One of the older – and better, in my opinion – conferences is WritersUA. Those of us who have been around for a while still call it WinWriters, but that’s another whole story.

I like WritersUA because it’s very focused and to the point. You won’t find any presentations at a junior level. Typically, you see what’s coming and what interesting things people are doing that you wouldn’t have thought about doing.

You’ll leave with your head full of good and interesting ideas to implement when you get home.

I especially like it this year because it’s down the freeway from me! So guess where I’ll be March 16 thru March 18 2011.

Where do I find out more?

From the WritersUA site:

Registration Open for WritersUA Conference in Long Beach
All of the details for the 2011 WritersUA Conference for Software User Assistance are now available, including information about topics, speakers, activities, exhibitors, and hotel and travel. Registration discounts are in effect. Four days, 70+ topics, 50+ experts.
Hands-on computer labs. Free Wifi access. Online networking community.

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.

I have always loved words. All words. I like to play with words, talk about words, I married a writer.Even as a child, I played with language. I just like words.

Because I love words, I read a lot. A lot. My husband got me a Sony eReader last Christmas and I stopped reading physical books at that moment. I have over 200 books on my Reader right now. And the entire device fits in my purse. Wonderful.

The physical world

So imagine my surprise when I ordered a physical book the other day. I wanted Ann Rockley’s updated book about DITA. I realized that for a learning experience, I wanted the physical book in my hands.

It took the better part of 2 weeks to arrive but it’s been good reading.

Even if you’re not moving to DITA

Last time I was docs manager, I had a large group writing a large library. I saw that we would need to move to some sort of re-usable CMS/authoring thing.

Step one for my group was to get everyone writing in what I called Structured Authoring. We needed everyone to be talking about the same stuff the same way, both in words and in how we structured the content in topics.

Structured authoring helps

DITA 101 is a great refresher on why and how you approach writing in a structured way, even if you’re not making the translition to DITA anytime soon.

If you are thinking about DITA, this book shows you how to work towards it. It’s really not a matter of running down to the DITA store and getting a bucket of DITA. It requires planning, retraining, and testing to make this move. It’s a process.

I recommend you get and read her book, even if you’re not making the DITA move. The recommendations she has for writing in a more structured way will help you or your team.

by Sharon Burton

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.

I was talking to friends the other day about functioning in a business environment and about building business cases. They mentioned Jack’s guest blog post and said there was a little more to it than what he had written. I agreed and asked Jack if he could give us a little more info.

Jack agreed and this is the rest of the story. Thank you!

Part 2

In last week’s blog, I mentioned you build a business case to purchase something that will solve a business problem and save your company money.

Actually, one can build a business case for any company expenditure.

More broadly, address SWOT situations in your business cases: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

• Strengths: Is there something your company does well, that you can replicate and use to expand into new markets and generate new revenue streams?

Or perhaps you implemented a new process at the department level that trimmed production time that you could share with other teams in your company?

• Weaknesses: Is there something your company is not doing well, anything from high customer service complaints to maintaining redundant copy in user manuals, online help, website content, etc.?

For example, have you asked tech support for the top 10 reasons why customers are calling and see if any of those issues can be addressed through better documentation, online help, better UI text, etc.?

• Opportunities: Is there a market opportunity that is not being served, an area where your company can do better/faster/cheaper than your competitors?

Or perhaps there is an opportunity to reduce internal production costs, such as using a CMS to reuse content in documentation and training materials?

• Threats: Where does your company risk losing money? Is there regulatory requirements that you company is danger of not meeting, which might result in a fine (or a law suit) if your company is not in compliance?

For example, check with your company’s legal department to see if they need help drafting your company’s electronic data retention policies.

Think you don’t have a wide sphere of influence?  Think again!

Do a SWOT Assessment and look for ways you can save your company money.

Jack Molisani is the owner of ProSpring Technical Staffing. He also produces the LavaCon Conference on Digital Media and Content Strategies. You can follow him on Twitter @JackMolisani.

One of the things that we tech comm people do is function in a business environment. That means we have a different audience internally with specific needs. We need to meet those needs if we want to function well.

If you have ever asked for a new tool or other “thing” from your boss and it didn’t happen, one of the ways around that is to make a business case. I asked a friend and business associate this week to write about this topic, as he has co-authored several articles about building a business case and has run several workshops on the topic.

Making the business case shows your company that there is a financial reason why you need a new tool, for example.

Here’s Jack.

How to Build a Business Case

The amount of money that is anticipated to be saved or generated as the direct result of an expenditure is known as Return on Investment (ROI).  ROI is usually measured in time and money: how long it will take to recoup the money spent, and how much money will be saved or generated.

When speaking of ROI on a new investment, one states how long it will take to recoup the initial investment via new sales—and then some (profit).

When speaking of ROI on a cost avoidance expenditure, one states how long it will take to recoup the initial expenditure via the money saved.

While it may take years to recoup a large investment, a client of mine in Alameda, CA localized their documentation into so many languages that they reported recouping the cost of purchasing Author-it (through reduced translation costs) in just one product release!

When you build your business case:

• State the problem
• Offer a solution
• State how much it will cost to implement the solution
• State the ROI that could be realized when the solution is implemented

Be sure to state what the problem is for the company, not just for you. The problem is not, “We need a content management system,” the problem is, “We are spending $XX per month more than we need to on translation costs!”

By finding ways to decrease costs and increase profits, you are also showing how you add to the company’s bottom line.

Which, BTW, is a business case for you getting bigger raise come review time, right?

One of the many things I love about our field is that we are always learning new things. I would hate a job where you just did the exact thing every day and nothing new ever got learned. That sounds like employment hell.

I also like teaching very much. It makes me feel good to help people get ideas that help them in their life. I don’t care if it’s teaching tech comm or teaching crochet, it’s all good for me. Students go do stuff I never imagined with the bits of information I give them. I find that amazing and wonderful.

Bits and pieces and webinars

I like giving webinars and, from the sign ups, you all like them too! In the first few days we listed the webinars, we’ve had over 400 people signed up. As of this writing, we’re heading towards the 800 total mark. Thank you – that’s amazing.

The webinars are a mix of topics – some Author-it specific and some not. The ones that are not specific about our products will be, in fact, tools-neutral. I’m hoping to give you useful information and then you can do what is best for you with that information.

What do we have going

For details about each of the upcoming webinars, go to this link and see what looks interesting. If nothing looks interesting but you have a topic you’d like to learn more about, send me an email at sharon.burton(at)author-it(dot)com and I’ll see what I can do. I don’t know everything so I might have to find a speaker, which is fine. I know some very smart people!

Can’t make it? No problems!

If the topic interests you but the time is bad, sign up anyway. We will be recording these and you will get a link to the recording the next day. With the world as small as it is, we’re trying to make these available to as many people as we can, but some timezone is going to hurt. It’s just the nature of the world now.

Looking forward to seeing you!

We’re starting a new Webinar series. Often, these will be about our products, but not always.

If you want to learn more about what Author-it does or how to use it in your environment, we’ve got you covered. But we’re also going to have webinars to just keep you educated in topics that you may be interested in around the content development space. And because these are live, you can ask questions.

We’re trying to schedule these so that they are available to as many people internationally as possible, given that the presenter – Sharon! – is based in the Pacific time zone and occasionally does sleep. If you can’t make the time or date listed, sign up anyway. We’re recording the webinars and you can get the link automatically the next day.

To see the current listings, click here.

When: 8 August, 2010, 9am-6pm
Where: i.145.Hotel, Infantry Road, Near Coffee Board

Author-it, STC India and Triumph Software Services invite you to attend a special 1-day workshop this month. This is a practical workshop, aimed at technical writers that will teach you the skills required to start using the Author-it Enterprise Authoring Platform competently.

Registrations limited to 100 seats only.
For registration details, please visit our Events page on our website. http://author-it.com/vdutrh

Instructions: Please have your laptop with you, installed with an evaluation version of Author-it. Click the Free Trial button at www.author-it.com.