WordCamp Milwaukee 2012 (Photo credit: teamstickergiant)

We’re starting to ramp up the activity for this year’s WordCamp Milwaukee. Our site is up. We’re looking for speakers and sponsors. Get your ideas in so we can make this the Best WordCamp Ever!

See you at Bucketworks in Milwaukee on June 8 and 9 (perhaps even at the Beginner’s Workshops on

the 7th too)!

The second (and more complete) part of my review of Adobe RoboHelp 10 is now live at TechWhirl.com. In brief, I really love the new mobile-friendly features that allow you to preview and generate help for mobile app users. I’m also pretty excited about the new workflow for collaboration and review/editing.

The slightly less exciting parts involve the actual authoring process, which did not get much of an update.  My bottom line is that if you’re a technical communicator who is now creating mobile help (or may be in the near future), you should seriously consider picking this up.

Watch TechWhirl and this space for more Adobe Technical Communication Suite 4 coverage!

Related articles

• First Look at Adobe RoboHelp 10 at TechWhirl
• Adobe RoboHelp 10 is here!!
• Extend the Frontiers of TechComm – Adobe Launch 2012
• Adobe RoboHelp 10: “These are a few of my favourite things”
• Adobe RoboHelp 10: Multiscreen HTML5

Adobe released version 4 of its Technical Communication Suite this week. I’ve poked the tires for TechWhirl, and published a brief review of the latest upgrade of the online help authoring tool, RoboHelp. If you work on user assistance for a variety of screen sizes (phones, tablets, desktops), you should have a look at RoboHelp 10.

Logo of Adobe Systems Incorporated (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There’s more coverage of Adobe Technical Communication Suite 4 at TechWhirl now. Watch for more stuff next week!

Related articles

• Upgrade Time! PREVIEW of the NEW Adobe Technical Communications Suite 4!(techcommgeekmom.com)

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• Introducing the New Technical Communication Suite 4 – with new versions of FrameMaker and RoboHelp(blogs.adobe.com)

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I kicked off Sunday’s WordCamp Milwaukee user track with a (partial) tour of the WordPress websites, based on Appendix E of WordPress in Depth. You can see the slides at Slideshare.

I’ll be writing more about WordCamp Milwaukee over at Notes from the Metaverse later in the week (briefly, it was fantastic). In a couple of weeks, the video of all the talks will be at WordCamp.TV. I’ll let you know when that’s up too.

Thanks to everyone who attended my session (and all weekend), and kudos to the stalwarts who carried most of the load:  Scott Offord and Dustin Filippini. It will be even better next year!

…and have I got a sweet deal for you! Go visit the WordCamp Milwaukee ticket window and enter wcspeaker in the Coupon Code box, and you can get in for the whole weekend for just $10.

Need some reasons to attend? Go check out this post at Notes from the Metaverse, where I try to spell them out.

Hope to see you on June 2 and 3 at Bucketworks in Milwaukee!

Solved my “blank pages” problem rather easily. As I suspected, the issue appears to have been a wonky plugin. Turning off all my plugins restored the Pages back to normal. I went to the Recently Active tab on the Plugins admin page. My SharePress plugin (coincidentally?) had an update available. Installed the update and activated the plugin; Pages still worked!

One by one, I activated each plugin and viewed the site pages (in another browser tab). Success! I even activated some other plugins, with no issues.

While I can’t say with absolute certainty that SharePress (which posts new blog posts to Facebook) caused my pages to disappear, I’m glad it updated. I’m even happier things are back to normal.

If you’re happy too, feel free to buy a book while you’re here. You can also use Comments or the Contact page to drop me a line.

Thanks for your patience!

Just discovered that static pages (Books, Contact, Bio) on the site are currently not working. I am trying to determine the source of the problem, and hope to get things back to normal soon. Feel free to read posts here, and at Notes from the Metaverse (see the sidebar on the right!).

My latest article on balancing full-time work with writing books and still having a life to speak of is at TechWhirl.com. This piece is a followup to my Adventures in Publishing article, and filled with tips and personal experience for the writer crazy enough to adopt my lifestyle.

Image via Wikipedia

Writers are insecure people, as a general rule. This is one of the reasons so many prizes and awards are handed out to writers in any given year.

Image by Roebot via Flickr

In the realm of technical communication, there really aren’t many ways to measure success. There are no Pulitzer or Nobel Prizes in our field. For those of us who write software manuals and other items, getting mentioned in a product review, or getting feedback from a user (or a bunch of users) is about the best thing we can hope for. The Society for Technical Communication annually bestows “Fellow” and “Associate Fellow” status on members who “contribute to the profession and the Society at the highest level, as indicated by their publications, presentations, awards, mentoring, leadership, and community service.”

Around this time last year, MindTouch, a startup that makes what they call a “social knowledge base,” pulled together a list of 25 influential technical communicators, based largely on their participation in the tech-comm community and their social media connections. This year, “by popular demand” MindTouch repeated the list, and expanded it tremendously—to 400 people influential in techcomm and content strategy! One of them (at #57, no less) was me. Thus you see the badge over in the sidebar over there.

I am humbled and honored to be part of this collection of fine communicators, and to share the honor with many folks I’ve met at conferences, trade shows, and the many more I know online. Even Scott Abel, who always belongs on lists like these (click the link to see how he accidentally fell off the big list!).

I pledge to use my influence for good, and the competitor in me will aim for the top 50 next year–it’s a much nicer badge!