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The podcasts I record for I'd Rather Be Writing cover the latest trends in technical communication. I interview tech writing luminaries around the world as well as record STC presentations and other audio content. You can subscribe to podcast specific feeds using the subscription information below.
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The Convergence of Web 2.0 with Help Documentation — Tom Johnson
January 3rd, 2007 | Posted in Podcasts 10 Comments »
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Duration: 26 min.
In this podcast, I talk about the convergence of web 2.0 with help documentation. I mention examples of Web 2.0 sites, such as Flickr, Payscale, and Digg, and what help files need to incorporate these same Web 2.0 features.
You can read a transcript of the podcast on my blog.
Music is from Podshow.
You can leave a comment on this post or send me an e-mail at tom@idratherbewriting.com.
[...] Note: This post is also a podcast that you can listen to on Tech Writer Voices. [...]
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Fantastic program, Tom! I’ve long said that our help is much too static and that the future will be user feedback, user-contributed content, more community-driven doc portals, knowledge centers rather than “help”. We should promote the positive aspects of what we offer (knowledge centers) rather than promote something that implies that the user is weak and needs help. (Help). I haven’t seen the help authoring tool vendors incorporating methods of making help more community-driven, but with more noise from the community (hey, it’s us again!), we can make that happen, too. AM Grissino
Thanks for the comment, AM. I asked Mike Hamilton of Madcap if they were incorporating Web 2.0 features, and he said they’d experimented with incorporating wikis into Flare, along with some other Web 2.0 items. I agree with your assessment about treating the user as a contributor rather than someone who is weak and always needs help. I checked out your site — nice. Thanks for listening. I think one day someone will hack WordPress into a help authoring tool.
I just listened to your great podcast. In addition to the community aspect, you’re really focused on making the information about the user and their needs, from a technical perspective, which is so important. I am a proponent of minimalism, and I think this stretches the whole idea of “right information at the right time.”
We are working on creating forums for our technical users to create content to share with us and eachother, and your ideas about ranking the content, good and bad, will be a big help. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Hi Tom,
I generally enjoy your podcasts, but I could barely hear this one!
I listen to podcasts in my car, using a TransPod to send from my iPod to my radio. Usually, I set the radio volume at about 20-25 out of 33 when using the TransPod. For this cast, I had to turn it all the way up to 33, and I still couldn’t make out some sections.
This hasn’t been a problem in your interview casts. I realize you’re a naturally soft-spoken guy. Please, either speak up or pump up the volume in post-processing. This is a fascinating topic, and I wish I could have heard more of it.
Writingweb,
I am really interested to hear about your forums. Some colleagues and I were just talking about the need for user forums yesterday. What kind of software are you planning to use for the forums? Have you implemented anything yet? I really am interested to hear your experiences with the forums.
Janet,
Sorry about the volume. I didn’t realize that it was so low. I am wondering if it’s my microphone or if I need a mixer or if I just have the settings wrong in Audacity. I’m going to have to troubleshoot that for upcoming podcasts. I may republish this one with louder output sometime. Thanks for letting me know about the volume issues.
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