Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter
August/September 2009
| Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter August/September 2009 |
June's meeting departed from lecture format and instead featured break out tables with discussions of three topics: Content Management, Agile Development, and Editing. Each table was hosted by a topic leader. Gilbert Gonzales hosted Content Management, Susan Becker hosted Agile Development, and Marie McElravy hosted Editing.
Everyone at the meeting rotated through the three topics during the course of the evening, so we were all able to contribute to the discussions and benefit from recommendations made by the hosts.
Gilbert Gonzales started off discussing SharePoint revision control software and other version control software but we also discussed how each writer manages file system sharing and version control "on the fly." For example, in our group, some companies checked in source files for FrameMaker and some did not. When the files are not checked into a version control software, some form of file system management is needed to prevent overwriting by multiple authors. Often, these systems were just "best practices." In some companies, source files are not maintained in version control, but deliverables such as PDF files are versioned for each software release.
Susan Becker began by discussing general theories of Agile Development. Familiarity with Agile Development ranged from writers who had only heard the term, to several who were experienced in agile development in one form or the other. While experience varied, one common theme seemed to emerge; Agile Development results in extremely rapid development and many very tired looking developers. The need and challenge to map a Technical Publications Agile Development model to the Agile Development model was mentioned but not discussed in detail –- perhaps a good topic for a future meeting?
Marie McElravy led her discussion about editing by recommending printed references such as The Gregg Reference Manual by William A. Sabin and Developing Quality Technical Information: A Handbook for Writers and Editors from IBM Press. She had samples; yes, actual dead tree hard copy ink and paper books. Glad to see people still use those! They do offer random access and easy to use bookmarks! Marie praised the practice of peer editing. Marc, one of the participants in the group, recommended using the free Adobe Reader to read the copy out loud for you -– you can often hear the errors that you can no longer see on the page. Quite a boon for all you sole writers out there!
I didn't realize Adobe Reader could read out loud, even after working with it for more than a decade. That's what I love about networking with other technical writers; they're darn clever sometimes! I tried this out, using Adobe Reader (you can also use the full blown Acrobat) to read the first page of a tutorial I had written. It works, and actually does help spots errors, although the voice is a little disconcerting. Kind of like having Steven Hawkings review your work. It does offer alternate voices and I finally settled on a voice called Microsoft Anna; it read the text a little faster and seemed a little more friendly!
Overall, it was a very productive meeting; see you at the next one!