Hard to believe the author of this is in his mid twenties. Then again, maybe that’s the perfect perspective before we all end up sucking up and selling out.

“Connections are empowering – they give you power of having a voice as an individual, the power of being able to raise issues, start discussions, and rock the status quo of your industry.  Connections allow you to shape and reshape your field from the ground up and bring forth positive change in the world around you. 

Counter to what you hear from most people, change in an industry is a good thing and is what moves things forward.

Digital mediums of expression allow you the freedom to create a following and carve out a name for yourself in your industry.  In time, if you work hard enough and share your expertise and results publicly you will get noticed.  Let your successes work for you.

Here are a few steps to take to build a name for yourself in your industry and build your personal brand (these are your action items):

Build a network for yourself using a digital communications tool such as a personal, professional blog.

Contribute content to your network frequently to establish a voice and build authority for yourself.  Write passionately and on what you know. Be genuine and take time to personally help others –this is actually one of the most rewarding aspects.

Supplement your personal network by becoming active in services like LinkedIn, Twitter, FriendFeed, etc where you can contribute to the discussion and have a voice.

Do some PR for yourself:  write by-lined articles to trade publications in your field, offer yourself up to reporters as someone to be quoted for articles, contribute to other people’s blogs.

Document all your projects in a private portfolio but ask permission to share them with the world too.  You’d be surprised how open people are to sharing successes on projects you created for them.  Rising waters lift all boats.

Go to industry events, conferences, trade shows, etc.  Speak or present at them if you can.

Be relentless, passionate and never settle for mediocrity in anything.  Never do something or commit to a project you don’t believe in.  Voice your opinions from the start if you think something will be a failure.

Conclusion

In a changing world, staying at the edge, being ultra-connected and carving out your personal brand is incredibly powerful and liberating. 

Building career security, not job security and showcasing your results/expertise is not only empowering, but it’s really a lot of fun.  You will connect with other like-minded, passionate people and help each other with projects, help each other spread ideas and make change in our world. 

It’s the difference between being average and being remarkable.

I’m all in favor of this concept: 

An electronic portfolio, also known as an e-portfolio or digital portfolio, is a collection of electronic evidence assembled and managed by a user, usually on the Web (also called Webfolio). Such electronic evidence may include inputted text, electronic files, images, multimedia, blog entries, and hyperlinks.

E-portfolios are both demonstrations of the user’s abilities and platforms for self-expression, and, if they are online, they can be maintained dynamically over time.

An e-portfolio can be seen as a type of learning record that provides actual evidence of achievement.

What I’ve learned is that more and more the changes of software particularly browser technology can make these obsolete over time. It actually becomes easier to keep a checklist of change management. I have four samples up at any given time – some have been up since 2003.

Interesting note: I met a new neighbor last weekend who needs a Federal contract fulfilled with a relevant accounting training I touched on seven years ago.

Flash and PDF seem to be the containers of choice. They’re always displayable regardless of which browsing technology is used – they all support the industry standard.

Charles Jeter’s ePortfolio links:

Tutorial – Completing Government Cost Accounting System Employee Timesheets (Adobe / Macromedia / Captivate / eHelp RoboDemo 2003)

Help File – Codo Software’s Laser Squad:Nemesis Tactics Guide (RoboHelp X5 FlashHelp, 2002 – 2003)

Rapid eLearning – Collaborative Blogging Overview (Articulate Studio 2009 with elements designed using GlobFX Swiff Chart Pro and Adobe Captivate, 2008)

Effective Curriculum Development – Securing Our eCity (multiple technology for Instructor Led Training, 2009 – 2010, shows results)

Corporate Blogwriting – Blogging in April on the ESET Threatblog (Microsoft Windows Live Writer / WordPress, 2010)

The following is a summary of my posts for April on ESET’s ThreatBlog. The hot topic was cyberwarfare however Facebook and personal privacy received quite a bit of attention, as well as FBI related analysis. If you’re interested you can subscribe to ESET’s Threatblog RSS feed.

Cyberwarfare series:

From Megatons to Megapings: Cyberwarfare

Cyberwarfare and Music: It’s All Tempo

Cybercrime and Cyberwarfare: Warnings Unheeded?

Kinetic Warfare vs. Cyberwarfare

Social Networking / Personal Privacy series:

Top Four Privacy Hacks/Tips/Trends Of The Week

Please do not change your password – The Boston Globe

Community Driven Privacy and Facebook: PC / Mac / iPhone Dependent?

FBI Cyber Division Warns About Social Networking

Privacy: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Privacy: Lawsuit Alleges School Used Webcams to Lurk in Students’ Homes

Malware Sector Trends Reporting:

PDFs Exploitable?!? I’m shocked…

Facebook Newbie | Good Practices

SMishing or IMEI Phishing?

European Cybercriminal Gangs Target Middle America SMBs

Apple may or may not equal security

Legal / Criminal Minds:

Senate Bill 773: What it means for Cyber Security and Cybercrime

Spam, Bad Guys, and the Russian FSB

HR 4061: What Three Bucks buys you…

Insider Threat: Malware on your ATM

Is Net Neutrality a legit beef against Senate Bill 773?

FBI Cyber Division Describes Criminal Specialization

Geek with an edge: Gordon Snow, Asst. Dir. FBI Cyber Division

Update: links were broken, now they’re fixed!

Cluetrain Manifesto Taken to the Streets

Check out SeeClickFix, a collaborative Google Maps-based application which takes city reporting to the next level. I see this working its way into the threads of user support just like Twitter has recently, just replace ‘user’ with ‘citizen’. Consumer complaints given transparency to all levels – KISS rule in place.

Simple, easy, point click and type your quick response. In fact, they now have a widget that takes the map embedding part of the problem and makes it easier for Web 2.0 users:

SeeClickFix.com encourages the posting of SeeClickFix maps on blogs and websites.

Great collaboration tool. I’m curious as to what corporate uses this might bring. And here’s a sneak-peak at a new feature on seeclickfix: http://www.seeclickfix.com/feeds.

What types of applications could this work well to address, or what do you see that you would have to counter?

Could Microsoft out-Apple Adobe?

Let’s examine a few trends and remember that Apple beat its competitors in the education market twenty years ago by having a rabid fan base along with compelling intuitive software.  Microsoft Live’s community had 60 million users last time I checked. Working within the existing Live framework will be critical for any Learning Management Systems (LMS) play that Microsoft chooses to do in the future.

The eLearning potential with Microsoft’s (NASD: MSFT) current portfolio of hardware and software, part of which is the XBox brand, is gaining momentum. I’ve been discussing current instructional design trends with instructional designers, consumer media analysts, military training officers, and gamers. We’ve reached current consensus:

There are a lot of benefits to using the XBox 360 as a training / eLearning platform, primarily because of the XBox Live community.

Having solid revenue generating Intellectual Property (IP) in both hardware and software gives a strong advantage to MSFT in this space. Windows Live Mesh is self descriptive; it meshes all the services together.

How Does Live Mesh Work?

Read the rest of this entry »

Just check it out… This is one of the coolest web clouds I’ve ever seen…

FLOSS Manuals: The OTHER FM for PDFs

Some writers truly hate Adobe Acrobat and any tool that can do the job better is worth a shot, particularly if it’s open source and easily navigated. Flossmanuals.net introduces FLOSS which does a lot of the single desktop Acrobat Pro’s job – collaboratively and open source.

Could FLOSS be the new Acrobat Pro killer?

FLOSS could bridge the gaps between Subject Matter Expert (SME) authoring of content and true documentation. For the specific purpose of supporting open source collaborative efforts this is heaven sent. Most open-source dev teams are simply not able to have those wonderful team meetings for doc review either for financial or time management purposes.

Update: Anne Gentle’s site talks about an event called a Booksprint that FlossManuals.net is doing for technical writers in support of open source programs.

I’ve been reading Janet Swisher’s review of FLOSS Manuals. She examines the pros and cons of Wiki briefly and explains the problem / solution of FLOSS definitively:

Read the rest of this entry »

How much money do you need to pay to make quality PDFs? According to Tom Johnson, the I’d Rather Be Writing author, zero.

Free PDF Generation

Tom opens by talking about that irritating little release updater that Adobe runs in the background. Speaking about PDF functionality that exists in Word 2007 Tom states:

…you can download the Save as PDF or XPS add-in for Microsoft Word 2007 for free. It’s less than 1 megabyte to download, and it quickly and flawlessly converts Word docs to PDF, even with hyperlinks. If you have non-Word documents to convert, Primo PDF (another free PDF alternative) will do it absolutely free.

I keep wondering why Microsoft wasn’t able to package this add-in with their updates, or initially with the product.

After reading my PDF summary from January you’ll know my position on this necessary but often overused documentation format. Yes, I use it. Yes, it is a standard. But not worth $700 if you don’t have to spend it.

Help Authoring Tool War – Now Led By MadCap?

What brought me to the IRBW site this evening was the poll that Sharon mentioned. Surfing over to IRBW I checked it out – here’s the Authoring Tool voting stats listed as of today.

I’m not surprised. This is what happens when you lose confidence in the software manufacturer who takes over a popular product such as RoboHelp and loses touch with the market.

Adobe, Adobe… Is AIR going to ‘Help’ you?

AIR seems to get some traction for ADBE however. The stock is still trading near 52-week high levels and has been climbing since it’s low around March of this year.

I’ll have to do a follow-up to my 2007 prediction of stock value for Adobe (NASD: ADBE) dropping this year. After all, Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) isn’t releasing Vista and ADBE’s forced upgrade tactic isn’t as relevant.

We’ll have to see how things go at the end of the fiscal year… They could prove me wrong.

Am I First to Coin The Term AIRHelp?

Then again, last month Ben Minson’s two part review of the RoboHelp Packager for AIR public beta raised some solid questions about the functionality of the software for the end user.

I’m not sold on .air taking over the world of WWW just yet. I agree with most of this take from Ben Minson on ADBE AIR:

Adobe seems to be following a good line of thinking here with AIR help. But remember, users want simplicity. Having to install each help system as an application is asking too much of everyday users.

This use case for AIRHelp would tend to put us back to the .chm days with a distributable file that needed to be on every system running it. eHelp introduced WebHelp as a way to get away from that back in 2002. 

ADBE’s RoboHelp… Innovative A Year Too Late To Be Innovative

Doing something like Web 2.0 two release cycles behind your competition is not innovative. It’s keeping up with the market that’s trying to leave you behind. AuthorIT and MadCap Flare been-there and done-that already.

I reviewed MadCap’s Web 2.0 functionality last year as the Feedback Service. It doesn’t require installation on the client side of anything special and works cross-platform. It’s been pointed out that it can run on any IIS server on your network, even your desktop in your office.

From MadCap Mike’s Musings – Comparing Documentation Server Software – MadCap Feedback Server and RoboHelp Server:

Web 2.0 – The MadCap Feedback Server support for Web 2.0 community technologies is a complete turnkey system. Once installed there is nothing that your developers or programmers need to do to make this work. All that is required is for you to select the appropriate options while publishing your Flare projects to turn these capabilities on.

In contrast, the few similar options that Adobe has introduced are limited to the Air output only (not available in the more popular WebHelp) and even then require either programmer/developer hours or Rube Goldberg-esque scenarios where data files have to be emailed back and forth between users.

Ben’s review points out the obvious flaw; why make end users download and install something special rather than transparently do the Web 2.0 on the server side? Additionally, having an attachment-based data output for the actual server doesn’t make much sense either.

Related Posts:

• Friday Comments Review: RoboHelp vs. Flare
• Ten Faces of Innovation
• Technical Communication – Teamwork and Workflow as a Disruptive Technology
• PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
• RoboHelp 6 finally arrives, and it’s craptastic
• Adobe & MadCap’s Cold War: Market Share
• Web 2.0 – MadCap Feedback Review Part 2
• Web 2.0 – MadCap Feedback is the KISS principle at work…
• Comparing Documentation Server Software – MadCap Feedback Server and RoboHelp Server

Kudos to MonkeyPi for linking to this: Student ‘Twitters’ his way out of Egyptian jail

“Usually the first thing the police go for is the detainees’ cameras and cellular phones,” el-Hamalawy said. “I’m surprised they left James with his phone.”

I think this is one of those technology issues that repressive governments are just not going to be able to contain.

I’m a little late for this… But early for next week.

Kicking off with this great post:

The goal of many of the Web 2.0 tools is to reduce the overhead. Think of it as a “flat tax” for interactions, in that many of the philosophies of Web 2.0 are around transparency and participation, in addition, everyone is equal.

If you look at MySpace, LinkedIn, Youtube or other social networks, there is no hierarchy and pretty much everyone is equal (yes there are administrators for such systems who have greater powers).

Who keeps the Internet going? No one really, there are some agreed upon standards so that one computer can talk to another, and information can be displayed in a common format, and that is about it.

By the way, my condolences for this writer’s situation; I was in similar circumstances just last year with my dad.

Web 2.0 for Collaboration and Learning – This should be titled Web 2.0 Collaboration 101. Part of a six-week course set up in order to encourage exploration of the new and emerging technologies that are reshaping the way we use information.

Top Three Web 2.0 Tools for Online Education – A quick roundup which would get just about anyone started in basic collaboration online.

(8) Online Collaboration Tools – New Technologies and Web Services

9 Principles for Implementation: The Big Shift – Check out the principles for managing change. I think this applies across the spectrum and isn’t only limited to traditional schools.

Ten Trends: Educating Children for Tomorrow’s World – Specifically, Trend 3: Social and Intellectual Capital will become the Primary Economic Value in Society.

Death, Taxes, and Collaboration