Plain English Videos From Common Craft Make Understanding New Technology Easy

August 31, 2008 Blog No Comments

I can’t say enough good things about The Common Craft Show and their excellent video series designed to help regular, ordinary humans understand technological topics. Take a few minutes and view a few of the most popular selections below. Then, share them with others—friends, relatives, and co-workers—who would benefit from these easy-to-understand video tutorials. It’s some of the best free content on the web today! Social Media in Plain English A simple story that illustrates the forces shaping social media. Podcasting in Plain English A 3 minute explanation of podcasting. Read the full article…

Web Operations Management and Web 2.0: An Interview with Lisa Welchman

August 29, 2008 Blog No Comments

David Hobbs, senior consultant at Welchman Consulting, interviews his boss, Lisa Welchman, about the discipline known as Web Operations Management and why organizations need it. “The more collaborative and free you want to be on your public facing Web sites, or intranets, for that matter, the more operational controls and policies you need to have in place in order to ensure quality,” says Welchman. Read the interview and grab yourself a copy of Web Operations Management: A Primer. Wom Primer View SlideShare document or Upload your own.

Web Operations Management and Web 2.0: An Interview with Lisa Welchman

August 29, 2008 Blog No Comments

David Hobbs, senior consultant at Welchman Consulting, interviews his boss, Lisa Welchman, about the discipline known as Web Operations Management and why organizations need it. DH: Hi Lisa, you and I talk about Web Operations Management all day, but some readers of The Content Wrangler may not be familiar with the term. So, what is Web Operations Management? LW: Web Operations Management (WOM) is a discipline which provides a framework for organizations to effectively manage their Web sites. Currently, organizations manage Web site in all sorts of haphazard ways. This Read the full article…

[Member Profile] Meet MJ Broadbent

August 29, 2008 Blog No Comments

Information and Interaction Design Consultant, MJ Broadbent, President of MJ Broadbent Design, is a formally-trained graphic designer who swerved into Information Architecture and User Experience Design twelve years ago and never looked back. She says she’s “one of those people who can’t help but create order from chaos and broker improved communications—of all kinds.” Learn more about MJ and, if you’re not already, become a member of The Content Wrangler Community.

[Member Profile] Meet Piero Tintori

August 27, 2008 Blog No Comments

As CEO and Founder of TERMINALFOUR, a Dublin-based provider of enterprise web content management software, Piero Tintori has helped his firm become a world leader in the content management space, implementing hundreds of web content projects for organizations around the globe. Learn more about Piero and, if you’re not already, become a member of The Content Wrangler Community.

[Member Profile] Meet Norman Page

August 25, 2008 Blog No Comments

Marketing Manager Norman Page works to help his firm, LongJump get the word out on the company’s web-based, on-demand applications. Learn more about Norman. And, if you’re not already, become a member of The Content Wrangler Community.

U.S. Federal Government Silences Typo Spotters; Forces Them To Stop Encouraging Others

August 25, 2008 Blog 5 Comments

In a nation that prides itself on its freedom of expression comes this ridiculous story—Typo Vigilantes Answer To The Letter Of The Law—featured in The Arizona Republic. The story starts our like this: “Two self-anointed grammar vigilantes who toured the nation removing typos from public signs have been banned from national parks after vandalizing a historic marker at the Grand Canyon…In addition to being banned from national parks for a year, the defendants, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to vandalize government property, are banned from modifying any public signs. They Read the full article…

Twing.com: Searching Online Forums and Communities Just Got Easier

August 21, 2008 Blog 2 Comments

Twing.com, a powerful new search engine dedicated to finding information within forums and communities, today announced it’s taken the ‘beta’ label off its logo. “Initial response to our product has been great and after making changes based on feedback along with adding new features, we feel the product is ready for prime time,” say General Manager Kevin Shea. You’ll have to check out the site yourself to see if you agree. Twing recently added more features for members and non-members alike. “We’ve added a handy Saved Search feature so users Read the full article…

Apple’s MobileMe: Hot or Not?

August 20, 2008 Blog No Comments

In this article from PeachPit Press, author Terry White < ahref="http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1235053">shares his likes and dislikes of Apple’s new MobileMe service. If you are interested in cross-platform, cross-device content reuse and syndication, you’ll want to learn more about MobileMe.

Automating CMS Metadata – Could It Work? How?

August 20, 2008 Blog No Comments

Emerging technology marketing guru, Paul Wlodarczyk asks, “What if a web service could automatically provide the CMS metadata when you go to check-in a new topic?” Wlodarczyk explores why you would want to automate metadata creation and which technologies you might need to make such automation a reality. He also discusses some of the barriers to this approach, which, not surprisingly, are related to silos created by software. Alas, can’t we make all of our tools work together?

Wiki Master Stewart Mader Goes Solo With Grow Your Wiki

August 19, 2008 Blog No Comments

In the past several months, Stewart Mader has been fielding more and more questions from organizations that want to know how to get wiki adoption going the right way. “I believe that to make wiki adoption successful and fully realize its benefits,” Mader says, “they really need a good plan for managed growth that takes into account their size, history of enterprise software use (or misuse!), ensures people get the most out of their wiki use, and helps minimize performance and efficiency issues related to too-rapid growth. So, I’m launching Read the full article…

Content Remix: Floss Manuals Provides Community Technology, Community Writing

August 19, 2008 Blog 1 Comment

Many technical writers, content managers and information architects work on software development teams, or at least tangentially to them. You may have heard of Google’s Summer of Code or BarCamp or PodCamp and wondered, like Janet Swisher did at A Techie Tech Writer, why aren’t there more free real-life community events for technical writers? A collaborative, creative event does exist for technical writers – it’s the BookSprint (read Anne Gentle’s blog post about the event), originated and hosted by FLOSS Manuals. A BookSprint functions like a week-long workshop where writers Read the full article…

DITA Maturity Model Contest – Win an iPod Touch, Free Tickets To DocTrain East

August 18, 2008 Blog No Comments

Submit your quality contributions to the newly launched DITA Maturity Model Community (MMC) from 1 June – 31 August 2008, and you could win an 8GB Apple iPod Touch and two tickets to DocTrain East. The DITA MMC (part of the DITA XML.org Wiki Knowledgebase) is an extension of the original white paper developed by Michael Priestley, lead IBM DITA architect, and Amber Swope, principal consultant for JustSystems. The DITA MMC lets you browse, edit, and add to a collaborative knowledgebase of information on using and understanding the DITA Maturity Read the full article…

blogINDIANA 2008: A Big Success (Well, Except For That Wireless Access Problem)

August 18, 2008 Blog 6 Comments

By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler Sunday I gave two presentations at blogIndiana, a local conference (held at the beautiful Campus Center at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis) that aimed to attract bloggers and others interested in the medium from in and around the Hoosier state. The organizers no doubt exceeded their goal as the event lured just under 200 people, several high profile local sponsors, lots of high quality presenters, and all sorts of media attention. My first session, Stop Wasting Time: Ten Things You Can Do to Read the full article…