save time.
May 09, 2010 in Society
In the interest of time, I thought I’d share the photos I took in Dallas with the world the quickest way possible. I quickly weeded through the doubles and darkies on my disk, imported them into iPhoto, then exported them into a new Picasa album. This is my first attempt to embed a Picasa album.
Read the write up for more insight.
Jan 02, 2010 in Strategy
Tony Chung: Creative Communications
Several technical communicators have had a hard time reconciling the value-add proposition for renewing their membership with the Society for Technical Communication. Some have been very vocal about the society’s lack of support, lack of expertise, lack of understanding, and lack of relevance for the communications field. In blunt terms, the STC is a dinosaur, with a business and operations model that doesn’t fit the current trends. Some of the outspoken include volunteers like myself who thought we could help initiate and support change from the inside. Fortunately I am involved in the very active Society for Technical Communication – Canada West Coast Chapter, which is experiencing a new wave of volunteers who thrive on connecting within this community. As well, I participate in a couple of really experienced special interest groups, the Single Sourcing (officially), and Contractors and Independent Consulting (locally).
After the 2006 summit a fellow chapter member observed that technical communicators are expanding from the traditional plan/interview/write model into the facilitation and editing of user authored content. This exciting trend from writer to enabler has always appealed to me, because I’ve always been on the periphery of traditional technical writing. While I am technical and I love to write, I also have a passion for music and multimedia, web design and programming, graphic design and illustration, and performing. It’s been difficult finding jobs that match my level of interest in technology and my love to write. That said, I’ve found lots of work in the web development arena, and am excited at being able to harness these skills and abilities in my current job, along with writing and editing.
In this post I describe at length why the STC has me for at least another year.
Continue reading: Just renewed STC Membership for 2010 — here’s why
Jul 25, 2009 in Personality
From August 4 to the 20 I’ll be taking the family to visit my wife’s parents in Ontario. In addition to all the fun family stuff, I plan to meet up with other web developers, technical communicators, musicians, worship leaders, and social media afficionados while I’m there.
Pretty exciting stuff. Send me a private message if you have time to meet for coffee.
Continue reading: Travel planning for family fun and finanace
Apr 16, 2009 in Philosophy
Today’s post is merely a pet peeve I have about the lack of concern people have about the copyright statement at the bottom of their sites and documents. I used the traditional publishing copyright statements since my foray into comic book publishing back in the 80s. Naturally, this becomes the default format I turn to when I write my copyright statements. It also makes me sound like a stickler about seemingly insignificant details.
Note: It's important for me to tell you this is an affiliate link which helps to subsidize the cost of my web hosting.
