http://tc.eserver.org/publisher/I'd_Rather_Be_Writing A listing of works published by I'd Rather Be Writing in the field of technical communication (and technical writing). 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/I'd_Rather_Be_Writing http://tc.eserver.org/35839.html http://tc.eserver.org/35839.html Using any of the standard authoring tools — Flare, RoboHelp, Author-It, Doc-to-Help — leaves you with the ridiculous model of a single author working from a single vantage point from a single organization trying to pull together an ocean of information. Because that model is untenable and unscalable, HATs will fade in favor of collaborative web-based authoring technologies. http://tc.eserver.org/35842.html http://tc.eserver.org/35842.html Rating sites empower people to make better choices. Obviously they are subject to abuse (either from the competition, from the the slandered source, or from biased friends). But even in the possible exaggerations from the participants, the ratings raise awareness of issues that you might otherwise not carefully examine. http://tc.eserver.org/35802.html http://tc.eserver.org/35802.html One of Flare’s shortcomings is the inability to easily embed video files. However, if you use the Camtasia Studio’s Express Show format as your video format (and you choose the SWF option), you can insert the video into Flare by inserting the video as if it were a picture. Here’s a two-minute screencast showing the processing for inserting a video into Flare. You can also put the video in a drop-down hotspot. http://tc.eserver.org/35624.html http://tc.eserver.org/35624.html When choosing a blog platform, you have a variety of options: Drupal, Movable Type, Typepad, Blogger, Joomla, Expression Engine, WordPress.com, self-hosted WordPress, and others. But when you start researching the options, WordPress seems to have at least 10 main strengths over its competitors. http://tc.eserver.org/35610.html http://tc.eserver.org/35610.html I’m growing tired of presentations that are little more than lectures, so I’m going to experiment with more user-led techniques like this. Unfortunately, available wi fi at chapter meetings or conferences with participants who have computers or mobile data devices is pretty rare. But if you do have the opportunity, definitely try incorporating Twitter, even if only for Q&A at the end of your presentation. http://tc.eserver.org/35611.html http://tc.eserver.org/35611.html When it comes to video tutorials, long narrations quickly tire the audience. Why is that? The same reason my kids prefer the beach over Disneyworld: most videos are not user-led. http://tc.eserver.org/35535.html http://tc.eserver.org/35535.html Is less always more? I’m not sure. But if Apple’s minimalistic designs are any indicator of trends, minimalism in documentation is something to pay attention to. Here are five ideas for minimizing documentation. http://tc.eserver.org/35527.html http://tc.eserver.org/35527.html In our design review sessions, a couple of members from our eight-person team share what they’re working on and ask questions about challenges they’re facing. We provide feedback and critique their project. If you’ve ever participated in a creative writing group, the design review works similarly. Team members use common sense and experience to guide their questions and reviews. Somewhat in contrast to a creative writing group, though, you don’t have to bring a finished piece to share. http://tc.eserver.org/35490.html http://tc.eserver.org/35490.html The concept of having control over your help content, to update it at any time, is what I’m calling content independence. Establishing content independence in your publishing environment may be a battle that can take years. For example, at a previous job, it took five years to finally convince architecture that we needed and deserved our own independent folder on a production server. In my current situation, I’ve pursued publishing routes in infrastructure that would enable on-the-fly updating, but for two years in a row I’ve come up empty-handed. With wikis, I think I’ve finally found the holy grail of content independence. http://tc.eserver.org/35469.html http://tc.eserver.org/35469.html One appealing aspect of blogs over print media is the ability to comment and respond to comments. It’s the appeal of a conversation instead a lecture. http://tc.eserver.org/35438.html http://tc.eserver.org/35438.html Recently I’ve been working on a simple calendar project that uses a wiki for documentation. Although I’ve heard a lot about using wikis for documentation, and have even used them in the past, I ran into a few surprises this time. http://tc.eserver.org/35384.html http://tc.eserver.org/35384.html How can you enable readers to naturally find the content in your archives? How can you make the hundreds of posts you write more visible and prominent, especially if readers are looking for it? This is partly what the field of findability is all about. You can implement several easy aggregation techniques to increase the findability of your content. You can add tags and categories to your posts, and readers can navigate your content this way. http://tc.eserver.org/35385.html http://tc.eserver.org/35385.html As you blog, remember that you have a relationship with your readers -- a relationship that requires you to disclose any important information, especially monetary, that might bias your views. Don't ruin relationships with those around you by revealing private details of their lives without approval. Ensure you don't represent your company in a negative light. And choose balanced, honest posts rather than sensationalism. http://tc.eserver.org/35366.html http://tc.eserver.org/35366.html Although there are other ways to increase your blog's readability, these are the most important elements to consider: font size, line height, line length, typeface, background, subheadings, paragraphs, white space, graphics, and invisibility. http://tc.eserver.org/35309.html http://tc.eserver.org/35309.html Being boring is sin #3 in my list of the seven deadly sins (which include being fake, irrelevant, boring, unreadable, irresponsible, inaccessible, and inattentive). Perhaps a more tactful way of saying something is boring is to say the writer neglects to “keep the audience’s attention.” http://tc.eserver.org/35219.html http://tc.eserver.org/35219.html In reality, the user just wants a brief, clear explanation of a concept or task. The user will glance and skim — reading behaviors hardly worthy of the elitist grammarian who argues the finer points of “which” versus “that” in restrictive clauses. http://tc.eserver.org/35193.html http://tc.eserver.org/35193.html Dealing with information overload can be a huge stressor in life. Not only trying to keep up with the constant deluge of information that comes at you daily, but also managing that information in an organized way — so that you can find and implement it — can put your sanity in question. In this podcast, I talk with Ricardo Amigo, a translator in Costa Rica, about different ways to manage information overload. http://tc.eserver.org/35148.html http://tc.eserver.org/35148.html If you’re a college student looking to become a technical writer after you graduate, you face a formidable challenge: you can’t get a job without experience, and you can’t get experience without a job. Especially in a competitive job market, getting a job as a technical writer directly after you graduate — without a foundation of previous jobs, experience with a handful of tools, and an impressive portfolio — can be especially difficult. However, if you follow these seven steps, which are not easy, not something you can do overnight, you will find a job. http://tc.eserver.org/35149.html http://tc.eserver.org/35149.html Working with InDesign is interesting. On the one hand, it’s not really a tool built for technical writers. It’s intended for people laying out magazines, brochures, other heavily designed print matter. As such, some things can be confusing. Cross references, figure references, a table of contents — get ready to search the help to figure these out. On the other hand, the power of the InDesign is somewhat captivating. You’re only limited by your own ignorance. http://tc.eserver.org/35086.html http://tc.eserver.org/35086.html Most people consider writing to be a creative endeavor, and in some situations, it certainly is. But creativity is not just associated with writing, art, and the humanities. Penelope Trunk broadens creativity to include problem solving too. http://tc.eserver.org/35087.html http://tc.eserver.org/35087.html While the content of what I write at work is not all that interesting, and even the paradoxes or other conundrums about technical writing sometimes dull, I really get excited about the technology side of my job. New technologies are emerging each day at a rapid rate. It’s like we’re living in the internet era before the dot.com burst. This is a Web 2.0 land, where even Google threatens to become the next operating system. I am really eager to use a wiki to write my next set of documentation. http://tc.eserver.org/35023.html http://tc.eserver.org/35023.html Putting Pedersen’s advice to practice, step one is to make a place for everything in our lives. Figure out where it belongs. Just as you can’t organize a house if you have no where to put things, you can’t organize your life if you have no way space for the activities. If something doesn’t fit, it’s time for a trip to the figurative Salvation Army (we call them Deseret Industries here). In other words, simplify. http://tc.eserver.org/34898.html http://tc.eserver.org/34898.html Although we look at the past with embarrassment about some of our practices, we often lack the foresight to see the present with the same degree of scrutiny. Years from now, we’ll look back at what we’re currently doing and not only blush, but feel remorse and wish we could get back what we lost. http://tc.eserver.org/34889.html http://tc.eserver.org/34889.html Lately I’ve been creating context-sensitive help for an online application. As part of my strategy, I’ve been trying to follow Theresa Putkey’s advice in “Usability in Context-Sensitive Help.” In her article, Theresa recommends providing more than just the steps for a specific task in the context-sensitive help window. Instead, she says to show more contextual links, including answers to why, when, and who questions, because too frequently the user who searches for help may have needs outside the specific task you describe. http://tc.eserver.org/34890.html http://tc.eserver.org/34890.html When you live in the moment, completing the activity itself is the success. And because writing is so multifaceted in effect — the effect both on me and others — having an open purpose doesn’t limit the results. I’m not narrow-mindedly searching for a specific achievement to happen. Instead, I’m open to unconsidered possibilities, if any of those possibilities decide to unravel. http://tc.eserver.org/34808.html http://tc.eserver.org/34808.html Neil Perlin, a renowned trainer, consulter, and developer, talks about how to implement single sourcing. He includes a discussion of tools, pitfalls to avoid, and practical steps to take. http://tc.eserver.org/34754.html http://tc.eserver.org/34754.html A content strategist looks at all the content from a holistic point of view, treating everything as content, and analyzing whether each aspect of the content aligns with the company’s messaging, branding, and intent. The content strategist is acutely aware of the multifaceted nature of the user experience. It’s not just the user interface that influences the user, or the marketing material, or the training — it’s all of this and more, working together as one. The whole user experience is the content strategist’s domain, not just help materials or written text. http://tc.eserver.org/34750.html http://tc.eserver.org/34750.html In a world of virtual tools—blogs, wikis, feeds, forums, listservs, e-mail, IM, chat, Twitter, social networks—one would think that the traditional sit-down, face-to-face meetings had been relegated to a place in a historical museum among other old, discarded traditions (like wearing cravats). But even in the 21st century, many people still believe that if you want to accomplish serious planning and discussion, you need an in-person meeting. http://tc.eserver.org/34726.html http://tc.eserver.org/34726.html Why is it that, given the opportunity and tools to write, so few embrace it? I have several thoughts as to why. http://tc.eserver.org/34711.html http://tc.eserver.org/34711.html Part of the problem in our attempt to demonstrate value is that our help deliverables look the same as they did 15 years ago, more or less. Online help and a PDF manual. It’s not a format that engages users. The web marches forward with innovation after innovation, while the technical communicators are figuratively hunched over keyboards, staring at CRT monitors, wearing 1950s horn-rimmed glasses, typing away. http://tc.eserver.org/34712.html http://tc.eserver.org/34712.html Help needs to be a mile wide—it must cover everything—and 30 seconds deep—tackling only small amounts of detail at any given point. http://tc.eserver.org/34681.html http://tc.eserver.org/34681.html Last week Google released Google Voice, a service that allows you to integrate all your phones into one number and includes a host of features, including voice mail, recording, conference calling, and other services. To help users get started, Google Voice has a list of 20 short videos. Only the overview video contains animation. It’s certainly the video they’ve put the most work into, and it also functions as marketing collateral. http://tc.eserver.org/34669.html http://tc.eserver.org/34669.html Given the engineering audience, one can’t hope for too much style and flair in the prose, but it reads like a college textbook, outlining basic principles in a flat way. It is too focused on “clarity, accuracy, correctness, etc.” (p.79) to make for a fun or engaging read. http://tc.eserver.org/34637.html http://tc.eserver.org/34637.html Even though your customers may not read manuals, your tech support team probably does, which means someone is reading the manuals and using them to help others. But if your users find it easier to call someone, wait on hold for an agent, and then ask the agent a question rather than find the answer in the help, maybe your help materials aren’t very usable. Maybe increasing the usability of your company’s documentation could alleviate the need users feel to seek answers from another source. http://tc.eserver.org/34638.html http://tc.eserver.org/34638.html In this presentation, Joe Sokohl talks about gathering user research prior to designing and implementing your help deliverables. http://tc.eserver.org/34639.html http://tc.eserver.org/34639.html Dan Roam explains that drawing pictures can help you solve problems. He says the first rule is to “collect everything possible up front.” After collecting all your information, you then “lay it all out where you can look at it.” By laying out all the information, you can grasp the whole of it, make connections between various parts, see the important sections, and recognize patterns. http://tc.eserver.org/34624.html http://tc.eserver.org/34624.html When it comes to truth, my approach is to be candid and honest in formats that live on the web, which I can update on the fly. But when I’m printing hundreds of copies of a guide, which I know will be pinned up on walls, filed in desk drawers, and laminated for long-term reference, I often lie and don’t mention the bugs, hoping that developers will soon fix them and convert my fiction into truth. http://tc.eserver.org/34625.html http://tc.eserver.org/34625.html In case you haven’t heard, the STC’s finances are facing crisis proportions. Unless membership stabilizes, it could go out of business in a couple of years. Here are a few recommendations to help solve the problems of the STC. http://tc.eserver.org/34587.html http://tc.eserver.org/34587.html Although there will always be a need for people to explain technical material non-technical people, Ellis Pratt said, others may be doing it instead, through the formats users prefer. To survive, technical writers may need to morph into content strategists, managing the information in a systematic way rather than merely creating it. http://tc.eserver.org/34577.html http://tc.eserver.org/34577.html Although simplicity is a noble ideal, and something like “simplify complexity” could be the mission statement of any technical writer, simplicity is in fact a complex undertaking. The interplay between simplicity and complexity is what technical writing is all about. http://tc.eserver.org/34430.html http://tc.eserver.org/34430.html A podcast interview with Anna Parker Richards, incoming president of the STC Toronto chapter, about their event-driven chapter model, in which they replace regular meetings with periodic all-day events. http://tc.eserver.org/34378.html http://tc.eserver.org/34378.html Users would save time by reading the manual, but instead they try to figure the application out themselves and then get lost/frustrated as they end up spending even more time getting up to speed with the application. http://tc.eserver.org/34371.html http://tc.eserver.org/34371.html The mindset in which most technical communicators write help is sometimes fundamentally flawed. Consider the following two stories and the different approaches and mindsets each writer takes toward the project. http://tc.eserver.org/34343.html http://tc.eserver.org/34343.html Anticipate the reader’s questions and then construct your writing as a response. This type of writing focuses you on your audience and gets you thinking about the specific questions, concerns, issues, and other problems your users might have. Each sentence you write should somehow answers those questions — you construct the conversation. http://tc.eserver.org/34252.html http://tc.eserver.org/34252.html In this article, my colleague and I provide strategies, tips, and approaches we’ve learned in creating quick reference guides for software documentation projects. http://tc.eserver.org/34253.html http://tc.eserver.org/34253.html The online transition to web 2.0, with its proliferation of blogs, wikis, podcasts, tweets, and other user-generated content, has posed a question for the state of help content. Should help material concern itself with web 2.0? Do users want to interact and contribute to help content in the same way they contribute and interact with web content? What is the technical writer’s role in relation to new media? http://tc.eserver.org/34254.html http://tc.eserver.org/34254.html When I talk to most technical writers, video is a format they haven’t done much with. This surprises me, because I find that, as a user, video tutorials are often the most helpful type of material for me to learn software. Video most closely simulates the universal desire we have for a friend to show us how to do something in an application. Perhaps I’m a visual learner, but the majority of us (some say 60 to 65 percent) are visual learners. But video doesn’t appeal only to end users. Video can be an appealing format for technical writers as well. Creating videos can turn your career around, especially if you find technical writing a little dull. http://tc.eserver.org/33909.html http://tc.eserver.org/33909.html If there’s one undeniable characteristic of the frustrated computer user, it’s that her patience is gone. She will not be slowly flipping through the user manual. Notice her jerky movements. If she turns to the help (which she doesn’t here), she’ll search for keywords, skim rapidly, click quickly from topic to topic. As we write for users in this state of mind, we have to remember the hurry. http://tc.eserver.org/33894.html http://tc.eserver.org/33894.html I should never fully trust anyone on a project. I don’t mean this disrespectfully, because I work with competent, talented professionals. But no one has the full picture of how the application will truly work. The quality assurance (QA) engineer usually has the clearest picture. The program manager and project manager are often living in a slightly different world, full of a vision of how the product should work and how they expect users to interact with it, but sometimes they’re missing important nuances in the actual implementation. The interaction designer builds prototypes and assumes the developers will build them to spec, but since the prototypes are usually HTML-based, and not in Java or .NET, variances are inevitable. http://tc.eserver.org/33869.html http://tc.eserver.org/33869.html This week I caught up with Debbie Campbell, a Colorado web designer and developer and the owner of Red Kite Creative, and asked her about the latest trends in web design. I’ve been following Debbie on Twitter for a while. This week she posted a few tweets about web design and WordPress, so I asked her to share a little more. http://tc.eserver.org/33699.html http://tc.eserver.org/33699.html The quickest video solution for uploading Jing videos to a SharePoint directory. This process requires a few minutes of setup, but once you set it up, it literally takes just five clicks to initiate, capture, and publish a video to SharePoint. http://tc.eserver.org/33682.html http://tc.eserver.org/33682.html DITA provides the ability to chunk information, to deliver selected topics in a variety of compilations and output to various formats. It allows the passing back and forth of this content among authors regardless of tools. My hesitation with DITA has only been that it’s too early to adopt. But I believe the turning point has come. http://tc.eserver.org/33604.html http://tc.eserver.org/33604.html Push contrast more than you might be naturally inclined. If you don’t, you end up with conflict. The next time you eat at a restaurant, look closely at the menu. A good menu has a high degree of contrast between sections. http://tc.eserver.org/33550.html http://tc.eserver.org/33550.html We’ve all run in to situations where we have to document poor user interfaces. As much as we complain and suggest improvements, the project manager decides to go ahead with the interface as is because redesigning it is too costly. When I run into these situations, rather than insult the interface in straightforward talk in the documentation, I euphemize the language (against my better desires) in order to maintain the consistency of the company voice. It just doesn’t sound right to be so frank. http://tc.eserver.org/33551.html http://tc.eserver.org/33551.html As hard as it may seem, lesson one of technical writing is to break the rules and contact the end user. Conduct a mini-ethnography. Sit with the users. Call them on the phone. Send them emails. Do not let it get to the point where you feel you must go through the PM to communicate with the end user. As hard and uncomfortable as it may be, the consequences of not talking to the end user can be crippling to your help. http://tc.eserver.org/33323.html http://tc.eserver.org/33323.html The EServer TC Library dwarfs all other tech comm sites. Granted, EServer TC Library is a library, which people primarily use to browse content located elsewhere, so it’s perhaps not in the same category as the other sites. Still, the sheer amount of traffic is impressive. I caught up with Geoffrey Sauer, the creator of the EServer TC Library, and chatted with him over email. http://tc.eserver.org/33316.html http://tc.eserver.org/33316.html Twitter, often referred to as the water cooler of the Internet, teaches us the art of brevity by limiting communication to 140 characters or less. But unless you can compress instructional content in ingenious ways, you’ll find Twitter limiting as a method for delivering documentation. Instead, Twitter is better used for the following: eavesdropping on customer conversations; putting a personal face on your company; and increasing the reach of your announcements. http://tc.eserver.org/33285.html http://tc.eserver.org/33285.html Intelligent content is structurally rich and semantically aware, and is therefore automatically discoverable, reusable, reconfigurable, and adaptable. http://tc.eserver.org/33286.html http://tc.eserver.org/33286.html A 250 page manual for a complicated product may be more difficult to write than a master’s thesis. It may require a massive amount of deductive and inductive logic, as you try to figure out how the product works. You may spend months interviewing subject matter experts, asking them hundreds of questions about how the product functions, and then hundreds more to clarify their cryptic answers. http://tc.eserver.org/33287.html http://tc.eserver.org/33287.html We all lead extremely busy lives. We have goals, commitments, and an almost endless amount of tasks to complete. Are there any productivity tips that work for you? http://tc.eserver.org/33288.html http://tc.eserver.org/33288.html Few people have ever commented about my blog’s design at all. The same goes with the music intros for my podcasts. I can change the music each time, and no one ever responds. In contrast, if a post has good content, I see a steady stream of comments. My experience leads me to conclude that content is about 90% important, and design is 10% important. http://tc.eserver.org/33289.html http://tc.eserver.org/33289.html A voice over is a voice narration from a performer whom you can’t see, who reads a script in an engaging way according to the context of the script. For example, many commercials employ voice overs from professionals. The difference between voice-over performers and announcers, Scott says, is that voice-over performers get outside of themselves, whereas announcers merely read a script. http://tc.eserver.org/32349.html http://tc.eserver.org/32349.html Users turn to help to look for a specific question, just as someone consults an encyclopedia for a specific question. No one reads the entire encyclopedia/manual, nor is anyone expected to. Well-written encyclopedias allow users to find information through indexes, tables of contents, alphabetical organization, and search fields. http://tc.eserver.org/32350.html http://tc.eserver.org/32350.html When you search-engine-optimize your blog posts, you can increase your blog’s subscribers in a long-term way. You don’t have to stiffen your prose to apply search engine optimization — you just have to apply keywords in the right places. http://tc.eserver.org/32351.html http://tc.eserver.org/32351.html Creating video tutorials is no trivial task. When you sit down to create 20+ video tutorials for a project, you’re faced with dozens of questions. What screen size should the videos be, what recording tool should you use, what microphone is best, how long should the videos be, what file size is acceptable? Should you use voice or captions? Where will you create the recording? You can create video tutorials using dozens of different methods. There are no official steps to create videos, because situations and audiences vary so widely. http://tc.eserver.org/32352.html http://tc.eserver.org/32352.html Some agile environments move so fast, you have to triage what you document because there’s no time to document everything. http://tc.eserver.org/32353.html http://tc.eserver.org/32353.html Flossmanuals.net is a new wiki help authoring/publishing tool hybrid that, as far as I know, is completely unique. The site is more than a wiki. It allows groups of authors to create specific chapters independently. You can then remix the chapters into any arrangement and selection you want through a drag-and-drop interface. http://tc.eserver.org/32346.html http://tc.eserver.org/32346.html In addition to common myths about technical writing as a sellout and fallback career, I can think of at least ten other commonly held myths surrounding the field of technical communication. http://tc.eserver.org/32143.html http://tc.eserver.org/32143.html I'm amazed at how easily people can make sites look both professional and functional in a short period of time using WordPress. Clyde Parson, the STC-Suncoast chapter in Tampa, just redid the Suncoast STC with a new WordPress theme. It looks pretty cool. http://tc.eserver.org/32033.html http://tc.eserver.org/32033.html The more you blog, the more people you attract through Google. The more search-engine-optimized your posts are, the more people find you. The more tweets you send, the more people follow you. The more social networks you join, the more people add themselves to your page. The better posts you write, the more people subscribe to your RSS feed. The more content you generate – in whatever form and media – the more trackbacks and links people generate about you. The more you produce, the more emails and questions you get. You become like a content cloud – attracting Google searches. http://tc.eserver.org/32011.html http://tc.eserver.org/32011.html Although tools seem to play a significant role in technical authoring, some people disagree. Embrace tool learning. Recognize that the 'best tool' is relative. Expose knowledge gaps. http://tc.eserver.org/31937.html http://tc.eserver.org/31937.html The historian of technical communications, R. John Brockmann, researched efforts to document products going back centuries. He finds that some of today’s hottest new documentation ideas were present in the work of those creating, documenting, and selling the technology of manufacturing just after the revolutionary war. http://tc.eserver.org/31880.html http://tc.eserver.org/31880.html How many times have you written a 75+ page guide and heard the customer say, This is great, but can you give us a condensed version? After the third or fourth time I’d heard this, I decided to actually try it. http://tc.eserver.org/31879.html http://tc.eserver.org/31879.html For a company that recently secured $29 million in funding, has grown from nonexistence to worldwide popularity in just four years, and which has the reputation of being the platform for serious bloggers, it’s kind of bold for me to call attention to its biggest mistake in a post. But I’m convinced that it’s a huge miscalculation on the part of Automattic (the company that leads WordPress). The Automattic team, led by Matt Mullenweg, has about 25 engineers and …. not one technical writer. http://tc.eserver.org/31739.html http://tc.eserver.org/31739.html The best thing you can do to develop your skills and ability with technical writing is to actually do some technical writing. Find an open source project, such as WordPress.org or Pligg, and write some documentation for it. Most open source projects have poor documentation, so they provide excellent opportunities. http://tc.eserver.org/31738.html http://tc.eserver.org/31738.html Have you ever asked your users what kind of training materials they want, or how they prefer to learn software? This kind of information is critical to figuring out what help deliverables to produce. But really when it comes down to it, there are only so many options — printed manuals, short guides, interactive flash guides, videos, online help, live training, reference cards, context-sensitive help, workbooks and exercises, or, usually the favorite, someone to stand by their computer and answer questions whenever they need help. http://tc.eserver.org/31740.html http://tc.eserver.org/31740.html In Publishing 2.0, Tim O'Reilly says Web 2.0 is 'any network effect that makes a system better the more people use it.' Web 2.0 isn’t just user-generated content; it’s harnessing the collective intelligence of your users to make your system better. http://tc.eserver.org/31491.html http://tc.eserver.org/31491.html One of the things I like about WordPress is its versatility. WordPress isn’t just blogging software. With the right theme, you can build a website that doesn’t resemble a blog at all. Essentially, writers who become familiar with WordPress become empowered as web designers as well. http://tc.eserver.org/31173.html http://tc.eserver.org/31173.html Everyone has time to do what they want in Web 2.0; it's just a matter of priorities. I would say that I spend about 5-10 hours a week writing blog posts and producing podcasts. For people who have second jobs or who work 70 hrs a week, dedicating a lot of spare time to Web 2.0 is unlikely. Just curious about your thoughts. Do you feel you spend too much time in Web 2.0 activities? What would you like to be doing with your life instead? http://tc.eserver.org/31172.html http://tc.eserver.org/31172.html I'm convinced that even internal software, which never sees the light of WWW, still needs a blog as much or more than products sold online. 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