Great book about how technical communicators can get involved in 'conversational' documentation with users, and how they can lead the charge in their organization.

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Product Description

How will the tools of the social web affect technical documentation? Industry expert Anne Gentle explores these and other questions in Conversation and Community. She looks at the most important Web 2.0 tools, including blogs, wikis, micro-blogging, and syndication, and shows how they can be used to foster conversations and a community with your customers and with fellow writers. Through examples and her own hard-won experience with these technologies, Gentle provides practical guidance for technical communicators, marketers, and anyone who wants to use the Social Web to interact with customers.

Inside, you'll find:

• Reasons for using content in blogs, wikis, forums, and other social media tools for technical documentation
• Descriptions of the many types of social media tools and best uses for each tool
• Strategic suggestions for fitting technical publications into a wider social media plan
• Ideas for integrating conversation and community in your current documentation set
• Metrics for measuring the success of these connective methods for documentation
• Best practices for wiki authoring and building community around a wiki
• Collaborative authoring strategies that work
• Models for wiki publishing that work for end-user documentation

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #354964 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 242 pages

From the Back Cover
Listen, the execute a successful social documentation strategy.

The technical communication world is on the brink of a major cultural shift from one-sided "documentation" towards user-generated content, collaborative communication, and the power of communities. This shift will change the way technical communicators work and will offer new opportunities to those who can seize them. If you are wondering where to start or what your future role may be, this book is for you.

Anne Gentle's Conversation and Community brings social media alive through real examples and stories that will help you be a more successful technical communicator. It offers practical guidance and lessons learned from the author's experience and that of other leaders in the field. It outlines the social techniques that have the greatest leverage and explains how they can help you start a conversation and build a community with your customers.

About the Author
Anne Gentle is a senior technical writer who started blogging in 2005. She works at Advanced Solutions International and writes a professional blog about writing, wikis and information design at JustWriteClick.com, where she has an engaged and loyal readership.