On being professional

Since starting my new job I’ve been getting re-acquainted with a lot of the different facets of my profession (that’s Technical Communications for those who haven’t been playing attention). I’m working on the basis that if you don’t ask, you don’t get and, to that end, I’ve put myself forward to be part of the Usability team. One step forward.

Expanding the empire

I registered a new domain name the other day, it’s in keeping with my “brand” and will form part of a triumvirate of sites which I’ll pull under the same umbrella at some point in the future.

I love that word “triumvirate”. TRIumvirate. TriUMMMMvirate.

The new site will host my musings about my “profession” and it will, naturally, be a blog. Technical Authors dabble in many areas so I’ll be writing about (amongst many other things) usage of industry specific software (mainly FrameMaker), writing techniques and approaches, planning the content, creating graphics, indexing manuals, working with developers, and everything else that makes up part of my day job.

It’s an outlet for a lot of the thoughts I have about my profession, most of which I don’t post here, but will not ever be specific to the company I work for and I will be telling them it exists. The aim is to post regularly, but not once a day, and to keep it focussed, much like many other professional blogs.

That’s the plan at least, but it’s very much a baby-step at the moment, more of an experiment than a commitment. Time will tell if it is successful.

I wonder if anyone can guess the URL?

Umbrella? It’s not raining!

As part of the above, and further to some of the ideas I’ve mooted here (another great word MOOT MOOT!!) I’ve been trying to figure out a way to link the sites I run. A little bit of cross promotion if you will.

I think I’ve found a nice, subtle, way of doing this. No details just yet but it was sparked by watching a demo of the Apple iPhone the other day.

Hey, if you are going to steal, steal from the best, right?

It pays to seize the initiative

As well as taking some bold steps with my employer, my ‘other work’ is benefitting from my new found enthusiasm.

A flyer for a local computer services company was posted through my door last week. The kind of thing I generally glance at then throw straight into the recycle bin. For no good reason (other than the fact I’m considering getting a new PC before my current one dies) I looked it over. It was a fairly crude job, and I spotted that whilst they had an email address listed there was no mention of a website.

I nipped upstairs to the computer and when I tracked down their website (using the details after the @ in the email address) I was presented with one solitary page which was an image of the very flyer I had in my hand. Not great.

So, taking the bull by the horns, I emailed them to suggest that, for a modest fee I could provide them with a simple website. A couple of emails later and things are underway. As it happens, the guy I’m dealing with knows one of my previous (oneman) customers and as we all know that word of mouth is THE best marketing method, he was quick to say that he was happy to be doing business with me. This is before he’s even seen the design brief!

Sometimes living in a small world helps!

Comments

  1. I’m guessing onemanwrites. And given the fact I’ve just done the whois lookup, I’m guessing I’m right. I’m right, aren’t I? I am. I’m right. 🙂

  2. Anyway, yes, I was going to say, I can identify with a lot of what you’re saying re professionalism and so on. I’ve also been doing a kind of ‘branding’ thing between my own company, and the photography, as well as a couple of other odds and sods – it can all get horribly complicated!

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