Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash Almost no one would dispute the fact that Artificial Intelligence is expanding and evolving on a daily basis. AI is already changing how content developers approach their tasks, and is creating a lot of concern about the future of human technical content developers.There are lots of technical writers worried that AI is going to replace them altogether. At the same time, for many organizations producing technical content, the process is still remarkably full of tediously manual tasks, incessant copying and pasting, and constant struggles to optimize content ..read more

Beyond the Hype: A.I. for Human Writers & Editors Bing A.I. image creator to create an image shows a battle between A.I. and WritersEvent Details October 30, 2023, 1230 ET, bookmark this page because we’ll embed video here About our upcoming Fast 5: Artificial intelligence (A.I.) is transforming the way we work, and the writing and editing professions are no exception. But with so much hype and misinformation surrounding A.I., it can be difficult to know what’s real and what’s not. In this webinar, Dr. Erika Konrad (Sr. Lecturer, Northern Arizona University), Joshua Lee (Officer, Writer an ..read more

People who are familiar with the various documentation and content management systems understand that while there are many options and features, not all of them are created equal, much less tailored to the needs of a technical writing team or individual technical writers. Additionally, many platforms on the market are outdated, difficult to use, or simply not designed for technical documentation. For instance, some platforms are more suitable for blogging or website creation than for technical documentation, which requires a different set of tools and features. Finding documentation software t ..read more

One of the pleasures of Microsoft Word is how you can combine innocuous basic tools to accomplish surprisingly large tasks—to make Word work for you, not against you. Those tools tend to be present participles: finding, moving, selecting, and so on.
 Each of these -ings saves time, but the real payoff comes when you combine them to emulate how you’d approach a typical writing or editing task—with Word doing the heavy lifting. Consider the task of checking literature citations in a manuscript—a set of labor-intensive, time-consuming tasks. To make Word work for you in this scenario, the thought ..read more

Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash Artificial Intelligence (AI) currently dominates news and media coverage, including the big questions around the speed of its evolution and the ethics of its use. Joshua Lee, a writer, college instructor, and police detective, graciously agreed to answer some of my questions about the ethics of using ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence for workplace writing. The following is the result of our conversation. Erika: I heard that you just wrote an article about how police can use AI (such as ChatGPT) for police work. What AI applications do yo ..read more

Photo by Kane Reinholdtsen on Unsplash Nobody’s ever accused me of being a brilliant public speaker, but people generally seem to like and remember my presentations and generally rate me as a confident, welcoming, and effective speaker. Most important, I get invited back to speak again. What’s a bit surprising is that (like many writers and editors) I’m something of an introvert—though possibly the most extroverted introvert you’ll ever meet. But by following a few strategies, I’ve turned myself away from being extremely uncomfortable in front of an audience towards being a comfortable and ent ..read more

Agile. The philosophy has influenced IT development since the 90s, but it still strikes fear into the hearts of writers with a raft of terms and fundamental processes that conjure up some terrifying possibilities. Agile can sound chaotic and hostile to a writer. Scrum: The word just drips with testosterone-charged action, of beefy, sweaty team members locked together and heaving against the opposition. Where does the writer fit in? Am I the ball that’s stomped and kicked into the turf? Lean: No specifications? I have to rely on daily stand-up meetings, face-to-face conversation, email threads ..read more

Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash TechWhirl’s next Fast 5 Hangout will focus on getting people on board on with content strategy. Sure, it’s a great topic at a conference and DITA for all is just right around the corner, but how do you get it started at your company? It’s a tough subject but not insurmountable … Join Dr. Erika Konrad, Senior Lecturer and Area Coordinator of the Professional Writing Program at Northern Arizona University and Dr. Jordan Smith Assistant Professor in the Department of Technical Communication at the University of North Texas to get some tips, tricks and questions answe ..read more

Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash Editors Note: This Editorial calendar template is one in a series of templates to help readers plan and manage communications and content management activities, resources and deliverables. We welcome ideas and suggestions for other TechWhirl Templates Library materials. Definition: An editorial calendar serves as a scheduling tool for teams and individuals within an organization who have responsibility for creating and distributing content to achieve specific marketing, sales, branding, and support goals. Purpose: A cross-functional editorial calendar d ..read more

Photo by Afif Kusuma on Unsplash From writing funding proposals to crafting business cases, technical communicators often face the challenge of persuading someone to release money and resources to initiate or sustain a project. Whether or not there are formal requirements, usually presented in the form of a “request for proposals” (the dread “RFP”), there are four key elements to any proposal. To describe them, we can’t do much better than the immortal words of Sir Humphrey Appleby, in Yes Prime Minister: There are four words in a proposal if you want it thrown out. Complicated. Lengthy. Expen ..read more