Driving TechCommNZ in the Cloud

October 2014

Author-it has been a TechCommNZ supporter for many years and a conference sponsor since 2001. Author-it has also donated licences to TechCommNZ so we can use its Cloud-based authoring solutions to compile our Operations Manual.

Author-it allows writers to manage their content in a way that was never possible with Word. You can create ‘blocks’ of content and then use it to build books, websites, user guides, and many other forms of content.

The key to Author-it is single sourcing – managed correctly, there will be “only one source of the truth”, so if a picture, piece of text, or even a hyperlink changes in one place, it will change wherever you used it in one fell swoop.

For a number of years now, TechCommNZ has been fortunate to have access to several licences for Author-it Cloud. This means we’ve been able to develop a searchable, easily navigable Operations Manual for our policies and procedures – and yes, even a small organisation like TechCommNZ needs driving instructions!

So, for anyone game enough to organise a branch event or write a guest blog post, it's easy to look up the how-to information, which is published as HTML and hosted on a passworded website. TechCommNZ committee members can access the manual by simply opening a browser. No printing, envelopes, stamps or pigeons are required to share the content.

The nature of the Cloud means the content authors can log into the database whether we’re in Auckland, or Bluff, or even Outer Mongolia, and add to or edit the manual.

Even better, Author-it does the software maintenance for the Cloud, saving TechCommNZ committee members a whole heap of time and technical jiggery pokery.

What does this mean for you?

Organising a branch event, or writing a blog post, doesn’t have to be scary. Guidelines – and even forms – are in the manual, so you won’t be starting from scratch. And if you're interested in learning Author-it, and need a real-life project to learn on, you could consider joining the authoring team.

Email vicepresident@tcanz.org.nz to find out more.

Louisa Eades