The Cherryleaf Podcast

The Cherryleaf Podcast

By CherryleafTechnology
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The Cherryleaf Podcast episodes

  • 21. Books on technical writing

    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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    16 min
  • 20. Writing a Technical Author CV

    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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    21 min
  • 19. Zendesk and Knowledge Centred Support

    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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    20 min
  • 18. Docs Like Code - Interview with Anne Gentle

    Interview with Anne Gentle, author of Docs Like Code and Product Manager at Cisco. 

    Interview by Ellis Pratt, Cherryleaf

    Become a better technical communicator by subscribing to the Cherryleaf newsletter

    Cherryleaf training course – Advanced technical writing techniques

    For comments and feedback: [email protected]

    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 

     

    50 min
  • 17. Training, accreditation and CPD in technical communication - interview with David Farbey

    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: [email protected] 

    26 min
  • 16. Starting a career as a Technical Author

    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

     

    Become a better technical communicator by subscribing to the Cherryleaf newsletter

    12 min
  • 15. AI and chatbots in technical communication - A primer

    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

    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-cc49c0f3569d
    https://chatbotsmagazine.com/the-complete-beginner-s-guide-to-chatbots-8280b7b906ca
    http://contentrules.com/computing-in-the-age-of-cognitive-systems/
    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/6-trends-ai-assisted-chatbot-service-market-mila-d-antonio
    https://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-saunders
    https://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.

    44 min
  • 14. 2017 European technical communicators salary survey results

    We look at the findings from the Cherryleaf survey of European technical communicators.

    Cherryleaf 2017 European technical communicators survey results – Part 1

    Cherryleaf 2017 European technical communicators survey results – Part 2 UK Salaries

    Cherryleaf 2017 European technical communicators survey results – Part 3 Other Salaries

    IT Jobswatch

    Cherryleaf Blog

    Cherryleaf's recruitment service

    Sunsetting Stack Overflow Documentation

     

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    16 min
  • 13. How to present at a conference

    Some advice on presenting at conferences. 

     

    Daniel Morden storyteller

    Laurence Lessig - Remix presentation

    The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs

     

    https://www.cherryleaf.com

    https://www.cherryleaf.com/blog 

    Classic TV - Windmill Interlude Film

    36 min
  • 12. Delivering a digital strategy for Parliament - Interview with Rosie Hatton

    The UK Parliament is one of the oldest organisations in the world. So how do you deliver a strategy to a body that has over 700 years of content? Cherryleaf's Ellis Pratt interviewed Rosie Hatton, Strategy Digital Lead at the Parliamentary Digital Service, to find out. 

     

    Topics covered:

    1. What is Parliament? 1'56"
  • The content Parliament creates. 3'38"
  • What is the PDS? 5'08"
  • The I AM PARLIAMENT programme. 9'00"
  • The PDS's digital strategy framework, its assumptions and principles. 10'18"
  • Having an open and agile digital culture in a traditional organisation. 13'08
  • Working in a continuous interative process. 20'45"
  • Sharing ideas with the Government Digital Service. 25'24"
  • Where does the PDS's content strategy fit within its digital strategy? 28'22"
  • Tracking the impact of changes to laws on other laws. 37'01"
  • The similarities between PDS and Open Source software projects. 41'55"
  • Crowdsourcing a digital strategy. 43'30"
  • Benefits management. 44'00"
  • How to manage and sell change. 47'50"

    • Links:

    www.cherryleaf.com/blog

    Parliamentary Digital Service blog

    http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Commons

    https://pds.blog.parliament.uk/strategy-in-action/

    http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/offices/bicameral/parliamentary-digital-service/digital-strategy-for-parliament/

    http://www.data.parliament.uk/

    https://khub.net/ (knowledge hub)

     

    People:

    https://twitter.com/rosiehatton

    https://twitter.com/ellispratt

    https://twitter.com/DigiBungalow

    https://twitter.com/mattstutely

    https://twitter.com/digiminster

    https://twitter.com/_allenemma

    https://twitter.com/Rob_Greig

     

    56 min

About The Cherryleaf Podcast

From the publisher's feed

Cherryleaf’s podcast on technical writing and becoming a better business communicator.