Five Ways To Scare Your Web Dev Clients Away

Some folks may find it impressive that you know the ins and out of UNIX and how your last open source coding project attracted media attention, but the majority do not. Especially when acronyms start spewing forth with articulated speed. Keep in mind that executives are employed to keep you employed and need to understand your ideas to communicate them to stakeholders and customers. One way to minimize 'tech' talk is to include the following words into each technical statement: We are using [technology/programming language] to enhance [a specific part] of our business.

Varty, Sue. Web Design Dev (2009). Careers>Freelance>Advice>Web Design

Top Ten Web Typography Sins

While many designers have been quick to embrace web standards, it’s surprising how often the basic standards of typography are neglected. Here are ten deadly sins to avoid in your web typography.

Steven D. Smashing (2008). Articles>Web Design>Advice>Typography

Seven Rules For Succeeding As A Brand-New Leader

The actions you take during your first few months in a new role have a major influence on whether you ultimately succeed or fail. Transitions are pivotal times, in part because they are when everyone expects change to occur. They're also times of great vulnerability, when new leaders lack established working relationships and detailed knowledge of their new roles. If you fail to build momentum during your transition, you will face an uphill battle from then on.

Watkins, Michael D. Forbes (2009). Articles>Management>Advice

Flow to Done: Tap Into Your Creative Source

What is flow? It’s kind of like a river of writing, it’s an uninterrupted stream of consciousness directly from the source of your creativity through your brain, into your nervous system, out your hands, into your computer. I like to think of it as zen writing meditation. There is some important prep work that needs to be done before you’re ready for some serious writing flow time.

Bogue, Everett. Write to Done (2009). Articles>Writing>Advice>Workflow

How to Stop Digital Fiddling and Start Writing

Are you prone to digital fiddling? I am. In fact, I’ve increased my skills of digital fiddling so much that I hardly notice that I’m putting off writing. There are three actions you need to take.

Jaksch, Mary. Write to Done (2009). Articles>Writing>Advice>Workflow

Taking Control of Your Communication

With mobile phones, email, instant messaging, and the like we're expected to be available at all times. It should be this way, and this article explains one path to taking control of your communication.

Nesbitt, Scott. ScottNesbitt.net (2009). Articles>Advice>Time Management

Making Time to Write What You Want to Write

Is it hard for you to find the time to write the things that you want to write? This article looks at some changes that you can make to your life in order to free up that time.

Nesbitt, Scott. ScottNesbitt.net (2009). Articles>Advice>Time Management

Four Keys to Writing Quickly

Writing quickly is a skill that you should definitely cultivate. This blog post looks at four techniques that you can use when you need to write quickly.

Nesbitt, Scott. ScottNesbitt.net (2009). Articles>Writing>Advice>Workflow

How to Get Lightning to Strike Twice

Suggests techniques to help recognize things that you see recurring over and over again whenever you have your best ideas. Basically, you’ll have reverse-engineered your inspiration process, and you’ll have an informed and complete view of how and why you work.

Etherington, Darrell. Web Worker Daily (2009). Articles>Web Design>Advice

Reestablish Contact With Your Long Lost Clients

I began to wonder: what had happened to those past clients I’d loved so much? For various reasons, I’d lost touch with some of these guys, but now, in the search for work, getting back in touch with them seemed like a sterling idea.

Laidlaw, Georgina. Web Worker Daily (2009). Careers>Freelance>Advice

Cracking Tough Nuts to Come Out on Top in Hard Times

Discusses strategies to help you strengthen your adaptive smarts. How you choose to implement these strategies is a highly personal process, given your own unique circumstance. The idea here is to provide some food for thought to help you develop your own particular brand of adaptive smarts.

Doulton, Melanie. Indus (2009). Careers>Advice

Overcoming Writer's Block

Strategies for dealing with writers block as it relates to Web content.

Robinson, D. Keith. Asterisk (2004). Articles>Writing>Advice

Staying Inspired as a Web Designer

From time to time, I’ll be asked what the hardest part of being a freelancer or blogger is. In my honest opinion, it all comes down to inspiration. Sure, you can know how photoshop works inside out, and be the master of web languages, but without any type of inspiration or idea, you wont be able to put those skills to good use.

Webtint (2009). Careers>Web Design>Advice

Ten Ways to Become a More Successful Freelancer

Freelancing is a fiercely competitive field, and being successful in it is not easy task. However, by following some of these guidelines you may be able to boost yourself up there with the big names (in your field). Don’t forget that it’s down to you, and following these steps does not guarantee success. However, if you do follow them they’re likely to have a very positive effect on your work and how you are perceived by your clients and your niche.

Webtint (2009). Careers>Freelance>Advice

Twelve Tips for Better Business Writing

Today’s business world is almost entirely information-driven. Whether you run a small business or occupy a small corner of the org-chart at a massive multinational corporation, chances are that the bulk of your job consists of communicating with others, most often in writing. Of course there’s email and the traditional business letter, but most business people are also called on to write presentations, memos, proposals, business requirements, training materials, promotional copy, grant proposals, and a wide range of other documents.

Lifehack (2009). Articles>Business Communication>Advice>Writing

Beating Writer’s Block

Writer’s block happens to all of us, but it especially happens to writers who don’t have strict deadlines to get their work done; after all, if that article, essay or novel isn’t finished by March 1st like you wanted it to be, who’s holding you accountable?

Osborn, Alice. Alice Osborn (2010). Articles>Writing>Advice

Reactivate Those Dormant Skills

We all acquire a number of skills over the courses of their careers. Some of those skills get rusty or seemingly forgotten. But with a bit of work, you can reactivate those skills.

Nesbitt, Scott. DMN Communications (2010). Articles>TC>Advice

The Rude Guide to Becoming a Good Technical Writer

Let me offer some sanctimonious advice: don’t take a technical writing job if you don’t enjoy it. If you’re planning a career in technical writing, make sure you do lots of research. If you think you can become a technical writer because you love writing and/or you write well, think again. Or if you do jump in recklessly–which is good in some cases–test the waters for a couple of years, but get out the moment you begin to realize that for a week or slightly longer, you’ve been spending your nights weeping softly into your pillow with the certainty that you’ve to wet your pillow with your tears the following night. And don’t look at your peers in the same company or industry with acid-filled eyes and envious wonderment at how they seem to enjoy it so thoroughly and earn so much.

On Writing Well (2009). Articles>Writing>Advice>Technical Writing

The Five Biggest API Documentation Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Good API documentation can have a tremendous impact on whether a software platform is adopted. However, too often API documentation ends up being confusing and hard to follow, which results in developers choosing another way to accomplish their goals. This article describes five common mistakes that are made in creating API documentation and describes solutions to avoiding those mistakes. Following good API documentation practices can provide developers with the content that they need to be able to take full advantage of a software platform's capabilities.

Gruenbaum, Peter. Prestwood (2009). Articles>Documentation>Advice

Resume - Do’s And Don’ts

A resume should be laid out in a simple and attractive manner. It should present the relevant information in clear and concise language. This definitely gives you the edge over those candidates who force the reader to sift through several pages to find the same information.

Shah, Sharanam. Sharanam’s Technical Inspirations (2008). Careers>Resumes>Advice

How to Proofread Your Own Writing

You don't have to be a professional proofreader to do a better job proofreading your own writing. It's difficult to catch your own mistakes because you read what you expect to see when you check over something you have written. A common example of this is writing you when you mean to write your-or vice versa. You read the word you intended to write and the error doesn't register as a mistake. To proofread thoroughly, it's important to know the types of errors that are most common. The following can serve as a checklist.

Hibbard, Catherine S. Cypress Media Group (2007). Articles>Editing>Advice

Make Sentence Structure Work for You

One of the easiest ways to improve your business writing is to create strong sentences. It really doesn't matter what you are writing; it could be an informal memo or an important report or proposal. Sentences that are concise, varied, and focused will give your documents a polished, professional touch.

Hibbard, Catherine S. Cypress Media Group (2007). Articles>Writing>Advice>Grammar

Doing Super-sets: Applying Workout Logic to Web Work

Dedicated gym-goers use some tried and tested methods to make their workouts more efficient and effective. As usual, what’s good for the goose is also good for the gander, and a lot of these same strategies can apply quite well to professional workflows, too. What is work, after all, besides a prolonged workout of your professional muscles?

Etherington, Darrell. Web Worker Daily (2010). Careers>Web Design>Advice>Workflow

Ten Tips for Writing Technical Documents

What components are necessary to create effective technical documents? If you talk to ten people who do technical documentation, you will probably get ten different answers. I personally try to follow ten fairly easy tips.

Hibbard, Catherine S. Cypress Media Group (2010). Articles>Documentation>Advice>Technical Writing

The Effects of Argument Explicitness on Responses to Advice in Supportive Interaction    

This study assessed whether explicit articulations of a proposal's efficacy, feasibility, absence of limitations, and use of facework are effective strategies of advice giving in supportive interactions. Two hundred forty-eight college students read and responded to a hypothetical scenario in which they received advice from a friend. The findings of this study demonstrated that advice was more effective (resulting in higher perceptions of advice quality and facilitation of coping, as well as stronger intention to implement the advice) when advice givers outlined the efficacy of the advised action, explained the feasibility of undertaking the advised action, addressed the potential limitations of the advised action, and employed politeness strategies when giving advice. The study further found that perceptual counterparts of the manipulated message features largely mediated the effects of the message variations on the dependent variables.

Feng, Bo and Brant R. Burleson. Communication Research (2008). Articles>Collaboration>Advice>Rhetoric