Paul Pehrson, author of the Technically Speaking blog, just published a review of MadCap Software’s flagship help authoring tool, MadCap Flare V7. It’s a very thorough and detailed review. Read all about it at http://blog.paulpehrson.com/2011/03/09/flare-v7-an-impressive-iteration/.
Author: Valentina Rosa
Room To Read’s Erin Ganju at TEDxBerkeley: ‘Scaling Social Good’
Room To Read Co-Founder and CEO Erin Ganju spoke at the second annual TEDxBerkeley conference held on February 19, 2011 in Berkeley, California. Erin delivered a passionate presentation called ‘Scaling Social Good’ about the impact Room To Read has made on millions of children in the developing world since 2000. The table below from the Room To Read website provides “just the numbers”. Watch the video to hear and see the full story.
| Schools | 1,442 | |
| Libraries | 11,246 | |
| Books Published | 553 | |
| Books Distributed | 9.4 million | |
| Girls’ Scholarships | 10,590 | |
| Children Benefited | 5.1 million |
IMPORTANT: You must fast forward to the timestamp, 1:31:58, to see the start of Erin’s talk. Before you can do this, you will need to wait for a 30-second advertisement to play. Once the commercial is over, you can place your cursor on the gray shaded horizontal tool bar immediately below the screen to skip directly to her presentation. (When TEDxBerkeley posts the individual presenter videos to their website in the coming weeks, I’ll add a postscript to this blog post with the direct link to Erin’s.)
Must Read: WritersUA 2011 Skills and Technologies Survey
WritersUA just published the results of their 2011 Skills and Technologies Survey. This annual survey is one of the best ways I know of to “take the pulse” of the user assistance, technical writing, technical documentation fields. WritersUA typically receives hundreds of responses (460 this year). The analysis is in three sections: Skills, Technologies, and Platforms. The data are presented in a clear, concise form. Each of the pages presents a summary of the top findings and then drills down into the details.
In the Skills are, expertise with authoring tools topped the charts with 85% of respondents, followed by writing procedures at 81%, and project planning at 75%.
On the Technologies side, PDF was rated at the top with 81% and browser-based help came in a close second at 80%. Web / intranet content came in a distant third with 67%.
For Platforms, there is no surprise that Windows leads with 97%, with World Wide Web far behind in second at 69%, and Intranet/extranet ever farther back with 47%.
For anyone who makes their living as a technical writer, technical communicator, or user assistance professional, the WritersUA 2011 Skills and Technologies Survey should be a must read. It can be equally informative for hiring and supervising managers who need to better understand the current state of the technical communications industry.
Team Perry Raises Millions for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute
I wrote a post a few weeks ago about visiting the Dana Farber Cancer Institute with my Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) friends on Team Kermit.
Anthony Edwards of WCVB TV Channel 5 in Boston did a wonderful video segment of Team Perry last week. The team is named in honor of Perry Levy, who died at age 32 after only two years of marriage to Melissa. He was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer form of the small bowel and passed away only 3.5 months after his diagnosis.
Watch this video. The words from Melissa, Dr. Robert Mayer, Perry’s lead doctor at DFCI, and Perry’s brother Matt are truly inspirational, especially this quote from Paul: “Life will never be the same but that’s doesn’t mean it’s not good; it’s just different.”
Melissa turned this unbelievable tragedy into action. She created Team Perry with another friend 10 years ago. Last year the team had 70 riders and raised $460K. To date, Team Perry has raised nearly $3 million and funds nine fellowships at the Dana Farber. To make a donation to Team Perry, visit the Team Perry profile on the PMC website.