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Mary Connor
Austin, TX
Documentation architect for Agile software development, using any tool and platform that makes sense
Interests: developer documentation, user experience, universal design, software documentation, single-sourcing, process automation, wiki docs, information system design, web-based help and e-learning development, agile and scrum, community-based documentation
Recent Activity
Writing Great Error Messages
These resources for authoring error messages were just shared on the Write the Docs Slack community, by Monique Semp; they were too good not to save! (On the free plan, our WTD content goes away after a time.) If you're... Continue reading
Posted Apr 19, 2021 at Clever Hamster
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How asynchronous meetings speed Agile
As my company was just acquired, I'm turning my attention to our organically developed Agile processes and noticing how it is that we stay so Agile and almost meeting-free. This just happened this morning: While I was busy on a... Continue reading
Posted Jan 26, 2021 at Clever Hamster
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Thank you, Stefan! I have considered my own instance, but I see problems with how collaboration would work. As for Viewport, my blocker is that we publish into Jira Service Desk and need to SSO our customers coming in through that portal. Keep me in mind if you need beta testers for anything touching JSD. :-)
Commented Nov 23, 2020 on Growing tech pubs on top of Confluence, like Salesforce.org at Clever Hamster
Growing tech pubs on top of Confluence, like Salesforce.org
Atlassian's abandonment of technical publication and help authoring as a key use case for Confluence is nothing new: 5 years ago they admitted it (CONFCLOUD-2522), and it explains our excruciating experience of being pushed onto a new Cloud editor that lacked critical functionality (50+ issues b...
Growing tech pubs on top of Confluence, like Salesforce.org
Atlassian's abandonment of technical publication and help authoring as a key use case for Confluence is nothing new: 5 years ago they admitted it (CONFCLOUD-2522), and it explains our excruciating experience of being pushed onto a new Cloud editor that... Continue reading
Posted Nov 12, 2020 at Clever Hamster
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Road to Cohousing: People over Things
Posted May 13, 2019 at Clever Hamster
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ATX Aging & Innovation Summit
The ATX Aging & Innovation Summit sold out again, but I'd gotten my ticket in time. This year's focus was "Aging in Community", which aligned perfectly with my interest in innovation in housing, especially cohousing and cooperatives. Highlights for me:... Continue reading
Posted Nov 29, 2018 at Clever Hamster
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So, why cohousing?
Now that I'm a member of a cohousing community in development (Ralston Creek Cohousing), folks are asking how I got into it. Truth is, I've been intrigued with the concept of cohousing long before I ever heard the term. Here's... Continue reading
Posted Nov 28, 2018 at Clever Hamster
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Quick space deletes in Confluence
To delete Confluence spaces quickly, import a dummy Word file to blow away the space contents before attempting the deletion. Continue reading
Posted Jul 25, 2018 at Clever Hamster
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Documentation-Driven Design: Moving the Caboose
This month's Write The Docs ATX meetup featured Ian Buchanan, Senior Developer Advocate at Atlassian: Future-Proof Your Tech Writing Skills with Specification by Example. He was inspired by reading Specification by Example: How Successful Teams Deliver the Right Software (Gojko... Continue reading
Posted Feb 27, 2017 at Clever Hamster
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Keep Austin Agile 2016 Takeaways
The 4th annual conference for Agile Austin (Keep Austin Agile) was high-energy, plush, and well-attended. The day was a bit of a blur for me, with the excitement of presenting my session and doing interviews, such as for Agile Amped.... Continue reading
Posted Jul 15, 2016 at Clever Hamster
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Capture Those Brain Dumps
Particularly in Agile shops, it's critical to grab information opportunistically: when that subject matter expert finally comes up for air long enough to discuss that new implementation you've heard was coming, drop everything and grab a basket to catch that... Continue reading
Posted Dec 2, 2015 at Clever Hamster
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Bulletproof numbered styles in Word
Oh, happy dance! I've been working in Microsoft Word again (for a content migration project) and I just broke through a major pain point: I figured out how to design style-driven numbered lists that won't go wonky or ever need... Continue reading
Posted Feb 13, 2015 at Clever Hamster
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WritersUA Central takeaways
For my own benefit, I'm writing this quick list of goodies and action items from the notes that I jotted down from the Software User Assistance conference this week: Remember "pave the cowpaths" — let users develop footpaths and use... Continue reading
Posted Jan 8, 2015 at Clever Hamster
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DocOps: technical content goes Agile
Posted Dec 17, 2014 at Clever Hamster
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Thanks, Jackie! I will definitely dig deeper into options for Chromebook as a work machine. Seems every day I hear about new angles (such as Adobe offering cloud-based use of their tools) that brings that reality closer.
Commented Nov 1, 2014 on Chromebooks at work? at Clever Hamster
Chromebooks at work?
I've been madly in love with my Samsung Chromebook ever since I shamelessly stole it from my early-adopter husband (and I'm not the only one who's done this, I've found). Its tiny price, feather weight, cool operation, and long battery life perfectly fit my use case for couch surfing and family ...
Chromebooks at work?
I've been madly in love with my Samsung Chromebook ever since I shamelessly stole it from my early-adopter husband (and I'm not the only one who's done this, I've found). Its tiny price, feather weight, cool operation, and long battery... Continue reading
Posted Oct 8, 2014 at Clever Hamster
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Google docs and sheets get Workflows
Now that more development teams are using Google Docs to develop project artifacts, it's worth looking at optional add-ons that will build out the functionality that we need. One that fills a real need is Letter Feed Workflows for Documents... Continue reading
Posted Jul 10, 2014 at Clever Hamster
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pptPlex adds Prezi power to PowerPoint
Office Labs (yes, that exists!) has come up with a Prezi emulator, what it calls "Plex technology". It's a plug-in to PowerPoint that lets you not only zoom in and out of slide sections but also vault between slides that... Continue reading
Posted Jul 1, 2014 at Clever Hamster
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Cheap and agile internal training
Internal training is a project that often falls onto the shoulders of technical writers, regardless of our instructional design background. Why? Availability and expedience, as it's typical for training resources to be jealously protected for end-user training. (It's the same... Continue reading
Posted Dec 23, 2013 at Clever Hamster
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Single-sourcing graphics
Screenshot rot is a persistent misery for all content production, and it will remain so until we fundamentally automate how we obtain and reference screenshots (tools such as Dr.Explain are trying). It's tempting to avoid screenshot use to escape the... Continue reading
Posted Nov 2, 2013 at Clever Hamster
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Conditional publishing in Sandcastle
The challenge: I needed to build internal and external versions of Help from the same source. Putting internal-only information into the Help project itself lets me single-source content and lets staff search across all relevant information, without jumping between sites.... Continue reading
Posted Sep 20, 2013 at Clever Hamster
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Adding access control to Help
Who has permission to read complete product documentation? It's by far the easier, softer way to make content fully public; however, as enterprise Help migrates to the web, this requirement to apply content security (access control) is surfacing more and... Continue reading
Posted Aug 20, 2013 at Clever Hamster
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Drupal Gardens as a tech pubs community platform
Looking for a cloud-based platform for social publishing (books, media) and community support (forums, blogs)? One that works off-the-shelf the same day and that you can afford? Check out Drupal Gardens. It's Drupal 7, fully hosted by Acquia (enterprise Drupal... Continue reading
Posted May 30, 2013 at Clever Hamster
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Free recorded seminars on tech comm topics:...
Free recorded seminars on tech comm topics: http://www.madcapsoftware.com/resources/recordedwebinars.aspx#industry Continue reading
Posted Apr 26, 2013 at Clever Hamster
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Agile without Scrum (or, on our way to Kanban)
When I'm asked, "Are you doing Agile?", the implicit question is: "Are you doing Agile the way I do it?" Therefore, the honest answer is almost always "No". And the differences in how each shop practices it are as telling... Continue reading
Posted Apr 12, 2013 at Clever Hamster
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