The next ISTC technical communicators’ meeting in Glasgow will take place on Thursday 26th August 2010, from 7.30 pm onwards. Come along to talk about latest news and trends in communication, or just to meet other communication professionals.

The event is free and open to anyone interested in technical communication, such as technical authors, information architects, internal communication prodessionals, report writers, marketing writers, web content writers and graphic designers.

Venue: Waxy O’Connors pub, 44 West George Street, Glasgow, G2 1DH. Please make your way to McTurk’s Room on the middle level.

Please forward this message on to your colleagues or anyone else who may be interested. For more information, contact westscotland_areagroup[at]istc.org.uk.

Information is serious stuff and must be treated with the appropriate earnest respect it deserves. Stop laughing at the back, this is not a joking matter. How do you feel when you go looking for information and can’t find it? Or find what you think will be helpful information only to discover that it is useless.

At that point, information is very very serious indeed and causes many people to gnash their teeth, wail their woes and other expressions of frustration and angst.

The reason I mention this, something I’m sure most of you are both perfectly aware and the unwitting recipients of, is because I have a tendency to be silly sometimes. Which means, say, adding an entry to a product glossary titled “Rubber Chicken” with a definition of “See Custard Pie” (and yes, the “Custard Pie” entry had the definition of “See Rubber Chicken”). Yes, it’s silly, but sometimes, if done correctly, a spot of humour can have a positive effect.

Thankfully the terminology used in software development can provide some perfect moments, so when someone recently asked “How do I destroy a custom component?” on an internal mailing list, one response (which alas I can’t post here) tickled my funny bone so much that I posted it to our developer community website.

Suffice to say that the response discussed destroying a custom component on a physical level (including dropping the hardware from a height) and the emotional level (including underming the confidence of the custom component with heavy doses of sarcasm) and had everyone who read it in stitches.

Was it inappropriate? Perhaps, but a little humour can go a long way.

This blogging thing seems to be catching on, so much so that my company will soon have a blog looking at industry specific issues and thoughts.

And yes, I’m one of the bloggers. I’ll link to it once it’s up and running (we are testing it at the moment) and provide a bit more information as well.

Feels a bit like I’m coming out of the blogging closet!

One personal flaw (I have a few) is that I can make decisions a little too hastily.

Case in point, in our hunt for a team wide task tracking application, after some searching and experimentation we plumped for a bastardisation of Remember The Milk. It’s not as ideal as we’d hoped but it ‘would do’.

And, this very morning, up pops a product that has been updated since I last saw it and it appears that it meets our needs perfectly (Producteev). However the decision on whether we use it will be deferred to the team.

That said, sometimes there isn’t time to consult on a decision and, most times, making the decision is the most important thing, even if it’s not the right one.

After all, the best way to learn is by your mistakes.