I’m delighted to say that Phylise Banner is a friend of mine. She’s also a phenomenal speaker, actively involved in helping academics create better elearning, and a recent guest of the STC-SAZ chapter here in Tucson. She talked about some of the theories behind current learning methodologies, and about how we can use technologies to the use of technology to design and develop e-learning deliverables and, more importantly, strategies for effective implementation.

While she was here, we did have a little bit of time to do some sight-seeing. Here we are at Sabino Canyon, in the midst of our epic hike through the desert/mountain. We even went off-trail, though only briefly!

Technical Writers Training Needs for 2009 Survey

2009 is a touch economic year for most of us. Companies are cutting back on nice-to-have purchases and focusing in on what’s necessary. This survey conducted by The Content Wrangler aims to help us better understand your training needs for 2009 and to identify the types of classes you need. They plan to use this information to help training providers create relevant public and on-site training programs that address your needs and to gain an understanding of the current state of training program interest in our industry today.

Participants who complete this very brief survey will be entered into a random drawing for one of the following prizes:

* A complimentary copy of “Managing Writers: A Real World Guide to Managing Technical Documentation”
* A complimentary ticket to the Documentation and Training DITA (June 2-5, 2009) in Indianapolis
* A complimentary license to MindMeister.com brainstorming software

Thanks again for your help. This survey should take less than five minutes and contains only 5 questions.

http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e2hpjy7lfsq93e2o/start

Today is Ada Lovelace Day. Who was Ada? From Wikipedia:

She is today appreciated as the “first programmer” since she was writing programs—that is, manipulating symbols according to rules—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built. She also foresaw the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on these capabilities.

And yes, the computer programming language “Ada” was named in her honor.

So what is Ada Lovelace Day? In general terms, it’s a day to acknowledge and encourage women in technology. This is sort of the same mission as IEEE’s Women in Engineering group, or the “Introduce a Girl to Engineering” program. More specifically, many people are taking a Pledge to honor specific women in technology through blog posts and twitter.

So which women have been most influential in my career? Long ago and far away, there was Paula Berger. In 1984, she was running a successful contract agency back in Massachusetts, and gave me my first job as a technical writing intern. She later went on to run a series of technical communication conferences, consult with companies all over the world, and serve as president of the Society for Technical Communications. She’s currently Director of the Near Field Communication (NFC) Forum, a non-profit industry association that promotes the use of NFC short-range wireless interaction in consumer electronics, mobile devices and PCs. I’m proud to say she’s a friend of mine!

Eventually, I ran into the classic quandary of balancing working vs. raising my children, and decided that I wanted to do BOTH. My mentor and friend during this time was Karen Delprete. Karen was one of the very first sales and sales support people for Wang Computers (remember them?) back in the mid-80s, and blazed a trail in a male-dominated industry for me and others to follow. She’s now with EMC in Boston (and my children and hers are almost grown up!)

More recently, I’ve been had the honor of working with so many intelligent, capable, and inspirational women that it’s impossible to pick out just one or two. This is why I love what I do. This is why I hope to be doing it for many years to come.

What an amazing event!

Described by others as “spring break for geeks” or “super bowl of the tech world”, South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) is the smallest part of the SXSW trio (Music, Film, and Interactive). It’s also the only one where attendance was UP over last year. The first thing I noticed was the enormous scale (at over 11,000 registrants, it was almost 10 times the size of the largest tech. event I attend). But they’ve got some history at this level, and most things went smoothly despite sometimes lengthy lines.

The thing that impressed me most was the way the organizers used the social and collaborative media available to build a community before during and after the festival itself. It started with a “panel picker” where the submitted proposals were put into a database and anyone could vote on which ones looked most interesting. The scale was from 0 (”zilch - I have no interest in this idea”) to 5 (”amazing! this justifies my trip to sxsw”). Lots of people commented, lots of interaction. The smartest thing, however, was that they made it clear that this was a COMPONENT of how the panels would be picked, not the sole deciding factor. Brilliant!

Once registered, attendees had access to the “my.sxsw” community with twitter-like micro blogging app and the ability to search for other attendees by a variety of parameters such as name or hometown or company name or keyword.

I went to some amazing sessions (I particularly enjoyed Jared Spool’s talk on “Journey to the Center of Design”) and also to a few that… could use improvement. There’s lots of people who have written more detailed and more graphically interesting reviews of SXSWi (see Mike Rohde’s “sketchnotes” for example), and you can also see many of the sessions as podcasts from the official SXSWi site.

But the most valuable part was the personal connections I was able to make with friends old (and new!). Had breakfast with the boys from Bookmans (and tried migas for the first time), TWO lunches with convergence and content strategist Rahel Bailie and some of her friends I hadn’t met before, and a lovely Mexican lunch with Anne Gentle and one of her colleagues. I met Keith from Blue Paraboloa - he’s a Rose-Hulman graduate, and knows many of my IEEE/PCS colleagues!

And yes, I went to a couple of parties as well. Two that are noteworthy (or rather, two for which I have pictures):

The Bacon Party was a fundraiser for a children’s charity. There was a musical act, an auction, and yes, bacon frying away up on stage and at the back of the room. Late at night, dark, lots of people - but this photo does express my impression of the event!

The Rackspace party was earlier in the day, outside (beautiful weather) and had lots of activities like belly dancers and hookahs and several women giving attendees henna tattoos. Here’s mine (both on that day with dark, chunky ink and glitter, then later after the ink and glitter flaked off):

Lots of fun, lots to learn, I definitely want to go back again next year!!

It really feels real, now! After a lot of prep and many team meetings, conference calls, budget discussions, etc., the IEEE/PCS IPCC 2009 conference registration is finally open! Register now to save money - early registration discounts end June 1st.

I’m particularly excited about our keynote speaker Blaise Aguera y Arcas from Microsoft LiveLabs. You can see him demonstrating PhotoSynth, a very cool interactive graphic mosiac project, over at Ted.com.

Plus of course, all our other great programming and activities. And, for those who like that sort of thing, the beautiful Hawaiian beach location.

Here’s big news from Scott Abel, the Content Wrangler. It looks like a fun project!

You are invited to join the Documentation and Training West Conference as a writer in the Firefox BookSprint. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be physically at the conference to participate. You can work remotely, via internet, email and telephone. In return, you’ll learn about writing in a collaborative authoring environment (a wiki), discover the FLOSS Manuals toolkit, participate in a single sourcing/topic-based authoring project, and share your knowledge of Firefox and web browsing so that others may benefit from using free documentation to learn about free software.

Each on-site writer brings his or her own laptop to the sprint. Remote writers will utilize their own laptops or workstations. Since the FLOSS Manuals tool is completely web-based, it does not matter if you use Windows, OSX, or UNIX. The key here is that your participation matters. We have set up the online tools so you can contribute from anywhere around the world.

The outline for the Firefox manual will be completed prior to the Book Sprint, offering a scaffolding for the book. We have gathered documentation wants and needs from the Firefox team and a real book will be available by the end of the two-day Sprint.

The support team consists of members of FLOSS Manuals writing community with Adam Hyde, the founder and Janet Swisher leading this workshop-style event. Chris Hofmann, Director of Engineering at the Mozilla Foundation is joining us as well. Ann Gentle will be participating from her home office in Austin.

To contribute you must register and then select a manual and a chapter to work on. if it is not marked ‘complete’ then press the edit button! It’s as simple as that. Contributions can include cleaning up layout, spell checking, adding images, proof reading, or taking responsibility for writing one of more chapters. You don’t have to be a technical writer or a super geek, you just need to know how to write.

If you need to ask us questions about how to contribute then just ask us. We look forward to your contribution!

Get more information on using FLOSS Manuals.
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I go to a lot of conferences. Sometimes, people ask me for advice on what to do or how to prepare, particularly if they’ve never been to that particular event before. Though each conference is different, I think a few basic rules apply to getting the most from all of them.

1. Wear comfortable shoes. Can’t emphasize this one enough! Venues are often large, and even if the meeting rooms are relatively close together, you may end up walking quite a bit on the off-hours (such as to dinner or other local venues) or to get from your hotel to the meeting space. Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to wear hiking boots, and obviously you may want to go with looks over comfort for the more formal awards banquet type of activities. But in general, think “feels good” before “looks good”.

2. Bring more business cards than you think you’ll need. As networking and making connections becomes more critical to all of our careers, you’ll want to remember and be remembered by the people you meet at conferences. You’ll meet people everywhere - at the formal events, between events, in the hallways and restaurants and elevators. The last thing you want to do is run out of cards! Believe me, a professional-looking business card leaves a much better impression than a scribbled note on a cocktail napkin.

3. When you do exchange cards with someone, write a note to yourself right on the card - where you met, what you discussed, or what you promised to send to that person. Do it right away - you will not remember this sort of thing if you wait until you get home.

4. Get the schedule in advance and plan what you want to see, but DO NOT try to see a program in every time block on every day. If the conference is any good at all, attending every session will make your head explode. Also, keep in mind that your plan is likely to change, just roll with it.

5. After the event, follow up with the people you met and enjoyed. This could just be a quick note to say “I enjoyed that lunch on Wednesday” or it could be more involved - an introduction, a link, a file that you promised to send, or arranging another in-person meeting. Keep your word - if you promised something, make sure you come through.

While most of the events I attend are work-related, I think these rules apply just as much to the more leisure-oriented events I’m starting to attend. Remember, conferences can provide lots of opportunity for learning and networking, even after the event is over.

I went to see Coraline in the theaters while it was still being shown in RealD 3D - very cool! Not jump at you cool, but like-you-were-really-there cool. If you get a chance you should go see it!

Even the glasses are pretty cool - not the older, cardboard type with one red eye and one blue, but actual plastic frames with polarized lenses. Ever wonder how this new technology works? Turns out it has to do with polarization, a phenomenon used in lots of other applications. There’s a long explanation of the different approaches over on the Microwaves101.com encyclopedia, including discussion and videos of sunglasses, radar detectors, fish tanks, and more. The relevant bit to movies is this:

One consumer niche application of polarizers is 3D glasses for viewing movies. The original 3D experience crudely separated the two images using color filters; later polarized glasses with polarizers at +45 and -45 degrees allowed full color for both eyes. However, if you tilted your head, you saw double images and the effect was lost and a headache was often the result. Today, RealD provides a new 3D experience. Their technology separates the two pictures into two circular polarizations, left hand and right hand. The glasses that they distribute filter out the unwanted images and work regardless of what angle your head happens to be.

In order to change linearly polarized light to circularly polarized, a quarter-wave retarder is used. This is a media that presents different indices of refraction to the light wave, such that one is retarded (phase shifted) by 90 degrees.

If you want to be a real nerd, bring home your RealD 3D glasses and play with them in front of a mirror. Put on the glasses and close one eye - the open eye remains shaded, but you can see the closed eye clearly! This is because you’re looking OUT through one lens and IN through the other, reversing the polarization of the reflected wave (as the whole thing is reflected back at you through the mirror). If you have two mirrors positioned at a 90 degree angle you can re-reverse the image and you will find that your OPEN eye is the one that you see clearly in the reflection!

Isn’t science fun?

There’s a company that makes badges just for tweetups!

I’m DEFINITELY getting one, and will wear it proudly at the upcoming STC Summit in Atlanta! They’re pretty reasonable at $2.50 US, plus whatever the shipping is to your location. This includes a handy lanyard.

However, after talking it over with Rachel H, we’ve come up with a great idea… we can all save a bit of money by putting in one group order. Just send me an email with your first name and twitter name, and send $3 to my paypal account at bphuettner@aol.com or through the paypal button below.

I’ll place the order for badges with the tweetup name “#stc09″ at the end of March, then I’ll bring the finished badges with me on the Saturday before the conference begins. I’m usually pretty easy to find, but you can always tweet me!

If you’d rather order your own just go to http://tweetupbadges.com/ . You would get to pick out your own colors, but you’ll end up paying full shipping costs. This is also the way to go if you can’t make it to Atlanta, but want a badge anyway.

Either way, I hope we get lots of tweeple in Atlanta!