Annual STC Australia Competition accepting submissions!

Every year the STC Australia Chapter runs a technical writing competition to find the best of breed technical communication Australia has to offer.

Information about this contest was sent to the email accounts of STC members. However, the contest is open to all, and the entry form is long, so I thought I'd give a summary for those deciding if this competition is for them.

Find out more after the jump. 

STC running events across the globe... which no longer includes Australia

Our parent organization is in the midst of conference season. All around the globe, technical communicators are gathering to talk shop, drink culturally appropriate beverages, and further our craft.

The September issue if Intercom (a bit late, I know) has a map of the world, with event locations marked on it. If an alien race were plotting an invasion based on the map in Intercom magazine, technical communicators in Australia might squeak by un-conquered.

Australia, according to the STC world map, doesn't exist!

Archived Seminar Review: Process Re-engineering for Topic Based Authoring

Introduction:

The STC website has about 90 archived seminars, webinars, and presentations. Access to all this material is included in your dues. They are mostly over an hour, and cover a range of topics. As a public service to STC members, I decided to watch and review them all. One at a time.

Review Number 1: Process Re-engineering for Topic Based Authoring.

This presentation focused on the difference between how an organization produces topics and how an organization produces books. The speaker, Rob Hanna, is engaging. His slides help you follow along with what he is saying, and probably help him remember what he is saying. It is a bit boring to look at slides and hear someone talk, without seeing their body language, but that's what you get learning on the internets in 2012.

Eye Guide Updates

Last year our chapter purchased a device called "Eye Guide", designed to be used as an eye-tracking tool in order to assist designers and developers analyse user interactions with computers and other devices and improve usability. Although I don't believe anyone has used the tool yet I would really like to encourage each of you to think of an application and try it out. It does not take long to figure out and puts some cool technology in our hands. I'd love to see someone from our chapter use it, then report on it here.

As a follow up, I thought I would share a video about how the developers of this device continue to move forward. I have to put in a disclaimer here, however...the inventor, the man in the video, is the chairman of my dissertation committee and works at the university I attend. I'm just so impressed with the ways they keep moving forward with this technology finding more innovative ways to use it. Check out the video below if you get a few minutes free.

What would you dedicate 4 hours a workday to?

I read lifehacker.com.au. I found this article there. Research is discussed with an upshot of "dedicate 4 hours per day to 1 thing".

Do most technical writers write for 4 hours a day? Solidly? I'm not sure I do.

I think that I do more research and maintenance than pure content generation. Is that standard?

Its probably worth trying the 4 hours of dedicated work on a specific priority. I would never have guessed that as a writer, one of my main priorities would be content shepherding.

But between correspondence about content, other research on background for the content, and the testing of content, I must spend 4-6 hours of every day on what is essentially writing preparation.

I guess the difference between my work habits and the ideal presented in this article is the level of focus. I do all of the above interspersed with answering colleagues questions, attending meetings, and meeting non-writing obligations.

Another difference between me and the mythical worker the researchers present as worth emulating is the 6:30am start time. 

BBC teaches English? Makes sense, though.

This wasn't for documentation, but a letter. Sentence ending on "though".

The line I wasn't sure about:
"That book is probably due for a pretty serious overhaul, though."

Comma? No comma?

According to the BBC, comma!

Project management resources, anyone?

One of the ironies of the information age is the extent to which our access to information makes it clear how little we know.

And by we, I mean me.

I think as I post more here, it will become clear how important "Open" is to me. Open Culture offers free ebooks, text books, and audio books. Free as in, we are a free people, free to learn and better ourselves.

One of the resources linked there is Project Management: from Simple to Complex.
Will it make you a better person? No. It might even make you a more effective evil person. 

But it might also help you plan your documentation efforts.