From: Martin A. <opt...@gm...> - 2005-08-27 10:54:40
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> Sweet. Will do. email me off line and we'll compare what we are both > working on and go from there. Okay. > I know! Doesn't it bring a tear to your eye? Dr. Sauer is the one who > introduced me to Plone and it's just grown from there. One of the > things that he has talked to me about is my business becoming a plone > implementation expert (as far as documentation projects are > concerned). I plan on visiting the Studio for New Media and talking to > the students who work on Plone about participating in the > documentation effort. You have a studio full of students working on Plone? Tell them to get involved on the lists and chatroom. :) > The aspect I'm focusing on now is single sourcing content (aka: > content reuse) with in a content management system. This is one of the > hottest topics with in the technical communication profession right > now. The fact that Plone can do this makes it one of the top tool > choices. As the word spreads about Plone, I anticipate there being a > lot of buzz among other documentation professionals like me. At the > risk of over exaggerating, Plone is like the holy grail we've been > searching for. I have a vested interest in documenting using Plone in > this manner because of the potential demand for solutions that Plone > can offer. So yeah, I can testify firsthand about making money on > Plone consulting...what little knowledge I do have about Plone I am > making money off of. At this point they're pretty much paying me to > expand my knowledge about Plone! Not a bad gig at all. Sounds great. :) And if some of that feeds back to us, we'll be able to support you much better. > Oh trust me...You may have more than you want to ever deal with. I'm > writing to make this Plone practical for everyone at the company. It's > going to include some very simple, obvious procedures for end users > but hey...we need those too! No, this is great. Here's something you can do: Go to http://plone.org/documentation/manual (after logging into plone.org) and add a Reference Manual. Call it something like "Plone End User Guide" and set up the type of structure with sections and pages you think would be useful (using the "add item" menu to add sections and pages). Then you can start pasting things into here as it becomes ready, we can review it, and when the entire document is beginning to be useful, we can publish it and get community feedback. >> Will you use standard plone instances, or customised ones? Obviously, >> our >> documentation needs to target the out-of-the-box setup as much as >> possible. > > Right now I believe the instance we are using is an Enfold Plone. (The > IT guy I'm working with found and error/glitch/notexactlysure in the > code and Enfold sent us a free copy) My STC central Iowa site is a > standard instance with only a few customizations. We have a "desk > reference" card on that site for our users that contains some basic > info for end users. See: http://stc-desmoines.org/stc.pdf > Others could easily use this type of card and customize for their own > end users. Our users loved it and it really took the edge off of > "learning some big new scary tool". ;) The thing to remember is that standard documentation and esp. screenshots must be done on a "clean" instance. It's relatively easy to set up a clean instance. The second thing is that you really should use Plone 2.1, since that's coming out very imminently and has a lot of usability improvements that will make it not only easier to use but also easier to describe. If you need help setting that up, let me know. >> We do. Badly. :) >> >> Perhaps the easiest thing would be if you posted here or emailed me what >> you have or have on the to-do list so we can find out how best to >> organise >> it? > How about next week when I'm back onsite? I have a list going on my > computer there. Great. >> Yes. Most of our documentation at the moment is for developers, because >> people figure out how to do X and then document it. Getting >> contributions >> from end users is more difficult, because they tend to be less visible >> on >> the mailing lists or chatroom, for instance. > > Yeah...end users are probably more reluctant to participate because > they feel they don't have anything to offer the "techies". They think > that they don't understand the tool because it's a lack of knowledge > on their part....they don't realize that documentation just doesn't > exist so it's really an issue of knowledge transfer not happening. > People like me can help be the end user advocates and try to > anticipate their needs. http://plone.org/documentation/faq/get-involved and http://plone.org/documentation/faq/supporting-plone and http://plone.org/documentation/faq/helping-out describe this (in fact, I think we may want to aggregate them into a single FAQ, looking at how they've grown). >> Indeed. We would really like to do this. >> >> JoAnna - I hope you will deliver on your promises, we could really need >> someone like you helping out. Anything you need, please post here or >> email >> me or talk to someone on IRC (I'm "optilude" there; Alexandere >> Limi/"limi" >> is another good one to talk to). > > Well that's what I'm here for! I'm going as fast as I can and hope to > have more to share very very soon. Right now most of my work day is > devoted to Plone which means I will be doing a lot of research and > making a list of gaps I find to document for my own needs. I'm sure we > will be in touch very soon. :) That's great. Again, get on IRC and find us there when you need to ask questions, it's usually the easiest way to get help. Thanks again! Martin -- (muted) |