Engaging Technical Writing Services - Who Needs Them Anyways?

From web pages to manuals to newsletters, technical writing involves precision and accuracy. Technical writers require good language skills alongside technical dexterity. Knowing your target audience is the first rule of technical writing. Unless you know your target audience well you cannot suggest or make any implication on how to attract or persuade them to the products and services you are offering.

Once you know your audience, a technical writer can persuade and offer solutions to the audience in ways that are unidentifiable otherwise. Technical writing serves as a link between the business and the audience. Your company has specialized knowledge regarding specific products and services that you need to sell to the layman, providing them various solutions to their problems but you might not know how to get the message across. This is where technical writing services come in. It's an intermediary between your audiences, which requires a solution regarding a problem, and your company, which has the solutions to those issues.

Technical Writing - Why the need?

Technical writing services helps identify and give expression to your message, which might otherwise have failed, if let to its own devices. Technical writers choose words that enable your business to suggest and implement the true meaning of your services. Technical writers are not just translators, but they are experts, giving meaning to your words and words to your expressions.

Technical writing services absorb brilliance and expertise at the same time. Involving the art of research and dynamics, practicality of language, offering an interface to your company's motto. Excelling in conceptual knowledge, technical writers have an eye for detail and the knack for perfection. Grammar plays a significant role in determining the value of the language and putting across your message more accurately.

The Growing Need for Technical Writers

Technical writing helps explaining the meaning of the technical subject to the specified audience. Technical writers need not be subject experts but having the basic knowledge is very essential. Corporate, educational, government and financial institutions tend to hire technical writers for their expertise in research and language, which helps put across their message powerfully. Technical writers main craft is to provide words to your expressions. Less is more, is the basic implication here. The basic idea of technical writing is to generate a powerful message in fewer words. Technical writers tend to have good communication skills along with grammar and organization, helping them to avoid any derivatives and creating influential works.

Engaging Technical Writing

Being a widely used mode of communication, technical writing mostly facilitates advertising agencies. One major aspect of technical writing includes generating content for general public. Extensively it is used in the media and various corporate sectors to communicate with employees, businesses, management and companies etc. Technical writing services aim at portraying a clear and concise message intended for the readers. Being very different from creative and other various writings, technical writing is often dull and tedious but nonetheless persuasive and engaging. Technical writers provide words that help the readers to understand your message in more clear terms and assimilate information likewise.

Technical writing is not just different from other writing styles but is also more clear and precise. Leaving no room for imagination, technical writing offers answers to all your questions and possible problems that may arise. Since it offers a good deal of potential, technical writing is more in demand, especially in the corporate sectors. More and more businesses and companies are going online and hence the rise in the demand for technical writers is inevitable.

The Self-Made Myth by Brian Miller & Mike Lapham - Book review

The Self-Made Myth

And the Truth about How Government Helps Individuals and Businesses Succeed

By: Brian Miller, Mike Lapham

Published: March 5, 2012
Format: Paperback, 192 pages
ISBN-10: 1609945069
ISBN-13: 978-1609945060
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers










"The self-made myth is the assertion that individual and business success is the result of the personal characteristics of exceptional individuals, such as hard work, creativity, and sacrifice, with little or no outside assistance. Those who subscribe to this myth do so only by ignoring the contributions of society, the supports made possible through government action, any head start a person may have received, and just plain old luck", write executive director of United for a Fair Economy, Brian Miller; and founding director of Responsible Wealth, a project of United for a Fair Economy, Mike Lapham, in their well researched and thought provoking book The Self-Made Myth: And the Truth about How Government Helps Individuals and Businesses Succeed. The authors describe how the idea that business success is solely the result of great individual effort is entirely false, and they deconstruct the usual claims of supposedly self-made individuals, and destroy this fabricated mythology entirely.



Brian Miller (photo left) and Mike Lapham recognize the importance of hard work, creativity, and personal sacrifice. The authors point out that these traits, no matter hoe admirable and noble, do not account for the entirety an individual's success. Instead, the authors provide clear evidence that the creation of wealth the result of many additional factors that seldom receive the recognition they deserve. The omission of the inputs of government support through public education, the legal system, infrastructure, and the safety net is more than simply an exercise in ego or self delusion on the part of the individuals. The authors present a compelling case that the real reason for the perpetuation of the self-mad myth, despite its demonstrable shortcomings, is to influence public policy and to reduce taxation levels.



Mike Lapham (photo left) and Brian Miller understand that the self-made myth is as much a political construct as it is a social and economic creation. By falsely claiming that personal success is entirely due to individual initiative and merit, the authors point out that this position is intended to steer public policy into a firmly anti-government narrative. To counter this tend, based the false premise of the self-made person, the authors provide an alternative in the form of the built together reality.

To establish their case that refutes the self-made myth, the authors present the following outline:

* Overview of the self-made myth and its consequences
* The roots of the myth, its recent evolution, and its policy implications
* Contributions made by government and society that create conditions for success
* Foundations of the alternative built together reality of success
* Profiles of noted business leaders who embrace the built together reality
* How the built together reality changes our view of the government role
* Ways that people can get involved to change the dialogue to a more realistic one

For me, the power of the book is how Brian Miller and Mike Lapham completely demolish the self-made myth, and expose it for the empty shell it is in reality. The authors also provide a very strong alternative approach to understanding wealth creation for individuals and businesses in the form of the built together reality. This fresh approach acknowledges the role played by government, society, family, and even luck in the achievement of success.

Brian Miller and Mike Lapham present case histories of several allegedly self-made people including Donald Trump, Ross Perot, and the Koch Brothers, illustrating completely the false premise of them being self-made success stories. The authors also provide interviews with other successful individuals including Jerry Fiddler, Glynn Lloyd, Thelma Kidd, and Warren Buffett who acknowledge openly how much public and private assistance they received in achieving their success. The book concludes with an action plan for people to get involved in presenting the built together reality as a much more accurate assessment of how wealth is created in America.

I highly recommend the important and eye opening book The Self-Made Myth: And the Truth about How Government Helps Individuals and Businesses Succeed by Brian Miller and Mike Lapham, to anyone seeking a recognition of the essential role played by government and society in the success of individuals and businesses. This book will change the way you view government, and provide a new appreciation for how public and private support assist in the creation of wealth and a vibrant economy.

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Five Steps to Conquer 'Death by PowerPoint' by Eric Bergman

Five Steps to Conquer 'Death by PowerPoint'

Changing the world one conversation at a time

By: Eric Bergman

Published: May 2, 2012
Format: Paperback, 172 pages
ISBN-10: 1469926377
ISBN-13: 978-1469926377
Publisher: CreateSpace












No; PowerPoint is not the problem. The problem lies with assumptions underlying its use. Those assumptions are moving us further and further away from conversational exchanges when people get together", writes world-renowned presentation expert, author, and communications trainer Eric Bergman, in his concise and straight to the point book Five Steps to Conquer 'Death by PowerPoint' Changing the world one conversation at a time. The author describes how presenters can improve their communication effectiveness, and how audiences can insist that presenters incorporate the author's five steps into all communication deliveries.

Eric Bergman recognizes that what he calls "death by PowerPoint" isn't that the tools are flawed, but that the way presenters use the system that creates the problem For anyone presenting information through PowerPoint slides, a failure to communicate effectively with the audience, results in the message not being heard or understood correctly. Eric Bergman shares the concept that PowerPoint can be a very effective communications tool, but the assumptions that underlie its use are flawed. For the author, those flawed assumptions reduce the level of conversation between people, resulting in less understanding and sharing of ideas.



Eric Bergman (photo left) understands that people making presentations have the assumption that slides are an integral and essential part of the communication process. The author provides compelling evidence that both presenters and their audiences need to rethink the assumptions made about PowerPoint and its slides, and focus on creating genuine conversation instead.

Eric Bergman offers the wisdom that the vast majority of presentations are a waste of time as they fail to achieve their goals. The audiences are forced to work hard to find any value in these flawed presentations, and that a simple conversation would be create a more desirable outcome. The flawed assumptions that underpin the problem of "death by PowerPoint" syndrome are as follows:

* Everyone uses it
* It is expected
* People have different learning styles
* A picture is worth a thousand words
* My slides are my notes
* The audience can take notes
* They can share the presentation with others
* People will remember our key messages
* The focus is off me
* It saves time

To correct these problematic assumptions, Eric Bergman offers five simple rules for presenters to follow, and for audiences to insist that the presenters put into practice:

* Put the audience first
* Structure the conversation
* Minimize visual aids
* Convey your message and personality
* Answer questions throughout

For me, the power of the book is how Eric Bergman combines an insightful analysis of why the underlying assumptions that lead to so many ineffective PowerPoint presentations, with a series of recommendations for improving communication between speaker and audience. Going beyond the usual PowerPoint books, that simply suggest ways to create what are believed to be better PowerPoint slides, Eric Bergman suggests that the best course of action may be to not use the slides at all.

To counter the usual reasons given for the use and overuse of PowerPoint slides, the author provides a series of techniques for building a strong and effective conversation between the presenter and the listening audience. At the same time, he also makes a strong case for the listeners themselves to insist that the conversational approach be utilized by the speaker, and that the danger of "death by PowerPoint" be avoided entirely.

I highly recommend the iconoclastic and idea filled book Five Steps to Conquer 'Death by PowerPoint' Changing the world one conversation at a time by Eric Bergman, to anyone seeking a straight talking guide to both providing more effective PowerPoint presentations; or for even avoiding the ubiquitous slides altogether. This book will change the way both presenters and audiences think about and approach the use of PowerPoint slides, resulting in more personal conversations and more effective communication of ideas.

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