Who knew that Lewis Carroll and Henry Holiday understood the world of technical writing? I don't know what more accurately describes my world, the flying pigs or the tormentors. Take the link below for a fuller explanation. Fit the Fifth Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com0

Those not following national news, Georgia had the last contested seat in the Senate up for a run-off election. Well, to make a long story short, I GOT A CALL FROM BARAK OBAMA! That's right, the president-elect called me. The only problem was that I couldn't get a word in edgewise, he just talked and talked as if he wasn't listening to me. Well, at least he called. I wonder if I need to put him Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com0

Many technical communicators cannot afford to attend a conference every year, not because of the registration fees, but because of the associated travel and hotel costs (which typically exceed the price of the conference). The STC conference will be held in Atlanta in 2009, and for local good old boys and gals, this is a great opportunity to attend the premiere conference for technical Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com1

Every morning I see the following message on the body wash container in my shower: "Not tested on animals." I'm glad that they didn't abuse animals to develop my soap, but on the other hand, it means I'm getting it before the dog does. I like that they don't do "experiments" on animals, but I also think that at the very end, right when the scientist is about to give it the "OK, Mike can use it" Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com1

The last area of reuse is where a topic could be reused if certain snippets could be changed. Most of us know this as conditional text; DITA I believe calls it conditional processing. I'm not a tech comm historian, but I would wager that this is the oldest implementaion of reuse other than copy and paste. The most common applications are where some snippet, phrase, or instruction would be Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com0

That last side trip about which voice to use still has my head woozy and so I need to get grounded again by talking about reuse. Reusing snippets Another scenario in reuse is where the unit of reuse is smaller than an entire topic. Common examples include: Product namesNotes, Warnings, and CautionsDescriptions of common user actionsAny sensitive text that has been vettedThere are several Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com0

A little side trip again away from reuse. I was visiting with my sibs in Florida and was picking up a bar tab (since I am typically the major contributor to the total). The waitress delivered me two credit card tickets, one labeled "Mine" and the other labeled "Yours." So which one do I keep and which one do I give back to her? Had she handed them to me and said "This one is mine and this one Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com4

I just generated a PDF of a draft of a user guide I am working on. I've included the obligatory front matter and Chapter 1 starts on the 23rd page. And we ask why users don't read our stuff. :-(Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com1

Scenarios of reuseThere are four scenarios within which reuse can occur:Same content published in different mediaSame topic in different documentsSame content within many topicsSlightly different content within one topic The first is very elementary, for example, outputting the same document as a chm, web help, and as a PDF. This is the equivalent of changing the paper in the copier from canary Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com0

I almost started today's blog with "I'm getting old" and then decided that's not true. I am old. I tried my best not to get old. Physically I tried to avoid it by drinking and smoking and not exercising, but that didn't work (at least not yet). Professionally I have dutifully tried to keep up with the trends: I DITA, I Wiki, I blog, I tweet, I have a translator on my blog, and I have a page on Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com4

Let's say your cookbook has a section for chicken dishes and one for salads. Where do you put recipes for chicken salad? Actually this is a relevant topic for me for a couple of reasons. For one, Atlanta STC is putting together a cook book for the upcoming Summit in May. Secondly, I am working on refactoring current Help and user guide topics into a new, unified format that has proscribed Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com2

I rarely think of myself as an honoree on Veteran's day, but I got an e-mail from my company's VP of Diversity this morning thanking me for my service. At the time, it felt more like servitude--1969-1972 were not tranquil years, and as a young man I would have preferred to have been growing my hair long and hanging out in coffee houses. And had I not flunked out of college in 1969 I probably Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com1

I have always liked the "feel, felt, found" method for answering objections. "I know how you feel, I felt the same way, and then I found..." I experienced it in an internal conversation with myself last week. I have resented the pressure to write for "ease of translation" for a long time. For one, I felt it really meant "ease of machine translation" because the job of a human translator is to Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com2

A friend of mine sent me a link to an article on the BBC website. You can get the gist of it from the image below (click image to enlarge it): In the oddest of coincidences, I had read the article the day before on the BBC Arabic version website. You can get the gist of it from the image below (click image to enlarge it): Aside from the language translation and the shift from left->right to Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com0

I added a translation widget to my blog. Scroll down the navigation pane on the left to find it. View this blog page in the language of your choice. I've started trying to pick up my Arabic again (I was a translator for the Army Security Agency about a bazillion years ago) and that has gotten me interested in online translation tools. This particular widget has a nice mouse-over feature that Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com2

I hate it when the time changes from daylight saving time. It's such a pain to get up at 2:00 am to reset my clock. They should make it occur at a more convenient time. What!?!?Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com0

You know what never works out well? Letting technical communicators get involved in legal documents. When I do it I end up in tears; when I watch others do it I find myself shaking my head and saying "Bless their hearts." We want it to be clear; lawyers want it to stand up in court. I've come to accept that there just is not much overlap in that Venn diagram. Solution? Let them have their way.Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com2

I have decided to start including my CPT (Certified Performance Technologist) credentials after my name again. Click on the CPT logo in the left column to read a more extensive description of what being a CPT involves. I've had this certification for about eight years, but quit using the credentials a while back. I think I felt a little pretentious putting that many letters after my name. Aside Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com0

Yikes, the economic news is certainly scary these days. So what do you do if you think layoffs are coming? Get into the top thirdEvery boss right now is making a list, real or mental, that focuses on which employees are in the top third and which are in the bottom third. Get into the top third of that list by doing the following: Add value in the areas that your boss will be evaluated on.Make Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com1

It's never too late to have a happy childhood. As a boyscout, I was fascinated by the section in my handbook that talked about taking plaster castings of animal tracks. I imagined myself with my field kit, crouched over some track and painstakingly capturing it. I guess it made my subliminal bucket list because a few weeks ago I went to the craft store and bought some plaster of Paris. In the Mike Hugheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06004741387594324547michaelhughesua@gmail.com2