September-October 2009

© kentoh/Fotolia

We discussed Lessons Learned in the E-learning Trenches in our September 16 meeting. As part of my on-going quest to keep current with Web trends, I tapped into my social media network (LinkedIn) for some Web 2.0 insight. The complete discussion is available here, but the following piece (from Milo Dodds via the eLearning Guild) was the best of the lot.

  1. You only have so much time and so many resources at your disposal. Look at what is most important to your clients and make those your priority projects. Not every project needs learning developed for it, so don’t get bogged down with little meaningless projects unless you’ve taken care of the important ones first.
  2. What is your core competency? You might find that your internal resources ought to be focused on managing the client relationship. That might mean you outsource the design and development of some aspects.

    3. Read the full article…

Who Needs Starbucks?

Not us. Not when the Cedarville University STC chapter is selling fresh-roasted, private-label coffee to raise funds for their spring trip to Indianapolis.

Each year the TPC (Technical and Professional Communication) students choose a city to visit where they can tour companies who hire technical writers and meet those who work there. In April 2010, the group will visit Indianapolis where recent grad, Adam Evans, works for ExactTarget, a company that provides software applications for on-demand email marketing.
Read the full article by Sandi Harner…

Keys to Effective Editing

Tech writers document processes, organize procedures, and pay great attention to detail. One of their often-unacknowledged activities is editing. In an attempt to strengthen my technical writing skills, I recently completed an online course from www.ed2go.com entitled “The Keys to Effective Editing”.

The instructor stated that the primary responsibility of an editor is to clarify the author’s words and intent. An editor doesn’t create additional material; an editor doesn’t insert words into the author’s mouth…
Read the full article by Margaret VanWinkle…

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