The Landscape Changes... Again
November
The latest edition of Southern Communicator is full of delights, as always. Neil Perlin canvasses latest trends in tech comms, listing HTML5, responsive (web) design (RWD), cloud-based software, topic-based authoring, structured authoring, analytics, and doing "it" right as the top must-dos for all of us. I must admit, I had to reread that last one to get it - by "it", he's talking about information technology:
No matter how powerful these technologies and methodologies, they won’t work well or at all without a solid technical foundation made up of proper coding and authoring tool use. Adding this level of rigour is both a trend and a challenge in technical communication as we correct bad legacy projects and correct our bad habits.
Anyone would think Neil has been to a conference recently - these are strong themes I detected at TCUK2014 and our very own TechCommNZ conference in Christchurch. At TCUK, Rahel Anne Baillie said of designing content for all platforms/RWD - stop talking about it - just DO it.
If any of these are new concepts for you, it's time to get on board. As I have been known to say, it's one thing to choose not to implement a technology (such as DITA, for example), but it's part of the job description to know what it is, and have some valid reasons if you're not investing in it. My excuse is usually time - what's yours?
Of all the trends that Neil discusses, I reckon Analytics is one of the easiest to implement (assuming that you're publishing web content to the web). The very engaging Roger Hart of Red Gate Software presented on this subject at TCUK, and had me totally entranced with his explanation of how Red Gate used analytics to demonstrate that their technical writers are generating content that:
- is being used by prospects
- to make a decision to purchase the product
...which is all we need to do to be seen as part of the Marketing team and therefore part of Revenue Generation, not just Overheads!
Red Gate started data-gathering with the free product Google Analytics, and have moved on to more sophisticated analytics tools (I'll look up my notes if you're interested in the details - let me know).
We all need to run to keep up, but there's never been a more exciting time in technical communication. If you have particular training needs in any of the spaces listed above, please let us know.
To access the journal, you must log in to the TechCommNZ website, then select Members Area > Southern Communicator Journal > Subscriber Access and click the button...
Emma Harding