I know that many of us have been struggling with this question for a while, but I’d like to find out what people are actually doing. Some people prefer print, others like the searchability of CD or other electronic means. Would you mind taking a quick survey? I’ll be happy to share results - just leave your email in the last question.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=C2wAQU1u0E0b6f94W3qzWg_3d_3d

Shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes at most!

Brenda Huettner

For a couple of years now, I’ve been looking at and talking about things that technical communicators need to do to protect themselves and their work. I’ve even got a couple of papers in the IEEE Xplore database on the subject. There are lots of keywords in this arena - security, emergency preparedness, disaster recovery, business continuity, and more. My two favorite security blogs are NoticeBored and Bruce Schneier’s Schneier on Security . There’s also a ton of free information out there - for example, U.S. government is publishing lots of advice for people and businesses through Homeland Security , FEMA, and OSHA .

But an occasional technical conference presentation doesn’t really seem to be enough, I want to talk about this more, to feel like I’m DOING more. Recently, I signed up as a volunteer for the American Red Cross here in Tucson to bring emergency preparedness talks to the local community. Actually, that’s not quite accurate - I applied to be a Red Cross volunteer. They’ve got a rigorous application process, involving a background check, references, two interviews, and a very nicely done online training course.

This is something new and exiting for me, I’m looking forward to it!

I just spoke with Tom Johnson from over at Idratherbewriting.com. Many of you may know that Tom’s been doing a series of podcasts specifically for technical communicators. He’s created a podcast of our conversation and posted it at http://techwritervoices.com. The topic is SMEs, particularly engineers, and how we can work around some of the roadblocks that they put up (intentionally or not).

If you go to Tom’s site, make sure you take the time to look around - he’s building a terrific repository of valuable information.

My son is on his high school wrestling team, and I’ve just agreed to create a website for them (hmm…do you think this is more procrastination, that I’m doing this instead of finishing that manuscript??). It’s a simple site because I hope someday to hand it off to one of the other parents. And I’m still struggling to get content. This is the same problem I’ve had when doing other sites and many newsletters - I can do the template and actual publishing fairly quickly, but tracking down input from other people can be a challenge.

There are still a bunch of things I want to improve, but for now all I can say is “Go Sabercats”

A few years ago, I wrote a book on Captivate software (now available from Adobe). Several months ago, I agreed to update this book for release 3 of the software. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to work up much enthusiasm for this project, and it bothers me that I am now quite late turning in the manuscript.

Captivate is cooler than ever, and lots of fun to work with. It shouldn’t be a problem updating my old manuscript. I’ve got the support of the publisher and some friends over at Adobe. So why am I finding this so difficult? I have a dozen excuses - I was sick, I was traveling, I was busy with other clients - but the bottom line is that I still haven’t got it done.

Maybe this post telling the world that I am planning to update this book will kick-start me to getting going.