Your Own Words: Coding Your Content: The Web Reader as Browser, Part 1
Ever opened a web page in Notepad? Ever used your web browser’s “view source” feature? I certainly hope so. But if you haven’t, give it a try sometime. Code is extraordinary in its blandness. Find even...
View ArticleYour Own Words: Coding Your Content: The Web Reader as Browser, Part 2
In Part I of this article, I made some pretty bold comparisons between the workings of web browser software and those of human readers. I’ve offered some examples of direct translations of English...
View ArticleYour Own Words: Got Style?
Welcome to another edition of “Your Own Words.” This time I thought I’d throw a list of links at you; send you on a wild and webby chase straight through all the clutter available on the Internet; and...
View ArticleImmediacy vs. Perfectionism in Corporate Blogging
Cluetrain’s David Weinberger, in conversation with Fast Company: In part, you have to be willing to write really badly. That’s part of the deal; you have to willing to publish things, to make things...
View ArticleA Rundown of the “Writer” vs. “Communicator” Issue from STC
The government’s Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC) is under ongoing pressure from the Society for Technical Communication (STC) to modify its classification of those professionals...
View Article“About Us” Information on Websites
Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox reports finding “a 9 percent improvement in the usability of ‘About Us’ information on Websites over the past five years, but companies and organizations are largely still...
View ArticleThe Growing Need for Terminology Management
I continually marvel at just how intrusive ‘luck following the prepared’ can be. I’m trying to work over here! Anyway, just in time to fortify my current research diet into Content Strategy, in Whaddya...
View ArticleStandards as the Enemy of the Good
Neil Perlin, from “Perfect vs. Good Enough”—Writing Quality in the Online Age: I got a call from a dot-com looking for a “content provider.” It was the first time I’d ever heard that title so I laughed...
View ArticleProviding writing support to sales reps IS sales enablement
Gerhard Gschwandtner talks with Deborah Dumaine of Better Communications about the importance of good writing for sales success. The usual suspects are all here: Don’t make it all about your company...
View ArticleThis Writer’s 2012 New Years Blogging Resolutions
I’ve begun to feel a convergence lately—of tools and motivation, of desire and actual potentials toward reality, of wherewithal and professional and personal need, of hubris and humility. I ain’t all...
View Article