Writing Remotely

Now that the four day week is becoming more popular, so is remote writing. Investing in a laptop can make remote writing much easier. A laptop with an internal network card can provide Internet access for online publishing at any remote location with wireless access.

 

For certain types of writing the writer may need to be on location. But after the meetings, product reviews and engineering changes have been completed, writing can begin at any time or location.

 

Some of our writers attend all engineering meetings via conference call. After hanging up the phone the writing begins and the team begins to collaborate on the content of the documents. Writers go on-site one to five times a year depending on the need of the client. In some cases, the writer meets the client once, and writes for that client on an open-ended contract.

 

Just think of the money saved by the client and the writer at a time when gas prices may soar higher than we have ever imagined.

 

The clients and writers can focus on their business instead of worrying about what the price of gas will be tomorrow.

 

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Insourcing and Jobs in America

The big news on July 3, 2008 was 62,000 jobs lost. This has sparked several discussions on-line and we would like to add our two cents.

 

We will deal with this issue using the alternate definition of the word insourcing, since in theory, everything is possible. Since we are currently in America, this term will refer to transferring jobs to local contractors and facilities that are physically located in the United States of America.

 

This is an election year, and there is talk from both candidates about putting America back to work. Each candidate states their commitment to this but maybe small businesses can lead the charge for their respective industries. With supportive government policies, that are enforced, the number of jobs located in America just might increase.

 

For example, since free trade isn’t always fair trade, how about having product documentation targeted at the American consumer, written in America? Our company has rewritten product guides that were originally written in a country where English was not the first language. It turned out that outsourcing wasn’t appropriate in this case. In short, they had to pay to have the same work done twice. Where is the savings here? We don’t see any and neither do our clients.

 

Supporting policies and infrastructure may assist in avoiding issues like this and promote a win-win for both the corporate bottom line and the American worker. But this is just a theory, and in theory, everything is possible!

 

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Are you making the most of Single Sourcing?

Take your online help documentation and your user manuals to the next level!

 

Save time and money doing it the right way. Using Microsoft and Adobe software for documentation development and implementing effective technical communicator standards wasted time and money can be eliminated from documentation projects.

 

Why keep spending the extra money, when you don’t have to?

 

We have remote technical writers available to make this one time transition for you, so you can start saving money, today!

 

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Freelance Web Design

Technical communication and writing includes a variety of skills. The basic approach of most technical writers is to add to their skills in a manner that is suitable to their career development.

 

Our technical writers have a liberal arts education (art and photography) as well as application and web programming experience. Therefore, it has been easy for them to add web skills to their training curriculum.

 

JavaScript, Dreamweaver, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, Fireworks, InDesign, Microsoft Office, VISIO, and more.

 

To date, we have been contacted for freelance web design as well as writing a variety of business manuals (on-line help and print) for the company website and personnel. This has been a very interesting experience since old documents and sketches become on-line help or PDF down-loadable documents from their website. The business analysis skills used for technical system and application development are useful for analyzing and organizing the new documents our clients are developing.

 

The old and the new are coming together to build a tomorrow, on the Internet, for many companies.

Writing for Business

Analysis related to business writing has evolved through many phases. When looking for freelancers capable of this kind of analysis don’t forget that SDLC (Systems Development Life Cycle) is very similar to UML (Unified Modeling Language) and RUP (Rational Unified Process).

 

If the writer you have chosen has written for SDLC projects they may be worth considering for your business writing projects that require business analysis.

 

Remember, there are also similarities between business writing, technical writing and copywriting so don’t reduce your chances of finding an economical business writer by limiting your choices too much.

The Sixth Phase of the Project

Every project must have an ending rather it is good or bad. For our four week project that should have been six months we now have an unacceptable deliverable but something to start with.

 

Now, it is time to reward the people that didn’t participate in the project. That’s right, this is the reward the non-participant phase.

 

Everyone smart enough or lucky enough not to get involved in the negative aspects of this project will receive a reward. Promotions are in order and celebrations parties are scheduled and work goes on as usual.

 

Hopefully, something is learned from this process and the value of the industry experts will be considered relevant to the project’s success.

Wellness Center Writing

 

The cost of healthcare is skyrocketing and Americans are looking for alternatives. With the stress of the economic changes, aging, global contentions, natural disasters, and individual life challenges our mental, physical and spiritual beings need to be maintained and nurtured.  Local governments, cities, and towns across America are turning to Wellness Centers to assist.

 

Our local clients often ask for banners, web and print content for email campaigns, landing pages and websites to spread the word and let communities know what wellness services are available.

 

With a good design, your email campaigns can be reused to produce your landing page content and other website content. The analytical data retrieved can be used to create online marketing strategies to reach more people.

 

“Making the connection; makes good business.”