One thing I always find after our irregular and far-too-infrequent coffeeshop or dinner-table meetups is a renewed sense of purpose and vigor for our various mutual projects. XML has been on my radar for a while, but filed under “yes, I know I need to learn it to advance my career, but I don’t really want to mess with it right now.” Now it’s a few steps closer, perhaps even re-filed as “why, that’s something I can do in my ‘spare’ time, and it’d be easy to do with this material.”

I’m coming to terms with several facts…
1. I’m an editor, not a writer.  Yes, I can write prose (QED), but it’s not a talent, just an extension of understanding the language.
1b. Actually, I’m not sure I’m wholly an editor — but I don’t know enough about Information Architecture, indexing or any other technical writing sub-topic to have a better identity to claim yet.  I’m support staff — I rearrange, collate and organize. I can design small things, and I can mimic and reverse-engineer, but I don’t quite have the scope of vision necessary to be a leader or innovator.  And that’s okay.
2. Deadlines are not an enemy. In fact, they are a mark of the structure that I thrive within.  When a project can be done “oh, just any old time,” it’s only chance of not being procrastinatingly shelved is if it inspires a burning, consuming passion that leaves me no choice but to obsessively fill my days with it.
3. “Impossible” deadlines are an enemy. When I can’t see a clear path to the goal, when everything seems to conspire against my success, Avoidance kicks in and I fulfill my own pessimism.
4. I say that I “love a challenge,” but what I really love is Performing The Rare Deed — excercising my [existing] skill for something unique or something that nobody else has been able to do (at least, in the eyes of the audience).

Oh look, lint!

* “Madness is just what Genius looks like to small minds, and we’re all small minds compared to The Doctor.” — Steven Moffat

But enough self-deprecation! It’s a new year and as good an excuse as any to begin anew. I just need to tidy up around here, clean out a few posts not related to my career and make room for content that at least demonstrates my word-wrangling ability. Mind you, dear reader, I’m primarily an editor and document designer. I prefer to provide the behind-the-scenes support to those with the wit, imagination and talent to be “published authors.” A Pepper Potts to the Tony Starks in the world of prose.

Naturally, this renewed interest in developing this particular pocket of my online presence and record is inspired by a handful of literary projects I’m about to begin with one of my aforementioned Tony Starks. This, of course, means I’m about to get very busy. However, it also means that I’ll be in “project mode”, so slipping personal projects (this journal and perhaps even a new portfolio) into that flow should be relatively successful.

A Google search provides quite a bit more information, including the VP of TechRepublic, Bob Artner, providing a short video with tips for professional blogging.

For ease of reference, his tips boil down to this…
Don’t make the mistakes of personal blogging:

• Bloviate (pompous)
• Loud
• Obnoxious
• Gabby

Instead, remember these principles to put your best face forward:

• Tone — keep a professional tone
• Audience — address a broad audience
• Focus — stay on topic
• Frequency — generate content frequently
• Yourself — be genuine

Sounds simple, right? A blog is a friendly and congenial PR channel to discuss your industry, products, clients and the topics that relate to them all. Your audience comes to you, unlike traditional marketing. Your company is your focus/topic. You can have nearly anyone at your company, or even your clients, do the writing. … but is it really that simple?

Even the casual blog needs to present ideas concisely, honestly and effectively. No reader wants to comb through pages of an article that reads like a stereo manual or a political ad. The effectiveness of a blog depends on several qualities, in addition to those described in Artner’s video. (Sorry, no cute acronyms here.)

1. Informative – the signal-to-noise ratio has got to be high enough to add value, or your article won’t be worth the effort to keep it bookmarked or linked
2. Engaging – enjoyable/witty writing style that hooks and keeps the reader’s attention
3. Accessible – easy to get to and subscribe to (Atom and RSS feeds having moved into the position of the Usenet newsgroups of the ’80s and ’90s), with an eye to simple and even cross-platform presentation to reach an increasingly mobile audience

Readership
In fact, if the goal is to generate an audience (and even a community), thereby increasing market traffic, these elements are absolutely ESSENTIAL. Granted, those Fortune 500 companies can simply rely on brand-recognition to generate traffic, even to their blogs, and they have a much larger pool of contributors. How does the ubiquitous “little guy” get and keep an audience? If your company is lucky enough to be part of a community-minded industry, such as “green” construction or vehicles, open-source software, or even certain pockets of consumer goods, your audience will usually form its own community (if it’s not already out there, waiting for you to tap in). Some research to identify your audience is well worth the time and effort.

Once you know who your readership will be, consider what kind of impression they already have of you. What does your corporate website already say? Do you already provide the public with press releases and other marketing information? Is a blog going to be redundant, or will it enhance your existing image? Think about the message(s) you want to send… and receive. Some experts even suggest that well-orchestrated blogs can substitute for the traditional one-way communication of websites or press-releases, creating a much more personal relationship with the dialog inherent in the medium.

A large software giant like Sun Microsystems certainly adds a “human” face with an entire network of employee-generated blogs. Microsoft (at least, their Automatic Update team) uses blogging as a means to announce and discuss support and product issues. It’s not just the big fish, though; small businesses can benefit by using blogs, if you understand the “blogosphere” and its residents.

Next Episode
Next time, we’ll address blog content. In the meantime, here’s some homework…
Blogging Beginner Mistakes and counterpoints
Writing Style for Blogging
Blogging Techniques
Usability Tips

oh, and re-read Chris Campbell’s Argument for Small Business Blogging

But what exactly is FPS, you ask? Well, you can look here, but to summarize:

Well, a handful of 4-person teams are given a “fuzzy”. That’s a vague description of a problematic situation, which might boil down to something like “Officials at Whatsit School District are concerned about the increasing truancy in the area,” or “The lead engineers of Rockets R Us have found that the valve seals of the SR23 rockets have been shipped to Siberia, exposing them to -50°F temperatures.” Then each team brainstorms problems, both those contributing to the situation and those arising from it, by writing ideas on slips of paper for 20 minutes. Ideas can be spoken and even discussed (in brief), and ideas can be based on others, but no critique is allowed. When the time is up, the slips are gathered and sorted by group consensus to weed out duplicates, then the remaining selection is narrowed down to 20 items. These 20 items are assessed by the team, who decides which one underlying problem they will attempt to solve. This is written up in more detail, then the team brainstorms solutions to this problem. These are also sorted and reduced to a list of 20. The team then writes 5 positive criteria (least cost to taxpayers, fastest to implement), picks 8 solutions and scores them based on the 5 criteria. The winning solution is then written into a one-page presentation covering all aspects of implementation (Who, What, Where, When, Why and How). We affectionately called this write-up the “Snow Job”. Guess who nearly always got chosen for that task? *beaming smile*

Four years of this.

Combined with one of the top high school English curricula in the state of Indiana, a passion for reading that started at age 4, and a love of computers that started around age 9, I was primed for a career in Technical Writing. I just wish I’d known in college that Computer Science (before “IS” or “IT” became the field-name) would be the way to go, rather than Physics and Linguistics.

I’d like to personally welcome you to the wit and (hopefully!) wisdom of a professional word wrangler. I’m a technical writer for a small software company in Dallas, TX, with over a decade of experience in the IT industry. I’ve made a few attempts to write fiction, but I am sadly lacking the storyteller’s gift. Organization and analysis, on the other hand, come easily. I’m still fairly new to my chosen career in technical writing, with only a few years under my belt, but my passion for detail and accuracy seem to serve me quite well.

Since I don’t have a college degree as a technical writer (as yet), I’m left to my own devices for researching techniques and methods. What I’ve found over the years is a painful lack of technical writers talking about technical writing. Plenty of fiction writers maintain blogs and write novels about writing novels, but where are the documenters, the knowledge base content creators, the managers of the volumes of information that is the lifeblood of almost every IT company? (Answer: they’re busy.)

So, in an effort to fill that gap, perhaps with useful and insightful information for other budding technical writers, I present you with this documentation of my journey.

Thusly acoustically armed, with a big mug of orange-spice tea to sip and hummus+pita to nibble, I’ll now be getting back to writing some test cases.