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@mattrsullivan | www.techcommtools.com
T E C H C O M M T O O L S
H TT P : / / B I T. LY / M ATT 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
documented?
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

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Focus on the topic - Writing better content, faster

Editor's Notes

  1. Hi there, I’m Matt Sullivan, there’s my info, and I figured (given the topic) a 4-word title was just about right
  2. Thanks to all, No matter how many times I speak publicly, I always get jittery before a talk(coffee). Fortunately, I don’t get it as bad as some friends, who literally can’t eat a meal for hours before a talk! You all look pretty friendly, so I think I’m going to make it. we’re going to start with an audience participation quiz:
  3. Took a call with a gal on my email list In need of RoboHelp, Captivate, and screencast assistance. BTW, I do this a few times a year: I give away hour blocks of time to members of my community for consulting
  4. We need you to create lots of 8-minute training videos as an online course for our client education
  5. Which isn’t much of a vision til you realize that this is really…
  6. Now, I need to stop here and explain that, like most guys, I have an my odd sense of humor. And, I really like Coehn Brothers movies like The Hudsucker Proxy. Explain Hula metaphor here