Tag: Guest Blogger

Jul 23

Linda’s Lessons: When is Good Enough Good Enough?

We often hear that something is “good enough.” I used to consider that phrase derogatory. In fact, working as often as I have within the government, I have always hated the phrase, “good enough for government work.” As a proud professional, I like to think that my work is error-free. I know most writing and editing rules and I try to follow them, yet sometimes, mistakes happen! As a new technical communicator, I had little flex about what was right and what was wrong. Back then, I had the luxury of working in a job where my talents were appreciated and the company didn’t focus on next quarter’s share prices. Combine that environment with my brand-new, college-degreed book-learning, and my only choice was to strive for perfection.

Jul 18

Fifty Years with Bill: The NAFTA Problem in 1989

A few months after I became STC president, I was invited to visit the Toronto Chapter to discuss with them an issue regarding education of technical communicators. I arranged a visit in December 1989, and invited my newly appointed Assistant to the President for Academic Affairs, Bill Coggin, to go with me.

Jul 17

Talking Usability: What I Learned Testing Software

I work on a small project team that has just enough people to keep the project somewhat on schedule. When the quality assurance manager asked for help to test software—I volunteered. My manager was delighted and disappointed that I volunteered to test software because he believed that testing software would take me away from my primary job—writing a user guide. As it turned out, testing software helped me to learn the system’s workflows and logic, which helped me to write the user guide.

Jul 11

Letter from the UK: User Documentation as a Marketing Tool

Life would be so much easier for technical communicators if user documentation wasn’t seen as expense, and, instead was seen as a way to generate income for the organisation. So I was very interested when I heard Michael Priestley, enterprise content technology strategist and lead DITA architect at IBM, mention the value of user documentation as a sales tool in his presentation at the Congility 2014 conference.

Jul 10

Business Matters: How I Learned to "Just Say No!"

In this blog post, I will share some examples of how I have learned to say “NO” to actions and opportunities that aren’t in my best interest (that is, they didn’t fit into my strategic plan). Saying “NO” actually frees me to say “YES” to more useful, lucrative, and fun opportunities.

Jul 02

Linda’s Lessons: An Introduction

Welcome! You’ve found Linda’s Lessons, a new guest blog on STC’s Notebook. With a little nudging from Kevin Cuddihy in the STC office, I am beginning a new adventure that you can share. Linda’s Lessons will be a little of this and a little of that—remembrances, observations, new knowledge, guest bloggers, answers to your questions, tips for newbies, reinforcements for the experienced, and a general potpourri of things I hope you’ll find valuable, thought-provoking, and fun!

Jun 26

Villegas Views: Digital Content is Not the Only Content Out There

While at the STC Summit in Phoenix last month, I had an opportunity to do something I couldn’t do elsewhere, which was have a face-to-face conversation with Dr. Miles Kimball from Texas Tech University. I’m interested in getting my technical communication PhD from Texas Tech, but have been hesitant to apply for the degree because of cost, time, lack of ideas for a thesis topic, and terror in doing certain types of research. Only after talking to him did I find out that several of my fears were unfounded. The kind of research I do like to do can still be done, the program would help me figure out how to pursue topics that would work for me, and many students in the program take one class at a time per semester on a part-time basis because of work obligations, so my situation is not unique. Now, it’s just the cost and the GREs I have to pass as my obstacles!

Jun 25

Fifty Years with Bill: The Houston Parties

We bring you the second post from our newest guest blogger, Bill Leavitt. This year marks his 50th year as an STC member, so we asked Bill to provide some stories from his 50 years as a technical communicator. He’ll be blogging regularly under the title “Fifty Years with Bill” with thoughts, reminiscings, advice, and more.