I’d Rather Be Writing – Tom Johnson

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Length: 11 min.

Forms that Work

In this podcast, Caroline Jarret talks about her new book, Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability, which she co-authored with Gerry Gaffney. Forms she discusses go beyond merely the type of IRS forms you fill out at tax time. Every website usually has some online form to collect information from users, from registration information to subscription information to purchasing information.

Caroline talks about the perceived value users must feel in order to part with their precious personal information. She explores why people dislike forms, and how companies can get around these dislikes to increase the usability of their forms, moving beyond appearance and layout and instead focusing more on relationships and conversation.

See the companion website to Forms That Work.

Buy Forms That Work: Designing web forms for usability from Amazon.

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Length: 35 min.

This is part II of the Blogging, Podcasting, and Screencasting presentation that I gave to the TransAlpine conference in Vienna in June 2009. For more details about the podcast, see the first write-up. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, listen to that first (unless you prefer to arrive en media res).

Here’s the accompanying PowerPoint.

If you’re wondering why I didn’t just combine the two audio files in the same post, iTunes doesn’t read the second audio file that way. Also, most people’s attention spans tend to time out after an hour.

As always, I love to hear feedback, so if you enjoyed listening to the presentation, drop me a line or leave a comment. Thanks.

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Length: 50 min.

This podcast is a recording of the Blogging, Podcasting, and Screencasting presentation that I gave to the TransAlpine conference in Vienna in June 2009. In the presentation, I explore what well-known bloggers, podcasters, and screencasters do to inspire readers to become devoted followers rather than just casual subscribers.

Devoted followers stay updated with each new post, podcast, or screencast, eagerly awaiting the next new one. They’re intimately familiar with your content and either comment regularly or regularly return to your site. In contrast, casual subscribers may check out the site from time to time (if they even remember the title), but they feel no loyalty to the blogger/podcaster/screencaster. Months could pass without an update and they wouldn’t notice.

Rather than explore blogs, podcasts, and screencasts as separate media with their own unique characteristics, I group them together and explore eight common characteristics that make blogs/podcasts/screencasts successful: relevance, story, appropriate revealing, voice, readability, visibility, interaction, and regularity.

If you want to follow the PowerPoint, view it here. It’s not sync’ed with the audio, so you just have to guess where I am (but the PowerPoint is mostly visual anyway, since that’s my PowerPoint style). Also, because of the length (90 minutes overall), I divided the podcast into two parts. This is part 1.

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Length: 9 min.

In this podcast, I talk with Anne Gentle about her forthcoming book, Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation. Anne explains how we’ve transitioned from the Age of Information to the Age of Interaction, using social web tools to find the information we need. She builds on her experiences with One Laptop per Child, Book Sprints, and her experiences as a corporate blogger for BMC software. In her book, she talks about the future of documentation, the writer’s role, community and documentation, commenting and connecting with users, structured authoring with wikis, and more. The book will be published by mid-summer 2009. Keep updated about the release of Ann’s book by following her blog, JustWriteClick.com.

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Length: 26 min.

In this podcast, I talk with Anna Parker Richards, incoming president of the STC Toronto chapter, about their event-driven chapter model, in which they replace regular meetings with periodic all-day events, charging between $50 to $150 per person.

They haven’t entirely discarded meetings in favor of events, but have instead supplemented the events with social gatherings. Their new model, the Five and Five Model, has five events and five socials throughout the year. Each of their events has a specific focus, such as Career Day (targeted to students), a Tech Trends Evening, Education Day, Management Day, and an Annual General Meeting. If you’re looking to put new life into your chapter, try modeling your program after STC Toronto.

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Length: 9 min.

In this podcast, I talk with Richard Hamilton about his new publishing imprint, XML Press. Richard started XML Press to serve the needs of technical communicators, publishing books on topics that may not get traction from large publishing houses due to the limited audience, but which perfectly fit a smaller, niche technical communication audience. Focusing on practical topics that technical communicators can use to improve their jobs, XML Press already has one book available and two forthcoming:

• Managing Writers: A Real World Guide to Managing Technical Documentation, by Richard Hamilton
• Wiki: Grow Your Own for Fun and Profit, by Alan J. Porter (coming soon)
• Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation, by Ann Gentle (coming soon)

Richard is looking for topics related to technical communication and XML. If you’re looking to write a book on technical communication, be sure to check out XML Press. Richard also has a blog called Managing Writers.

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Length: 14 min.

At the STC Summit, I ran into someone from Australia who follows my wife’s blog fairly regularly and had even brought gifts for her and the kids. It made me reflect on blog subscribers, and how you convert readers from being occasional readers to devoted fans.

In this podcast, Kirsty Taylor talks about what she finds appealing about Seagull Fountain (my wife’s blog) and other blogs she follows. Kirsty explains that, for her, blogs become powerful when they speak to her heart, make her reflect, and reveal authentically from the blogger’s life in an appropriate way. We also talk about transparency, authenticity, the use of pseudonyms, the portrayal of reality, and the importance of making personal connections.

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Length: 7 min.

In this podcast, Mike Hamilton of Madcap Software talks about their phased approach to handling DITA with Flare. In Phase I, you’ll have the ability to import DITA topics and export to webhelp and other targets. In this sense, Flare functions as a transform engine. In Phase 2, you can use Flare for native DITA authoring. Phase 1 is on the cusp of release, but Phase II won’t be available until quarter one of next year.

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Length: 11 min.

In this podcast, Sarah O’Keefe of Scriptorium Publishing explains the results of their recent survey about the state of structured authoring in technical communication. In the survey, they found that 84% of respondents are either thinking of moving to structured authoring, are in the process of moving to structured authoring, have already adopted structured authoring, or are undecided. Only 16% of respondents said they were not moving to structured authoring. She also discusses other survey results, such as the adoption of DITA and mistakes people make in moving to structured authoring.

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Length: 9 min.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Disaster Preparedness is John Hedtke’s latest book—the 26^th book he’s written. In it, Hedtke explains that although most people think disasters are only major catastrophes, such as earthquakes, tornadoes, or floods, actually a disaster occurs whenever your needs exceed your resources and your ability to respond, and the normal processes of your life are disrupted. In this interview, I also ask John about book publishing—what his writing routine is, what advice he has for writers, and what keeps him motivated.

See John Hedtke’s site.