http://tc.eserver.org/authors/Welinske,_Joe A bibliography of works by Welinske, Joe in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Welinske,_Joe http://tc.eserver.org/27646.html http://tc.eserver.org/27646.html The RoboHelp help authoring tool is now entering its thirteenth year of existence. That's a remarkably long existence for any software title. In that time period, we have seen an amazing expansion of the software industry throughout the 1990s and an equally amazing retraction due to the bursting of the Internet bubble. Making its start in the tiny offices of Blue Sky Software in LaJolla, California, RoboHelp grew into an extremely profitable product. It is also a market leader—having capturing some two-thirds of all Help authoring tool sales. During the Internet bubble years the company changed its name to eHelp, but RoboHelp continued to be its flagship profit center. In 2003, eHelp (and RoboHelp) were acquired by one of the leading providers of web tools—Macromedia. Now it appears that the end may be approaching for RoboHelp. http://tc.eserver.org/27650.html http://tc.eserver.org/27650.html This article provides an overview of the latest trends in software user assistance based on surveys, interviews, and observations by the author and other experienced user assistance professionals. The article defines the key terminology, highlights the most important issues and elements, and offers both short and long-term predictions for the field. The article will appear in four installments. The next installment will be in February. http://tc.eserver.org/19649.html http://tc.eserver.org/19649.html One of the areas the 2001 ITAA survey looks at is supply and demand. Of the estimated 258,332 jobs that IT hiring managers predict they will add this year, only 1,799, or less than 1%, are for tech writers. This is down a whopping 91% from the year 2000 where the 20,773 available tech writer jobs accounted for almost 5% of the total. The news may not be as bad as it sounds. On the supply side, there is an expected shortfall of 1,008 qualified candidates in filling the open tech writer jobs.