When you are in business school, many discussions center on two well-known types of business model: consumer and business-to-business. In my work environment, these two models are not generally well understood. To some extent, that makes sense, as the...

I have heard from two readers that they tried to comment and were unable to, losing the comment upon trying to submit. That is a bummer. I certainly would love to hear what anyone says, and if you want to just test the comment feature, post a "Hello,...

There is a saying that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. I don’t know what that means. So I’ve chosen to ignore that basic message wrapped in an aphorism and focus on my mentalist powers: What do I see as the future of...

To any avid readers of this blog, and you both know who you are, thanks for the heads up. I recently had a couple technical issues with my blog that were corrected by the hard work of a team in product support. In the olden days, we called this “technical...

  I have given my Windows Phone 7 a bit of time and I ready to blog on using it for doing GTD. I am a GTD fan boy, full disclosure. Also, despite working for Microsoft, I know next to nothing about Windows Mobile anything, save what I've learned...

If email effectiveness were a stat, like a baseball batting average, what would your average be? Before I lose both baseball fans and email fans, hear me out. Batting average is a simple stat (too simple for hardcore baseball fans), but it highlights...

I used SharePoint when it was called OSS; it had so much promise. I'm guessing this was around 1999 or 2000. I was looking for a new way to review technical documentation. The discussions feature looked so cool. Unfortunately, it never really worked....

That is an allusion to the James Brown quote, “Feet don’t fail me now.” If you are young enough not to see the parallelism, good for you. I’m what some people might call a hardcore GTDer. I’ve used the system for over 5 years by my reckoning. I’ve moved...

Every once-in-a-while I get this question, "Hey, should I become a programmer writer?" There's a simple answer, "no." Here's why: it's not really a job anymore. Let's dispense with the title itself: programmer writer, for most, has...

I have never heard a reader of technical documentation say, "You know what what I like about the Big Company's documentation? They consistently bold face programming elements and keywords but never parameters. It's like they read my mind about how...

Throughout my time in software this myth has been pervasive. Usually the "smart guy" is highly technical and no one can do what he can do. (It's always been a dude in my experience.) Often this guy is highly responsible for the initial demo...

I admit it. My attention span has been compromised. How else can I explain that I won't read any blogs that look like MSDN content-- all words and, well, more words. I just won't do it. And, that cuts off a lot of content. I am, by no means, an early...

It is about time I repurpose this blog. After working on a blog for almost two years, the facts speak for themselves. I can see that my blog will never be prolific. It won’t be a daily blog you have to check. I tend toward the more in depth treatment...

The funny thing about any new methodology you might try is that the method seems to get all the credit in the end. Here's a paraphrasing of  conversation with some co-workers. One of them is trying to convince his team to avoid a bumpy road traveled...

Our team has been using a kanban system for several months now. We switched from a modified scrum. One of my colleagues, David C, is a dedicated professional who finds project management fascinating. Please, do not hold that against him. David C is the...

The subject of passion enters a lot of discussions at Microsoft. You hear this in the form of encouragement about your career. Do something you're passionate about and you'll never work a day in your life. To writers: Find what you're passionate about...

I've been having two thoughts lately about my blog. First, I need to change its focus so I write more; Second, I need to write more. Well this post will be the kick-off to the focus changing. I don't write on an SDK these days so the title is a bit of...

To develop effective documentation for users, the writing team should understand the experience of the user. This is harder than it sounds. Writers, like anyone who works in software, build up a tolerance for the vagaries of software was it moves through...

While the title of this blog is SDK writer, I do not write for an SDK team at this time. My job responsibilities have evolved. Presently, I write Help documentation for our product, Team Foundation Server. My job title at Microsoft is Programming Writer...

I recently attended a course on Minimalism, taught by Joann Hackos. It was a good and right in line with my thoughts on SDK docs, the normal subject of this blog. In a doc set, navigation and advance organizers are not always easy to reconcile. To that...

The subject of a ham sandwich came up at our daily meeting and it got me wondering. No, that's not the end of the blog post. Seriously, is there any sandwich funnier than a ham sandwich? Turkey sandwich isn't funny. A set up for joke is going to start...

Documentation or content typically serves two purposes. Documentation provides detailed, code-based information about the software (e.g. reference topics) and it communicates various types of narratives in the form of conceptual content. The latter point...

My team is the Team Foundation Server (TFS) team. As a blogger, I don't usually write about the content produced by my team. However, as I consider the documentation produced by my team, a question arises: What is the IT Pro audience and how is it different...

I'm a little tired of discussions about throughput, which is how much documentation work you can do. I understand the importance of this question to a business. Every couple of years, I hear the same stuff. Hours? Days? Topics? Pages? Words? Per day?...

I have to say thanks for reading this blog. I'm a bit clueless on the 'drive readership' part of writing a blog. Mostly, I hope that people read stuff and not laugh, except when I'm trying to be funny. Imagine my surprise when I discovered there are...