TechWhirl: Technical Communication Recap for August 31, 2012

[TechWhirl Admin <admin -at- techwhirl -dot- com>]

*This week’s update on technical communication and the TechWhirl community
is supported by Platinum sponsor ComponentOne & their Doc-To-Help Help
Authoring Tool <http://goo.gl/QcMWA> | http://bit.ly/doc-to-help*



The sun is setting on our month-long look at "Spy vs. Spy: Tech Comm vs
MarCom." As one of those folks who has worked happily on both sides of this
chasm, I’ve come to believe that great communicators have a lot more in
common than not.  Whether you work in technical communication or marketing
communication, or both, you need to acquire knowledge of the customers and
the product/service. You need to convey compelling, useful information, and
support a relationship with customers.  You need to align with company
strategy on brand, service and customer relationships. The tactics and the
style change from one discipline to another, and from one company to
another, but the underlying principles seem to be pretty universal.  Read “It’s
All Marketing Communication,”<http://techwhirl.com/business/the-great-debate-its-all-marketing-communications/>by
Alissa Martine and “It’s
All Technical Communication,”<http://techwhirl.com/business/the-great-debate-its-all-technical-communication/>by
Alan Houser and see if you don’t agree.   Whether you agree or
disagree,
we’d love to have you share your viewpoint by posting a comment, or
starting a thread on the email discussion
list<http://www.techwr-l.com/about-technical-writing-discussion-groups.html>
.



This week’s poll asks whether you believe technical communicators or
marketers have better career
prospects<http://techwhirl.com/business/polls/technical-communication-poll-best-career-prospects/>.
It may be a case of the grass is always greener somewhere else, or there
may be some real trends hidden among the votes. So far the results have
been about evenly split, and we’d sure like to hear from folks in both
camps on why they feel the way they do.



The poll sets the stage for our September look at “Your Career: Upgrade in
Progress.” Probably nothing is more unique to the individual technical
communication practitioner than the career path they take. During the month
we’ll look at a variety of topics, including choosing between being
independent consultant or a corporate team player, using distance learning
for professional development, work/life balance issues and much more.  Do
you have a career upgrade topic you’d like to see us cover? Drop us a note
and tell us about it. And while you’re at it, if you’re interested in
becoming a regular contributor to TechWhirl’s Tech Writer
Today<http://techwhirl.com/technical-communication-news-tips-user-submitted-stories/>,
there’s always room for one more in the lifeboat.



Don’t forget to sign up for our TechWhirl Fast 5 interview series – live
video chats with some of the leading lights in technical communication.
They all start at noon (eastern), and you can ask you own questions using
the Twitter hashtag #TWFast5 <https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23TWFast5>. On
September 5, we’re joined by the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 4
product team to discuss the recent launch.



Speaking of work and such, Monday is the Labor Day holiday in the U.S., and
we encourage our US community to make the most of it. I know we will.



Enjoy!

-The gang at TechWhirl
In Case You Missed it: This Week @ TechWhirl

*New features and articles on http://TechWhirl.com <http://techwhirl.com/>**
:*


   - Tech Writer This Week for August 30, by Craig Cardimon |
   http://bit.ly/QX7I5D
   - The Great Debate:  It’s All Technical Communication, by Alan Houser |
   http://bit.ly/QvfB7S
   - The Great Debate:  It’s All Marketing Communications, by Alissa
   Martine | http://bit.ly/OIeLS1
   - Technical Communication Poll: Best Career Prospects |
   http://bit.ly/U8qXxI
   - A New One: GrapeCity and ComponentOne—The Future of Doc-to-Help, by Al
   Martine | http://bit.ly/NxGXV7

*Tech Comm News on http://News.TechWhirl.com <http://news.techwhirl.com/>:*


   - TechWhirl Fast 5 Discussions | http://bit.ly/TWFast5
   - Eclipse Corporation Delivers DocOrigin V 2.0, Enterprise Document
   Generation Software | http://bit.ly/SIGiql

Social Media and the Chance to Follow TechWhirl:

   - Our Google Plus Page – what’s happening behind the scenes |
   http://goo.gl/SO0R4
   - Will you be our Friend? Please, you know you want to click |
   http://goo.gl/tDrW7
   - Want all this TechWhirl goodness a few characters @ a time |
   http://goo.gl/itjDg
   - Updates from TechWhirl delivered to your email in box |
   http://bit.ly/tjshxU
   - Or, try our RSS feed (great on Flipboard) | http://goo.gl/msLzu

SPONSOR-Luv

We want to send a very special “thank you” to our sponsors for their
support.



*Platinum*: Adobe Systems
Incorporated<http://www.runaware.com/clients/adobe/techsuite/>

*Gold: *ComponentOne Software <http://bit.ly/doc-to-help>,* *Madcap
Software<http://www.madcapsoftware.com/products/flare/overview.aspx#whatsnew>
**

*Silver*: Society for Technical Communication (STC)
<http://www.stc.org/>, Vancouver
Island University <http://pr.viu.ca/techcomm/>


-- 

TechWhirl.com
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