Technical Communication Recap for July 13, 2012

[TechWhirl Admin <admin -at- techwhirl -dot- com>]

*This week’s update on technical communication and the TechWhirl community
is supported by Platinum sponsor Madcap & their Ultimate Communications
Suite, MadPak <http://goo.gl/eO3ls> | http://bit.ly/zBI0Uj*



A couple of threads currently running on the TechWhirl email discussion
list point to the important connections between customer service and
technical communication. Stuart Burnfield was looking for a Confluence
forum for advanced
users<http://www.techwr-l.com/archives/1207/techwhirl-1207-00132.html>of
the wiki platform, and we got a bit of background on discontinued
community forums and current resources. Robert Lauriston commented “It's
unfortunate but there's no good central user forum. As Sean alluded to they
replaced it with answers.atlassian.com, which is OK for one-shot support
questions but doesn't work well as a community hub.”  Customers become very
active in communities these days, and when that community shuts down, it
removes an enormous opportunity to interact with them.


Elizabeth Sprague’s thread on accounting language versus plain
language<http://www.techwr-l.com/archives/1207/techwhirl-1207-00122.html>,
and Kevin the Editor-in-Chief’s discussion on documenting the
job<http://www.techwr-l.com/archives/1207/techwhirl-1207-00103.html>highlight
the importance of identifying who all your customers are and
determining your obligations to them. Perhaps he well-worn technical
communication adage “know your audience” should be transformed and updated
to “know your customers,” since in fact we have many customers for our
content, both internal and external to the organization. And, the
organization’s customer service strategy needs to address what the
obligations to those customers are in order to define the processes and
services to achieve its objectives.



During the rest of July we’ll take a look at a variety of aspects related
to why you should “Meet your customers.”  We’re interested in your
viewpoints on how closely integrated customer service and the various
technical communication disciplines should be, what systems and processes
technical communicators should be using or driving, and how we can truly
hear the voice of the customer as we plan and produce technical content.
Cruise on by this week’s technical communication poll on our roles in
customer service<http://techwhirl.com/business/polls/technical-communication-poll-roles-in-customer-service/>.
Then, feel free to start new thread on the email discussion
list<http://www.techwr-l.com/rules-expectations.html>,
comment on this post with your thoughts and ideas, or drop us a note about
an article idea you’d like to help us pursue.  After all you are our
customers, and we aim to please.



Have a great weekend

-The gang at TechWhirl
In Case You Missed it: This Week @ TechWhirl

*New features and articles on http://TechWhirl.com <http://techwhirl.com/>**
:*


   - Tech Writer This Week for July 12, by Craig Cardimon |
   http://bit.ly/NxqeDL
   - Prepare for a Challenging Content Management Swim: Review of Alan J.
   Porter’s The Content Pool, by Julie Grady | http://bit.ly/NmAETh
   - Technical Communication Poll: Roles in Customer Service |
   http://bit.ly/MiuIwO
   - The Changing Landscape of Technical Communication: Tips and Tricks for
   Staying Relevant, by Jacquie Samuels| http://bit.ly/N8NecV



*Tech Comm News on http://News.TechWhirl.com <http://news.techwhirl.com/>:*


   - SmartBear’s PeerReview Complete 2012 Manages Document Review Process |
   http://bit.ly/NrVdBt
   - Pre-Conference Call for Proposals by STC Academic SIG |
   http://bit.ly/NM5Hd5
   - Vasont Systems Releases Vasont® ST 2.4 CMS with Project Management
   Enhancements | http://bit.ly/OPO0My
   - Single, Searchable, Validated Technical Information Source Tops Design
   Engineers’ Wish List | http://bit.ly/MO1wBi


Social Media and the Chance to Follow TechWhirl:

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SPONSOR-Luv

We want to send a very special “thank you” to our sponsors for their
support.



*Platinum*: Adobe Systems
Incorporated<http://www.runaware.com/clients/adobe/techsuite/>

*Gold: *ComponentOne Software <http://bit.ly/doc-to-help>,* *Madcap
Software<http://www.madcapsoftware.com/products/flare/overview.aspx#whatsnew>
**

*Silver*: Society for Technical Communication (STC)
<http://www.stc.org/>, Vancouver
Island University <http://pr.viu.ca/techcomm/>


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