Long ago, when I owned my own technical writing outsource company, we hired a writer for a project. She reported to my project lead, who wanted to tear his hair out after the first month.

She couldn’t estimate how much work was left. She also couldn’t estimate how much she had done. We had no idea if she was on track or not.

This drove us crazy, as we had a content spec for the project and her topics were clearly assigned. We also had a hard deadline. But for some reason, she was at a loss to estimate how many topics remained before she was done. She was a great writer but this was surprising. How do you not know where you are in a project? How do you know you’re on track for the deadline?

Release states help you

The thing I like about release states is they help you see at a glance what content is in what state. If we had used Author-it with release states, we could have asked her to count the number of topics that had been moved to review and subtract that from the topics NOT in review yet to get a sense of where we were in the project.

And they’re customizable, so you don’t have to try to fit your specific content flow needs into what we thought they should be. Release states support your workflow the way you need your workflow to run. Release states are easy to set up and easy to use.

To learn more about how this works, watch this 5 minute video from our free Learning Center.

One of the things I love about being in the high tech industry is the learning never stops. I’ve always thought having a job where you do the exact same thing every day sounds terrifically boring. And in the high tech industry, that really doesn’t happen – every day brings something new.

Training

We’ve added training to my list of things I’m doing and I couldn’t be happier. I love teaching people. I’m so passionate about this industry and what we do. I get to now also help people by providing them the tools to learn Author-it. Then, after the training, they are going to do wonderful things with that knowledge and change the world.

And I get to be a small part of that. Wonderful.

Towards that end, we’re doing several things at Author-it, short term and longer term.

Online training is free

In case you’ve not heard, we’ve made all the materials for our Core training available in small nuggets and it’s all free. If you have 10 or so minutes, you can watch a video specifically about what you want to review and then get on with your day.

This is a Big Deal.

If you want to add to your skillset and learn Author-it, you can do that with the Learning Center and an evaluation copy of Author-it. If you want to brush up on something – perhaps your company has finally decided to do online help – you can refresh your knowledge in the Learning Center.

Did I mention it’s free?

Already popular

Based on the stats, this resource is incredibly popular already. If you’ve not been to the Learning Center, I strongly recommend you get over there and check things out.

This has been a very busy week for the technical content world.

Author-it 5.5 is released

As you know by now, we released the latest version of Author-it 5.5 to great excitement in the industry. Once again, we’ve redefined the possible in the content authoring and managing world. For more details about what this release includes, click here and then sign up for the free webinar that shows you how the Author-it Reviewer works.

June 1st at 2pm Pacific. As always, if the time or date don’t work for you, sign up anyway to get a link to the recording the next day.

This hour long webinar is a don’t-miss event. We strongly recommend inviting your boss as well. S/he’s going to want to see this. Author-it Reviewer is changing collaborative work forever.

Author-it Learning Center

If you’ve been interested in learning Author-it, we have an option you’re going to love: free, on-demand training.

The Author-it Learning Center includes videos to help you understand the basics of Author-it. You learn what objects are, how to import and author content, and how to customize your outputs.

It’s all online, ready for you to view when you’re ready to learn. Each session is under 15 minutes, making is easy to find the time to learn something new.

Even if you know Author-it, it’s a great way to refresh your skills or review something you may have forgotten. What a great way to get the information you need and move on with your day.

The STC Summit Conference

And finally, this week was the STC Summit Conference. We want to thank the many many people who came by the Author-it booth to find out how our products can make life easier.

150 people wore Author-it tee shirts for the special Apple iPad give away. We talked until we had no voice, gave out chocolate Kiwi Fish, and awarded the iPad to Andrea Wenger.

A great time was had by all, as you can see in the picture below.

Well, it’s the end of the month and I’m not going to get these results written by the end of the month. I’m shooting for end of Feb now.

The white paper will go into further detail and analysis than I’ve done here.

But the last bit of data I thought I’d share is about industries. In no way was this a scientific survey so please don’t think this shows the larger industry of people.

Software is by far the leader in this parade. I honestly expected more education than we got, but that’s my own bias, I think.

In other news

If you have been wondering how Author-it tools might help in a Technical Publications group, I have a webinar for you.

Feb 2 2011: 8 AM Pacific
Author-it for Technical Publications
This live demo covers using Author-it in multi-person technical publication groups. See the tips and tricks to help your projects stay on track.

If you’re interested in this webinar, even if you can’t attend live, click here to register. If you miss the webinar, a link to the recording will be sent to you the next day.

While I’ll be showing Author-it, I’ll be focusing on workflow and larger groups and how it works in that environment.

Hope to see you there!

You know we’re attending several shows in the next few months. But did you know you have other ways to learn about Author-it?

Webinars

Not only are we attending several trade shows in the near future, we have online webinars available for you to attend.

Author-it Morning at WritersUA

If you are interested in seeing some useful tips, talk to Author-it people, and have some coffee and you’re either in So Cal or at WritersUA in March, you want to jump on the Author-it Morning event March 12 2011, 9am to Noon.

If you’re interested in attending this event, send me an email at sharon.burton@author-it.com with Author-it Morning in the subject line. We’re charging $49 US for the event but I can get that waived. Since I’m organizing the event, I have some sway!

See you then!

You may recall that we did a Content Trends survey in December.

486 people responded, which was amazing. I’m delighted.

Our winner is

We announced that if you wanted to provide your contact information, you would be part of a drawing. The winner would get either a free license of Author-it or a free training class.

We have our winner! It’s Shevette Chopin in Atlanta and she chose a free license of Author-it.

We’d like to congratulate Shevette and thank everyone who responded to the survey.

Quick overview of the results

We’ll be doing a webinar soon to cover the results and have a white paper available on our website. But here’s a few interesting facts that fell out of the data so far.

55% of the respondants currently use Author-it and 45% do not. I feel we have a nice dataset of users.

Publishing outputs currently needed:

And outputs seen as needed in the next 2 years:

There’s a lot more where this came from, but I thought these 2 were especially interesting.

Keep watching here for news about the webinar on this data.

Speaking of webinars

I’ve got the next webinar written and ready to go. If you are interested in the process of chosing a new tool or tools in a vendor neutral way, the next webinar is Monday, Jan 17 at 7am Pacific. Learn more and sign up by clicking here.

As always, we’re recording this so if the topic interests you but the time doesn’t work, sign up anyway and you’ll get a link to the recording the next day.

See you there!

Over the weekend, I went to my local office supply store to ship the Christmas package to my family in the US midwest. Before I left, I asked my husband if we needed anything while I was there.

“Why, yes,” he said. “We need pens. Good pens.”

“OK…” I said. “Maybe you should come. I don’t know what ‘good’ means.”

“Don’t be silly. Just get some good pens.”

Off I went. I got the package shipped and spent about an hour looking at pens. I finally decided a variety was the best solution.

When I got home, in fact, I had gotten at least one package of “good” pens. My husband was happy and so was I.

So why am I telling this story?

I often see on newsgroups or hear from people because they want to know the “best” tools for their content creation, management, and publishing needs. I’ve been part of several webinars lately where the question has come up. I understand why the question is asked.

But I don’t have any easy answer for you.

Defining the “best” tool depends on so many factors that the questions almost doesn’t make sense.

Back to pens

Taking an easy example, let’s look at the pens again. There are so many feature variables for this basic writing instrument:

• ink color
• line thickness
• gel, roller-ball, straight ink
• pen barrel thickness
• retractable or cap
• clip or not
• soft spot on the barrel or hard

I bet there are more, but these are the ones that come to mind.

Then there are the use issues to consider.

• Are these for work writing or casual use?
• What are you writing on?
• Do you have large or small hands?
• Is this going in your pocket or a purse?
• Are you likely to lose it?

And more, I’m sure.

So how can there be a “best” tool?

If choosing a pen has this many options to consider, chosing the right tool is much more complicated.

Towards that end, I invite you to attend a webinar that we are hosting in January that will go into deciding what you need to consider when you’re ready to consider improving your workflow.

It’s vendor-neutral and based on my experience as a consultant and a manager over almost 20 years of being in the field.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

by Sharon Burton

If your life is anything like everyone I know, this is the time of year where there’s too much to get done and nothing close to enough time. The holidays are upon us, work wants stuff done by the end of the calendar year, the house needs to be cleaned, the dogs need to be walked.

It can all be overwhelming.

Take a break

What you need is a break, a place to quiet your mind. Of course, I think you can do that by taking our survey, signing up for one of our webinars, or joining our new group on LinkedIn.

But maybe that’s not what you are looking for. Maybe you should sign up for a conference?

Coming up

The upcoming trade shows for Author-it are:

Intelligent Content, Feb 16-18 Palm Springs CA.

WritersUA, March 13-16 Long Beach CA

STC, May 15-18 Sacramento CA

I’m going to be at all of these and would love to see you there. Think of our booth as a quiet spot to come and chat about nothing in particular or about our products. I’m fine with both. We can show you what’s going on, we can knit together, or you can just sit quietly. It’s really up to you.

What ever you decide, take a few moments for yourself this holiday season.

You deserve it and your sanity will be intact in the new year.

We’d like to know what your content trends and needs are for the next 2 years or so. Towards that end, we’ve created a survey. You can take the 10 question survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QSN8M2G.

Personal information not required

We’re not tracking IP addresses, although you can only take the survey 1 time from each IP address. Personal information about you is not required to participate in the survey.

We’re also giving a prize if you’d like to identify yourself. After the survey closes, one winner will be selected to win EITHER a free license for Author-it OR one free training session in the next six months. It’s the winner’s choice.

To participate in the prize drawing, you must provide your contact information at the end of the survey.

Tell your friends

Please feel free to share the link and tell your friends. The survey closes at the end of December, just before midnight US time, I believe.

What if Author-it hosted a webinar called “Ask the Pros”?

You brought your TechComm questions and they were answered? Perhaps I get a career person, a docs manager, and a tools person, for example.

You guys bring your questions – from How do I? to What’s the best practice for…? to Why can’t I get hired?

And the team of “experts” answers your questions? (understanding that we’re all expert in some area)

Sound interesting? If so, post in the comments area with ideas or thoughts.