STC-Phoenix.com » Virtual Meeting: Combining Social Media with Help Authoring

Virtual Meeting: Combining Social Media with Help Authoring

Filed under: Events, Membership meetings — Maggie Haenel on April 22, 2008 @ 11:30 am

Join us for an interesting and educational evening as Tom Johnson presents Combining Social Media with Help Authoring.

The Web landscape has changed considerably in the last several years. Users are no longer passive consumers of information (Web 1.0), but instead are active contributors of content (Web 2.0). They expect to interact and share information, not only with other users, but with project teams and companies.

Although interactive technologies have flourished on the Web, much of the help authoring community remains in the one-way communication model. We treat our users as if they have little or nothing to contribute back.

In this virtual meeting, Tom will discuss six of the most compelling technologies that enable users to become contributors: blogs, wikis, social networks, forums, podcasts/videocasts, and interactive online help. We’ll discuss the pros and cons of each medium and how technical writers can use these technologies to better connect with users.

About Tom Johnson

Tom works as a senior technical writer for a User Education team at an organization in Salt Lake City. He is a versatile writer who, like most tech writers, stumbled into technical writing after working in other fields. Tom previously taught composition at the university level, and then worked as a copywriter. Tom finds that technical writing combines his love for writing, his drive to create, and his fascination with technology. On his Web site, Tom produces podcasts titled “Tech Writer Voices” about the latest trends and practices in the field of technical communication. For the podcasts, he interviews tech writing luminaries or posts recorded STC chapter presentations of interest.

For more about Tom, check out his Web site at http://www.idratherbewriting.com/about/