At the end of last year we surveyed our members about our regular Watercooler Webinar chats and what topics you’d like to discuss in 2012. We had 18 respondents. Most people replied that they would prefer to discuss internationalisation and global work issues (82%) covering producing documentation for international audiences and working with teams/companies located [...]
Continue reading about Results of our recent Watercooler Webinar survey
On Tuesday, January 31, join the STC Europe SIG and STC France Chapter for a webinar on design and typography for technical communication with STC member and quality expert, Alice Jane Emanuel. This 1-hour session will introduce you to best practices in design and typography for technical communication and will include plenty of practical advice [...]
Continue reading about Webinar 31 Jan.: Design and Typography for Technical Communication
by Jen O Neill In this month’s Watercooler Webinar held by the Europe SIG, we discussed the various ways we can collect feedback from the global users of the products we document. Many of us write for audiences located across countries and languages. How do we find out if our documentation meets their needs when [...]
Continue reading about Watercooler Webinar: Collecting user feedback
by Jen O Neill When writing a Dutch address in English, which country name format do you use: Netherlands or The Netherlands? Both work. Indeed on some English-language web sites you may even see both formats used. I admit I have always used the “The Netherlands” format in addresses, as do many people. The Dutch [...]
by Jen O Neill We’re increasingly hearing about how important it is for us to manage our terminology as it impacts documentation quality, translation cost, branding and customer satisfaction. It’s no secret that most terminology problems start in the source content. Unfortunately the inconsistent use of terms in user interfaces, online and printed documentation, marketing [...]
by Jen O Neill Outsourcing manufacturing is big business. Many companies today use the services of other companies to make, even design, some of their products as it can provide them with needed components or products without owning and operating a factory to do this work themselves. The benefits are cost savings, improving time to [...]
by Jen O Neill The Society for Technical Communication (STC) is one of the world’s largest organisations for technical communication. We have members across the world. Currently around 18% of STC members are based outside of the United States, most in Canada. Around 5% of members are in Europe and Asia. So perhaps it shouldn’t [...]
Continue reading about STC Pushes to Become More International in Outlook
by Jen O Neill Working for an American multinational company with technical writing colleagues on both coasts of the US and me in Belgium, you’d think I’d be watching the clock to see when they’re in the office so that we can talk. Nope. I’m not watching the Instant Messager screen on my computer to [...]
Continue reading about What’s the most important time zone in Europe?
by Jennifer O Neill HONORABLE COLLEAGUE, WE ARE THE TECHNICAL WRITERS. YOU WERE RECOMMENDED BY AN ASSOCIATE WHO ASSURED US IN CONFIDENCE OF YOUR ABILITY AND RELIABILITY TO CARRY OUT PENDING REVIEWS IN GREAT MAGNITUDE WITHOUT RAISING ANY MISGIVING ATTITUDE. CONSEQUENTLY WE HAD THE COURAGE TO CRAVE AN INDULGENCE FOR THIS IMPORTANT BUSINESS FOR CHECKING [...]
The STC Europe SIG and STC France chapter are pleased to present a joint webinar to the technical communication community on 22 March at 19.00 CET. Quality-assessment expert and STC member, Alice Jane Emanuel, will introduce an easy-to-use, yet comprehensive tool for document quality assessment. Alice Jane will demonstrate how this tool provides granular feedback [...]
Continue reading about Webinar: Measure the Quality of your Documentation, 22 March