A View From the Other Side...of a
writer's marathon

by Nancy Halverson, Feature Writer

I'm at the beginning of the marathon, mentally preparing myself for the long run ahead. Well, not an actual marathon run—no 26 miles and four walls to push my weary body through. This is the documentation marathon. My plan to modularize and single-source the documentation workflow has been accepted. And naturally, the timeline that I proposed has been halved. It's going to be interesting.

The Benefits

We're not a big operation—I'm the only writer, and I deal with basically 10 developers producing one major product and a few minor add-ons. So it's not a huge amount of documentation that we handle. However, the modular approach makes the most sense because of the number of translations that we're going to require as the product matures and moves into more and more markets. The current urgency is the result of those moves. Keeping the formatting out of the hands of the translation companies will save us a lot of money in the long run. Setting up a system now to handle an ever-expanding range of languages will hopefully allow documents to be pulled together quickly and easily.

Money Talks

As ever, the arguments that work the best with managers were the economic arguments. This transition takes a lot of time and energy at the front-end, as well as some software and training. Of course, this change isn't for changes sake, but it's amazing how some suits will consider it to be exactly that. I guess that they need something to really motivate the outlay of cash. It's a real shame that they're willing to go into this only when it means a lot of pain to me (doubling my workload), but hey, if I can pull it off, I'm a hero. If I don't, I'll blame the compressed timeline.

The Plan

Because of the urgency, I'll be concentrating on the development of a modular system—in whatever basic format I can achieve. It may be in a basic XML doc, or in FrameMaker itself. Hopefully, that modular format will be enough to get the translations done, and then I can re-integrate the translations into a single database from where I can output fully formatted docs. Then I send the translations out for a final edit and release them.

Meeting of the Usability Professionals Association

Okay, I could be dreaming. Theoretically I figure that I can walk, so I can run. A marathon can't be much more than running for a long, long time, right? (Please don't burst my bubble just yet!) I attended the inaugural meeting of the Usability Professionals Association's UK North group a few weeks ago. A friend of mine was putting it together, and since it's very much along the same lines as the meeting that I put together for tech writers last year, I knew I had to get to it. The UPA has a varied membership, and this meeting was very well attended by people from all different backgrounds. There were about 30 of us, and that was with minimal promotion.

Food, Drink, and Location

The meeting was also well catered. Because of the distances most people need to travel to get together, there's almost always some form of refreshment (including libations) at many of the meetings I've attended. The UPA chose Manchester, as it's the biggest city in the north of England, and has some major industries. The city is also going through a renaissance, especially after the Commonwealth games a few years ago. I must admit that I thought the area around the venue was lovely. (I've booked a family weekend there in March—coinciding with an STC event).

Grand Surroundings

I took the train from Sheffield, and a friend met me at the Manchester Piccadilly station to guide me (and another STC type) to the venue. Strangely enough, it was in a YHA youth hostel. A very nice hostel, with a dockside location and well-appointed meeting rooms. Nick, my STC buddy, had booked the venue for our STC-UK North meeting and when the UPA ran into problems with their original room (too many people responded and they needed a larger room), he suggested they try the YHA. It's a great find, but unfortunately, only possible because of a subsidy from a few companies and the UPA UK. So, we won't likely be meeting in such grand surroundings again (sigh).

Getting Together is Half the Fun

Anyway, this is all just a way to say that even though the concentration of people is very high in the UK compared to North America (and especially Canada), it still takes a great deal of organization to get professional groups together. Nick's hosting the STC UK-North meeting in Manchester in March, and we're hoping to get a joint meeting with the UPA North group in the future.

Chapter News

Our STC chapter isn't very active, but we're hoping to put together at least two day-long events this year, with a third possible in the fall. The executive get together using telephone conferencing, although that's not very often. Still, we're trying to improve things. You know how much effort it takes to get things done outside of work, and on top of work!

The Future Looks Bright

I'm collecting a list of English/South Yorkshirisms for you next month—it's still fun to collect terms that mean something in one part of the world and something totally different wherever you are. And whatever the next few months throw at me in terms of workload, it's all just more reason to look forward to our summer vacation (already booked). Cheap flights to Rome and Spain will let us enjoy three weeks on the continent. Work hard, play hard, live life.

Some Whinging

Oh, and for the Romans in the crowd, you must have noticed that the major English sport isn't Rugby or Football, or even Snooker. It's whinging. When you're far from home, in the middle of a bleak, sunless winter, whinging is what happens. When in Rome indeed.

About Nancy Halverson

Nancy grew up in Toronto, but has lived in Ottawa, Melbourne, Waterloo, and now Sheffield. She has travelled through the South Pacific, Australia and Indonesia, which is where she met her husband, Ryan Wilson (another Canadian), along the way. A career switch introduced her to the STC in 1997. Her writing experience has included several contract positions and a position at Inscriber for several years. She has two daughters and has been living in England for two years.