Hey AT&T! Buying Residential Telephone Service Shouldn’t Be This Hard

January 27, 2009 Blog 8 Comments

By Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler and The Content Wrangler Community For the most part, I love AT&T. I love that they were smart enough to join forces with Apple in launching the iPhone—the most successful mobile phone deal in history—and I love that they’ve learned how to provide some convenient customer-focused services (e.g. paying your bill from your mobile phone, receiving bills via email, ordering services online without the help of a customer service agent). Unfortunately, my love affair with AT&T ends there. The Offer: Residential Phone Service Recently, …

Training Within Industry: The Second Coming

January 23, 2009 Blog No Comments

By Dwayne Butcher, special to The Content Wrangler Have you heard? It’s back. After a 60-year absence in the United States, the Training Within Industry program has been resurrected. Not just in the U.S., but around the globe! If you’re not familiar with TWI yet, let me take you back to WWII, then forward to today. TWI’s birth During WWII, the U.S. shipped “the boys” to fight the war leaving behind an unskilled workforce to replace them. The U.S. government recognized this as a problem. How do you build the …

[Great Ideas] Globalization Partners Announces Template Analysis Service

January 22, 2009 Blog No Comments

We’re always tracking ways companies try to be creative in offering new services. translation company Globalization Partners International has announced a new service for analyzing document templates (Word, PPT, FrameMaker, InDesign) so you can see if your document content structure is optimized for localization and globalization. “It could happen to you” author Maxwell Hoffmann leads the effort.

You Got Your Technology in My Typography!!!

January 16, 2009 Blog 1 Comment

By Jean Kaplansky It is fairly well known that content authors, graphic designers, and technical data developers often wind up at odds. XML stylesheet technology often jokingly referred to as “rocket science.” These disparate groups of individuals have a lot to learn from each other, however. Especially when it comes to the topic of single source, multiple outputs content publishing with XML. How can we cross the understanding divide between these three groups of individuals? Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler, himself, recently posted the following question to a message board: …

Convergence Technical Communication: Strategies for Incorporating Web 2.0

January 12, 2009 Blog 7 Comments

By Nicky Bleiel, Senior Information Developer, ComponentOne “Convergence Technical Communication” (CTC) is technical communication that provides information in several forms, including Web 2.0 delivery mechanisms, to improve the user experience. Most of the content is generated by technical communicators; a portion by users. Web 2.0 makes it possible to create additional deliverables that enhance the user experience several different ways. First, it engages the different learning styles of our audience. Second, it improves user satisfaction with your product by creating communities of practice that allow users to participate in the …

[Member Profile] Amanda Caley

January 9, 2009 Blog No Comments

Welcome Amanda Caley, Director of Content Chameleon Ltd., London, UK to The Content Wrangler Community, the global network of content professionals. Caley has many years experience in technical communication, documentation, training and project management. Her firm, Content Chameleon, delivers complete solutions for complex content to different business sectors including finance, government, retail, shipping and telecommunications.

[Member Profile] Shlomo Perets

January 7, 2009 Blog No Comments

Welcome Shlomo Perets, a technical communicator from Kfar Yona, Israel to The Content Wrangler Community, the global network of content professionals. Perets is a trainer, consultant and developer who offers on-site and remote services for users of Adobe FrameMaker (including Structured FrameMaker), Adobe Acrobat/PDF, Adobe Captivate and more.

[Member Profile] Grace Coston

January 5, 2009 Blog No Comments

Welcome Grace Coston, a documentation professional from Paris, France to The Content Wrangler Community, the global network of content professionals. Coston works for Michelin where she is “trying to move the travel guides and maps division towards electronic content to replace the boxes and boxes of newspaper clippings and magazines.” She says her biggest content challenge today is “Getting folks to let go of their personal hard drives and share content in a library or on a wiki; creating a meaningful folksonomy that will appeal to non tech-savvy users.”

[Member Profile] Bridget Wall Gordan

January 3, 2009 Blog No Comments

Welcome Bridget Wall Gordon, a technical communicator from Yarmouth, Maine to The Content Wrangler Community, the global network of content professionals. Gordon is the sole technical writer at DeLorme, a mapping and GPS company. Gordon is currently moving to an Agile development system.