Recently, I had some technical problems with this blog that seemed to result from a category excluder plugin. Somehow I ended up with a bunch of duplicated categories with one post assigned to each one. This was causing links to be broken and posts to somehow show up as uncategorized. Tags had also been removed.
After trying a couple of fixes to the broken links and phantom categories, I was afraid that I would have to delete all my categories and go through all 300+ posts, reassigning categories and tags. Once I found the real problem, I took the time to correctly assign posts to their original categories and delete the duplicates.
Strangely, the prospect of coming up with a new list of categories and tags and then assigning the applicable ones to each post was somewhat inviting.
Why?
If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going . . .
I realized some time ago that the categorization and tagging of my posts was pretty haphazard. I didn’t have a strategy or information architecture for my blog. If I wrote a post on something that didn’t fit in any existing category, I created a new one. If it related closely enough to an existing category that creating a new one didn’t make sense, I renamed the category (if WordPress let me) to include the new topic, such as “Web Design & CSS.” I came up with tags almost in a vacuum because I didn’t—and still don’t—have the patience to wait for WordPress’s autocomplete feature to load while I’m typing tags.
The architecture of my blog was like an untended garden, and creating an organization for my posts from scratch was tempting to me.
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Tags:
content organization,
content strategy,
information architecture,
information organization
With the increasing emphasis in business on compelling content, I’ve been thinking that the field of translation may shift its focus as well.
The goal of most translation services appears to be speed, affordability, and accuracy. For example, Verbatim Solutions’ website says: “In all cases, Verbatim provides the right solution to help clients minimize costs, accelerate time to market, and ensure quality.”
But what is quality? Is it 100% fidelity to the original text?
Or is it conveying a message in a way that preserves the original intent—or even adjusts the message based on the cultures of those who speak the target language?
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Tags:
content,
content strategy,
internationalization,
localization,
translation
Guest post by Larry Kunz.
Two years ago I hadn’t heard of content curation, and you probably hadn’t either. Now it’s everywhere. The steam of content is turning into a flood. (Brett Swanson calls it the exaflood.)
As a technical communicator, if you’re not already assimilating content from all across the organization—as well as from your customers—you soon will be. In fact, your customers won’t wait to be invited to the party.
This subject fascinates me, and I like to read everything I can about it. I’m noticing something: as the flood of content increases, the flood of content about content curation is increasing too. Blog posts. Slide decks. Webinars. All with their attendant tweets, RSS feeds, and email notifications.
I’m not alone. As I was preparing this piece, I ran across an article in which Ian Greenleigh wrote that he has trouble handling all of the “shiny” new stuff being written about content curation. Like Greenleigh, I have a column in TweetDeck labeled #curation. Unlike Greenleigh, I don’t have ADD—but I still find it devilishly hard to keep up with everything.
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Tags:
content curation,
content strategy,
technical communication,
technical writing
I started my current job five years ago this week. Reaching the level of senior technical writer brings me to ask whether I’ve got the smarts to go along with the time I’ve clocked.
A Narrow View of Tech Comm
When I graduated from Utah State University two months before starting as an intern, I thought technical communication consisted mainly of writing manuals, help systems, and the occasional tutorial. I thought the main activities were writing and creating images for print or Web.
My definition of a technical writer didn’t differ much from most people’s if at all.
I hadn’t heard the terms CSS, single sourcing, structured authoring, DITA, social media, Agile, RSS, SEO, or content strategy. Some of these things were either relatively new or not dreamed of at that point.
I belonged to the student chapter of the Society for Technical Communication, but the chapter members mainly learned from each other. There was only so far we could go that way.
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Tags:
Agile,
Agile methodology,
content strategy,
CSS,
DITA,
RSS,
SEO,
single sourcing,
social media,
Society for Technical Communication,
STC,
technical communication,
technical writing
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