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
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!

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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.

Juggler of Universes - Illustration by J. J. G...
Image via Wikipedia
Technical Communications Juggler: Balancing Work, Life and Writing Books
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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.

MindTouch
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!

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