Tom Johnson's Page

Tom Johnson 32, Male Salt Lake City, Utah: 2mq283vcvxmj1; Share

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DITA Users (13 members)
XML - General discussions (17 members)

Wiki for technical documentation (24 members)
DocTrain West 2008 (10 members)

Web 2.0 and TC (30 members)

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Tom Johnson's discussions

Death By PowerPoint: Practical Advice For Improving Presentations

I wrote a post on 10 Ways to Bomb a Presentation that's related to this. There's also a funny analysis on presentationzen.com about how JFK and Obama's speeches would have come across if they were... Continue

Tagged: presentation, slide show, powerpoint, slide deck

Added a post Mar 20

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Post Doc-Train Thoughts While Sitting in the Vancouver Airport

Doc Train has ended, and I’m sitting at the Vancouver airport waiting for my airplane. Lots of thoughts are coming to my head, in no particular order. I interviewed about 12 people this year. I seem to have a knack for this — tracking people down, asking if I can interview them, getting them talking, etc. Actually, [...]

Podcast: Living Multiple Lives — The New Technical Communicator, Interview with Noz Urbina

Download MP3 Duration: 15 min. In this podcast, Noz Urbina talks about how Web 2.0 is changing the role of the technical communicator into one who drives product R&D and interaction design. My discussion with Noz was a light-bulb moment for me at the Doc Train West conference. Podcast topics include the following: How the role of the [...]

Podcast: Embracing Wikis — Interview with Stewart Mader

Download MP3 Duration: 18 min. Stewart Mader was one of the coolest people I met at Doc Train West 2008. He is a person driven by his enthusiasm for wikis. In this podcast, Stewart talks about the following: Advantages of using a wiki for your technical documentation Why lack of advanced styles in wikis isn’t a major problem The relentless [...]

Changing the Rules of the Game for the Benefit of the User

Presenter: Joe Sokohl (http://sokohl.com) Conference: Doc Train West 2008 In this presentation, Joe Sokohl talks about gathering user research prior to designing and implementing your help deliverables. Breaking the Rules First you have to get to know the user by talking directly to real users doing real work in actual contexts. Interview real people doing real activities. “Don’t speculate, [...]

Podcast: Moving 50,000 Pages of Unstructured Content to DITA

Download MP3 Duration: 5 min. In this short podcast, David Holmes talks about how he and his team migrated 50,000 unstructured pages to DITA. (DITA is an XML architecture that allows you to better single source your content.) Here’s his official presentation title and a brief description: From Planning to Publishing: How Business Objects Migrated Documentation to DITA [...]

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Profile

Job Title:: Senior Technical Writer

Company Name:: LDS Church

About Me:: By day I'm a technical writer, and in my spare time I blog at idratherbewriting.com and also interview tech writing luminaries for podcasts. I'm a senior technical writer for the User Education team at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and am also a member of the STC Intermountain chapter in Salt Lake City, Utah. I want to combine social media with online help to change the way users experience and interact with help.

Website:: idratherbewriting.com

Welcome to my page, see my RSS feed in the lower left

Thanks for visiting my page. This new social community that Scott created is exactly what the technical communication community needed.

See the lower-left corner for the latest posts from my blog, www.idratherbewriting.com.

Tom Johnson's Blog

Podcast -- Social Networking and the Value of User Communities, an Interview with Scott Abel

Hey all Content Wrangler community members, I interviewed Scott Abel for a podcast called Social Networking and the Value of User Communities. In this podcast, I talk with Scott Abel about social networking, in particular this new social network he created -- what it's about, how to use it, the challenges people have encountered, as well as the benef… Continue

Posted on April 12th, 2008 at 2:00pm — No Comments (Add)

Comment Wall (15 comments)

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At 6:39pm on April 17th, 2008, Tom Johnson said…: Hi Pam, nice to hear from you. Yes, still recording podcasts. Aren't you listening to them? :)

At 4:24pm on April 11th, 2008, Pam said…: Hi Tom,
Are you still out and about interviewing subjects for Podcasts?
All the best,
Pam

At 9:55am on April 4th, 2008, Bruce Curley said…: Hey Tom.

That is me near you on vacation at Bryce National Park. I think you are providing a good service with your "I'd Rather be Writing" and enjoy listening to your podcasts at work. I'm the only technical writer at QIAGEN so it helps me to connect.

My blog is poetslife.blogspot.com if you want to take the measure of my interests. I just pinged you for a friend contact on Wrangler.

At 2:50am on March 23rd, 2008, Sarah Maddox said…: Hi Tom, I've come here via your blog "Are You One of the 824 Technical Communicators on Ning Yet?" I posted a reply there too, but it's not showing so I thought I'd thank you here too :)

Thanks for bringing this Ning site to my attention. Very very cool. Yes, I am now one of the -868- no, make that 1065 members :)

Seeya on the page, Sarah

At 8:55am on March 21st, 2008, Lynda Chiotti said…: On your advice, Tom, I bought a Zoom H4 recorder. Gotta get this podcasting thing going! Thanks for your blog posts.

At 12:45am on March 20th, 2008, Tom Johnson said…: Regina, I also think SharePoint has a bunch of publishing quirks. The speed fluctuates and it also has trouble handling large files.

At 8:19am on March 19th, 2008, Regina Morrisey said…: At 8:18am on March 19th, 2008, Regina Morrisey said…
Good advice.
I've learned a lot about publishing on SharePoint in the last few months. Just seems it has its quirks.
Thanks.
(Fred is still just dandy.)

At 2:32pm on March 18th, 2008, Tom Johnson said…: Thanks Scott. How cool to be a runner up. What I really want to attend is the New Media Expo in Las Vegas. http://www.newmediaexpo.com/register.php. Too bad that's not on your list. (Perhaps it could be?)

At 7:29am on March 18th, 2008, Scott Abel said…: Congratulations, Tom. You are one of five runners up in our "Help Grow The Content Wrangler Community" contest. I'll get back to you shortly to let you know which conference tickets are still available (the grand prize winner, Leah Eaton, chooses first, then the second place winner, Maxwell Hoffmann) and provide you with instructions for claiming your ticket.

Thanks for helping us grow the community. I appreciate your efforts and hope you enjoy your free conference ticket, courtesy of The Content Wrangler Community and the generous support of the conference producers.

At 12:14am on March 18th, 2008, John Daigle said…: Hey, Tom. Good to see you here.
john

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