The Cherryleaf Podcast
Cherryleaf Ltd.’s podcast on becoming a better technical and business communicator. www.cherryleaf.com
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Episodes
Monday Dec 11, 2017
Monday Dec 11, 2017
It’s not quite 2018 yet, but here are our predictions for technical communication in 2018 and beyond. We also look back at the predictions we made for 2017.
Predictions for technical communication in 2017 and beyond
Five predictions for technical communication in 2016 and beyond
Docs Like Code - Interview with Anne Gentle
Every Page is Page One - Interview with Mark Baker at UAEurope 2017
Cherryleaf website
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Flickr image by byronv2
Tuesday Nov 28, 2017
Tuesday Nov 28, 2017
We look at the tools used by technical communicators for editing and reviewing content.
Cherryleaf Revising and Editing Content course
Restrict or permit formatting changes in Word 2016
Acrobat DC
Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
Hosting a Shared Review: An Alternative to Acrobat.com
Authorea
CriticMarkup
Hypothesis
FontoXML
MadCap Contributor
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Tuesday Nov 14, 2017
Tuesday Nov 14, 2017
We look at the pros and cons of using the DITA standard, and the alternatives.
Every Page is Page One - Interview with Mark Baker at UAEurope 2017
Interview with Tony Self - UAEurope 17
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Monday Oct 30, 2017
Monday Oct 30, 2017
We look at some of the best books to read on technical writing.
Single Sourcing, Kurt Ament
Ron Blicq and Lisa Moretto
Minimalism Beyond the Nurnberg Funnel, John Carroll
Lean for Practitioners, Mark Eaton
Managing Your Documentation Projects, JoAnn Hackos
Information Development, JoAnn Hackos
Modern Technical Writing, Andrew Etter
Docs Like Code, Anne Gentle
Current Practices and Trends in Technical and Professional Communication, Stephen Crabbe
The Language of Technical Communication, Ray Gallon
The Language of Content Srategy, Rahel Bailie
Every Page is Page One, Mark Baker
Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, Al Sweigart
Don't Make me Think, Steve Krug
Rocket Surgery Made Easy, Steve Krug
Content Strategy: Connecting the Dots Between Business, Brand, and Benefits, Rahel Bailie and Noz Urbina
Content Design, Sarah Richards
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Monday Oct 16, 2017
Monday Oct 16, 2017
Advice on writing a CV for Technical Author vacancies.
Links:
Europass
Cherryleaf - how to register as a candidate
Top 25 Content Experience Influencers 2017
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Monday Oct 02, 2017
Monday Oct 02, 2017
We explore these questions from listeners:
What’s your opinion of Zendesk and Mindtouch? Someone in our company thinks it might be a good idea to explore the idea of moving our Help content – have you heard of anyone doing this and then using it in a way of single sourcing etc?
Our boss wants us to consider the idea of merging our Help content and our “Knowledge base” which is like articles/support troubleshooting etc. Whether this is our content going into the knowledge base or vice versa, we’re not sure in terms of direction. Do you have any opinions on merging article-based content like this into a Help Authoring tool or Help content into a “normal” website like that?
Links
Just-In-Time Documentation: A Practical Guide to Agile Documentation
AI and chatbots in technical communication - A primer
Cherryleaf
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Friday Sep 15, 2017
Friday Sep 15, 2017
Interview with Anne Gentle, author of Docs Like Code and Product Manager at Cisco.
Interview by Ellis Pratt, Cherryleaf
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Cherryleaf training course – Advanced technical writing techniques
For comments and feedback: info@cherryleaf.com
Topics covered:
What is docs as code?
Why do it?
When might this approach might be applicable?
The limitations
Docs like code in development sprints
Is it only for developer docs?
Do you you need to understand programming?
Why did you self publish?
The benefits of taking this approach
The future developments
Automating document builds
Links to topics mentioned:
https://www.docslikecode.com/
Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation
Troy Howard Documentarian, Super Genius at Twitter
http://codewerdz.org/ Repository analytics for code and docs
Matt Fleming on Twitter
Docs Like Code GitHub repository
Jekyll
https://docs.openstack.org/pike/
WADL RAML OpenAPI
https://bitbucket.org/
http://docs.metacloud.com/
Liquid scripting
YAML
PrinceXML
Lunr Search Engine
Solr (Search Engine)
Why we use a ‘docs as code’ approach for technical documentation Jen Lambourne, GDS, GOV.UK
The Definition of Done
Learn Python the Hard Way
AsciiDoc
ReST
GitHub Flavoured Markdown spec
XML Press
REST API
Building Docs Like Code - article
Travis CI
Jenkins
Circle CI
Webhooks
Bash scripts
An Introduction to Static Site Generators
GitHub Pages
Tuesday Sep 05, 2017
Tuesday Sep 05, 2017
Interview with David Farbey of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators, about training, accreditation and CPD in technical communication.
We discuss:
Becoming a technical communicator is different from becoming a lawyer, doctor, developer or an accountant in that, in the UK, there is no standard career path from school. How does that affect the profession and starting a career?
What training, if any, do you need to be a technical communicator?
The ISTC's Professional Development and Recognition
Certifying technical communicators
The ISTC certified courses.
What does a undergraduate or post-graduate course offer someone?
Where does CPD fit into this?
What are we likely to see in the future with regards to training and certification?
Cherryleaf's ISTC accredited training course: https://www.cherryleaf.com/training/technical-author-basicinduction-training-course/
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ISTC website: www.istc.org.uk
David's email: education@istc.org.uk
Tuesday Aug 22, 2017
Tuesday Aug 22, 2017
We look at the job of a Technical Author/Technical Communicator, and how you can start your career.
www.istc.org.uk
Cherryleaf’s online Technical Author/technical writing course
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Tuesday Aug 15, 2017
Tuesday Aug 15, 2017
It seems likely artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-driven chatbots will play a key role in helping users in the future. So what does this mean for technical communicators and for User Assistance?
Part 1 - What are chatbots?
Part 2 - Making a chatbot
Part 3 - What does this mean for technical communicators and for User Assistance?
About the speaker
Ellis Pratt is a Director at Cherryleaf, a technical writing services and training company based near London.
He has over 20 years of experience working in the field of documentation, has a BA in Business Studies, and is an Associate of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Ellis is contributor to two books on technical communication. He is also on the management council for the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators (ISTC), the professional body for technical communicators in the UK.
Contact information
https://www.cherryleaf.com
info@cherryleaf.com
More information
Primer article - https://www.cherryleaf.com/blog/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/AI-and-chatbots-in-technical-communication-article.pdf
https://www.cherryleaf.com
Become a better technical communicator by subscribing to the Cherryleaf newsletter
https://www.cherryleaf.com/blog
http://intelligent-information.blog/en/
http://intelligent-information.blog/en/blog/2017/07/28/from-ua-reloaded-amplify-the-intelligence-of-your-users-and-your-company/
https://tryolabs.com/blog/2017/01/25/building-a-chatbot-analysis--limitations-of-modern-platforms/https://chatbotsmagazine.com/which-are-the-best-intelligent-chatbots-or-ai-chatbots-available-online-cc49c0f3569dhttps://chatbotsmagazine.com/the-complete-beginner-s-guide-to-chatbots-8280b7b906cahttp://contentrules.com/computing-in-the-age-of-cognitive-systems/https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/6-trends-ai-assisted-chatbot-service-market-mila-d-antoniohttps://cloud.google.com/natural-language/https://aws.amazon.com/amazon-ai/https://aws.amazon.com/lex/https://www.slideshare.net/InfoDevWorld/engineering-content-for-bots-ai-and-marketing-automation-cruce-saundershttps://www.slideshare.net/InfoDevWorld/feeding-the-bots-preparing-product-content-for-the-intelligent-assistance-revolution-with-joe-gelb
Robot image https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robot-clip-art-book-covers-feJCV3-clipart.png From From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.