2010 April | I Heart Technical Writing, Tips, Tools and Templates for Technical Writers

Entries from April 26th, 2010

The Importance of Measuring Productivity: 10 Biggest Mistakes I’ve Made in 2010 So Far

April 26th, 2010 · View Comments · Leadership

Every three months, I examine the performance of my business, my team and our products. It’s the simplest way I’ve found to measure productivity and ensure that we stay on track. The phrase,’Fail to prepare, prepare to fail’, often comes to mind when we do this assessment. If you don’t know your mistakes you’re going [...]

My Top Ten Favorite Technical Writing Tools

April 25th, 2010 · View Comments · Technical Writing

I’ll be honest. I love Microsoft Word! Adobe FrameMaker has it’s moment but, y’know, it’s can be so lame that it beggar’s belief. I’ve used the same technical writing tools for the last 5 years. A few products have come across my desk but nothing that really blown me away. Here’s a run-down of what I use to write my technical documents. No order of preference. Which should I keep? Which should I replace?

How to Setup a Technical Writing Department

April 22nd, 2010 · View Comments · Technical Writing

This year I’ve helped two companies setup their Technical Documentation Departments. To be honest, they call them Technical Communications Department, but that’s another matter. One of the problems in getting the dept setup was communicating the value that the tech docs dept could offer other business units and also how it would save them money. In the end we got there but there was a lot of negotiating and arm-twisting along the way.