Comments on: DocTrain West 2008 – Darren Barefoot – Social Media 101: Now Everyone’s a Technical Writer

By: Tony Chung

Tony Chung — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:19:37 +0000

While the YouTube quality videos are great, I see that CommonCraft also licenses high quality WMV and Quicktime MOV versions of their videos for corporate viewing. Here is a l ink to the “Social Media Six Pack”, that explains wikis, podcasting, blogging, twitter, rss, and social bookmarking, all in plain English.

http://www.commoncraft.com/store/sixpack

By: Tag Clouds as Informal Presentation Tools

Tag Clouds as Informal Presentation Tools — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:00:19 +0000

[...] “Social Media 101″ keynote at DocTrain West (thanks for having me, Scott). Anne posted her notes from that [...]

By: annegentle

annegentle — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:27:30 +0000

Hi Darren – thanks for being a great panelist at the Meet the bloggers session, and for disagreeing with Scott Abel which was entirely educational AND entertaining. That was a blast!

By: annegentle

annegentle — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:25:27 +0000

Hi Cat – I agree, and I even had a conversation with another attendee who said “The presenters are preaching at us, but they really should be preaching the word to the vendors who are here, so that we can get the tools we need to make the deliverables our users supposedly want.” (Jason, please correct me if I’m off base with that paraphrasing. )

From my current limited view, I personally don’t think that the tools are the limiter here, it’s the communities and the tech writer’s limited time for infusing themselves into the community.
There is still a lot of fear and trepidation around social tools. And the scenarios and responses you describe are right on in many company’s cultures.

My takeaway from Darren’s talk – and his Many-armed starfish talk later in the afternoon – is that these are early, early times and we’re just starting to figure out how to introduce social technologies into all communications. He also does not speak to or for Enterprise 2.0 initiatives, which are much more aligned with the types of business goals many of us have as modern, paid-with-money, technical writers.

By: Scott Abel

Scott Abel — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:23:44 +0000

Thanks for the mention. The event was a BIG success. Thanks to you and Darren and the other not-so-typical technical communicators for showing us what is possible when you throw out the rule book and think differently.

For those of you who would like copies of the slide decks from DocTrain West, they can be found here: http://www.doctrain.com/west/program

By: Darren

Darren — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:52:20 +0000

Thanks for the great write-up–glad you enjoyed the talk. Thanks, also, for the great panel moderation yesterday.

By: Cat

Cat — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:26:45 +0000

I admit that I haven’t been to a conference in many years. But do modern technical writers really walk into the VP’s office and say, “Let’s relinquish control”?

Am I the only one still up against marketing departments that won’t let me describe our products without burying them in nonsense adjectives? Support managers who think allowing public comments on a blog is too risky? Masses of customers in Europe who aren’t allowed on the web while they’re at work?

The only way we’ll get wiki documentation is if we write/vet it ourselves, and then provide a localized pdf version …

I love, love, love the vision, but feel so behind.

(I’m lying a little bit here. My company just got bought and I think the new guys might be more open minded. )