-
Volunteering at Whanganui Regional Museum’s Moa Collection
This March, I had the pleasure of being a curatorial volunteer at the Whanganui Regional Museum’s moa collection. This is one of the most important collections of moa bones in the world, much of it excavated from the Taranaki region Makirikiri swamp in 1938. As a technical communicator with a geology/paleontology degree in her past,…
-
Travel Writing at Public Streets
One of my goals for 2015 is to expand with new writing projects, and the first of these has been published. You can read my travel writing post at Public Books, in their Public Streets series, here: Wellington’s Cuba Street: On the Restless Taniwha. Thanks again to the editors at Public Books and to photographer…
-
Looking back at 2014
2014 has been absolutely crammed for me as a technical communications professional. My primary work at Aviat Networks has been VERY busy, with several new documentation sets released for major new products, especially CTR 8500/8300. On my own time, for further projects I’ve been expanding my SEO and e-commerce skills. Earlier this year I launched…
-
A Technical Communicators Conference in New Zealand
On October 12th through 15th, one-third of the membership of TCANZ, 80+ professionals, gathered in Christchurch for our biannual conference. I was one of the conference emcees and contributed to organizing it (not as much as the stellar core crew, especially Kaye Churches). Sunday night, we began with our lively cocktail party. Two-thirds of the…
-
Staying Professional Around a Cancer Death
I haven’t posted here since May 2013. Why? It wasn’t because of a job change – I’m still at Aviat Networks. Something happened in June 2013: one of my closest, dearest friends received a terminal cancer diagnosis. Why am I mentioning this on a blog about my life as a professional? Because it did impact…
-
MadCap Flare for New Adopters
MadCap Flare is making headway as part of the technical documentation toolkit in New Zealand and overseas. In December 2012 and January 2013, I had substantial conversations with three different professional colleagues who were considering MadCap Flare. They had concerns about other single-sourcing products – too expensive, poor support, steep learning curves – and wanted…
