Focus on the topic - Writing better content, faster

@mattrsullivan | www.techcommtools.com

T E C H C O M M T O O L S

H T T P : / / B I T. LY / M AT T S - E M A I L- L I S T

Matt Sullivan

Focus on the topic: Writing better content, faster

Headshot optional

 Thank you to:

 UWT Joe Welinske/WritersUA Adobe Systems and you!

Words and Video…Better Together

-Allie Proff

Silos don’t work together

-Misty Weaver

Responsive is great…

now write to the medium

-Joe Welinske

It’s like technical poetry,

not technical communication

-Joan Wendt

What do you do when the President/CEO of your favorite client is dead-wrong?

Background

 Software as a Service (SaaS) organization with lots of content- Online help/Policies and Procedures- User manuals- Tech support- Sales collateral- Internal customer education department

So the president turns

to me and says…

We need a bunch of 8-minute videos to help

train our clients

 No, you don’t. And I

show him this:

 Which,  (quite

obviously) is this:

Their recent web overhaul was their Hula Hoop

Needles front page goes here

 Question 1: Does this

need to be documente

d?

 Name Field : Enter your name in the Name field

 Question 2: What’s the appropriate

medium?

 Words > Video Words < Video Interactive?

 Question 3: Where is

the logical break for

reuse?

 Stringing topics together

 BAD

 What content is

already available?

 2.0 (nearly always) > 1.0*

 *Except for SNL-based comedies

 Help system revamped- Stripped over 1000 tables out of

previous project via REG EX (Regular Expressions)

- Chunked topics appropriately Grabbed help, marketing, tech support content and used to rank importance of video topics Established script and recording standards with client, resulting in smooth transition from internal resources to me

Net Result

 I worked my way out of a

job!

But most importantly

for the client…

 mattrsullivan.com http://bit.ly/matts-email-list matt@mattrsullivan.com mattrsullivan

- Twitter- Facebook- LinkedIn- Just about everything else

Contact info

 Tomorrow 3:30, Creating Reusable Screencasts Join the Tech Comm Tools community

- Free offers a few times a month Problem Solving

- Mattrsullivan.youcanbook.me Live training, live online, and blended learning courses on

- FrameMaker- RoboHelp- Captivate- Screencasting

Where to go from here