As 2013 came to a close, Your Friendly Neighborhood Blogger reached out to our guest bloggers and asked them for a Technical Communication New Year's Resolution for 2014 to share. No guidelines or limitations were provided. Below are are the resolutions they sent back.
Happy New Year to all our readers! Thank you for reading, and thanks to the below guest bloggers as well for providing great content. I resolve to try to get even more great content for STC's Notebook in 2014.
In 2014, I resolve to try to blog more often (even if it’s curated content, just to keep my blog more active), and absorb as much information from other tech comm experts through conferences, summits, social media, and in-person to grow and expand my mind and ideas! I need to grow my mind!
—Danielle Villegas, “Villegas Views”
As a freelancer, my tech comm resolution for the new year is to be more aggressive about finding new writing, editing, proofreading, and website projects, rather than trusting to luck and the serendipity of being found by new clients or referred by colleagues. Having those moments is wonderful, but not the most professional or disciplined approach to building a business! For more about resolutions for freelancers, see my current Freelance Basics blog post.
—Ruth E. Thaler-Carter, “Freelancing Basics”
It's the intersections between technical communication and other disciplines (such as content strategy and elearning) that often interest me. So my resolution would be to do more of these “on the edges” projects—in particular, content strategy projects.
—Ellis Pratt, “Letter from the UK”
My tech comm resolution is to keep encouraging technical communicators to use plain language in their documentation.
—Karen Field Carroll, “Plainly Speaking”
In 2014, I resolve to try my hardest not to publicly shame people who use two spaces after a period.
—Jennifer White, “MadCap Software”
In gratitude for escaping any damage in the 1000-year rainfall, 100-year flood that ravaged my home town not five miles away, I resolve to get serious about a disaster plan for both my business and my home (which houses my business). I hope to blog next year about my progress on completing my plan!
—Elizabeth Frick, “Business Matters”
The word “content” (noun) has several different meanings. Two of them are as follows:
- A state of satisfaction.
- Information and experiences that provide value in specific contexts.
May 2014 be the year everyone is content while working to deliver the best content possible to their customers.
—Nicky Bleiel, “Doc-To-Help TechComm Wire”
To prepare and present business cases for structured authoring for my clients who are struggling with lot of unstructured content, and to succeed, thus proving the value addition of my documentation services; and to take my information architecture and content modelling skills to the next level in preparing business cases for an integrated content strategy for my clients.
—Vinish Garg, “Pushing the Content Envelope”
Use fewer words (even though they are an infinitely reusable resource).
—Richard Hamilton, “Publishing Perspectives”