Anne Gentle

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. Anne volunteers for the FLOSS Manuals project, writing free documentation for free software. She also dedicates her effort and energy to the One Laptop per Child and SugarLabs open source projects, writing end-user documentation for children, parents, and teachers across the world. You can follow Anne on Twitter @annegentle.

 

 
What are the three things you love the most about being a technical writer?

 
When I first got into technical writing, it was because I was working in an analytical chemistry lab, and spent a summer internship reading the instruction manuals for the instrumentation in between running tests. I loved the manuals that read with a friendly, informal, and conversational style. I also worked in my university’s science library in 1994 and installed my first web browser on the computers there and created my first web page in 1995. I have such a love for books and information, and was especially fascinated as more and more information went online. I guess it’s not so much that I “love” aspects of being a technical writer, but that I love the convergence of style and online delivery that technical writing gives you.

 

 
If you were going to a desert island and were only allowed to bring DocBook, DITA, or nothing at all, what would you choose and why?

 
Hey, I watch Lost and listen to Bear Grylls on Man Vs. Wild. I know the answer is nothing at all! You can’t create fire, food, or shelter with XML standards. Or if you tried to, you might not survive for long. I’d take Will Ferrell along with me, after seeing how great he was with Bear Grylls, though.

 

 
During your typical documentation project, which tool or software do you use the most, which one do you prefer using, and which one do you wish existed?

 
Honestly, I end up using email and instant messaging the most as a writer embedded on an Agile development team, which is a world and experience into itself. I wrote about that experience in an article in 2007 (Writing End-User Documentation in an Agile Development Environment) and I should revise it again, incorporating my most recent experiences. I prefer to use a wiki for documentation, and we do author in wiki pages to complete our Agile development tasks for the “definition of done.” I wish a structured DITA-based wiki existed that is as lovable and friendly as WordPress, a very simple interface onto a web-based content management system (which sounds like LiveTechDocs!) that would let you check DITA files in and out.

 

 
If you had a magic wand that could change one thing about the documentation reviewing process as you know it, what would it be? Do you have a fun anecdote to illustrate life without a magic wand?

 
I’d love to have a more visual documentation reviewing process that would show differences between reviewers’ markings. Although even with visual cues like red colored pen and post-it-note yellow I still have difficulty manually entering edits. It’s nicer to say “accept all” with a smarty-pants merge tool. Life without a magic wand but wielding a wiki once gave me comments on the user guide for the One Laptop per Child project from Walter Bender, the development director who helped to start the MIT Media Lab. You can see some of his corrections on http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Talk:Simplified_user_guide. He went on to write over a hundred pages of content at the Book Sprint we held in August of 2008 where we wrote a combined user guide for the XO laptop and Sugar education platform in five days! I’m a believer that comments on documentation can lead to real relationships with reviewers.

 

 
How does online collaboration work in your documentation projects? Do you have a favorite LiveTechDocs feature?

 
I actually prefer in-person collaboration, especially for documentation projects, like the Book Sprint event that involves a lot of pre-planning but is so much fun to be a part of. And online collaboration is a huge part of being a writer embedded on an Agile development team. We use Etherpad for online chat during the day, and often the developers will put content in the Etherpad that they want me to revise for our documentation deliverable. So it’s as if the online chat is the first, rough draft, then the wiki pages is the true collaborative drafting area. We can get the documentation tested by internal reviewers also. I love that LiveTechDocs is completely web-based. I regularly read Web Worker Daily and Read Write Web, and both those websites have web-based collaboration tool reviews. Congrats on your recent review on WWD, which is a great endorsement!

 

 

Anne, you are an expert in web 2.0, social media, wiki, community and collaboration tools. You talk, blog, write and present about how technical communicators can benefit and adapt to these new tools. Thinking of technical communicators as a community, which tools would you recommend to better learn, share and collaborate?

 
Aw, shucks, thanks. I hope my book, Conversation and Community, gives other technical communicators good ideas about using these social tools in innovative ways to solve classic customer problems with documentation. I have met so many like-minded and smart people through blogging since 2005 that I have to list blogging as the best tool for being part of an open, welcoming community. Comments and trackbacks on blog entries are great ways to connect with others. But in 2009, Twitter is the most connective tool I have been using lately. I liked the first edition of writerriver.com for pulling together different people’s shared news or articles that they were reading. I think that technical communicators who aren’t yet using social bookmarking sites like delicious.com are missing out on a great way to learn more and connect with others. LinkedIn and their “Questions and Answers” section is another neat way to learn more about technical communication, information architecture, and web content.