Sarah Maddox's Blog, page 31

Confluence tip – how to hide child pages in the Documentation theme

This hint is for people who are using the Documentation theme in Confluence wiki, and want to hide the child pages that are shown at the bottom of every page. After all, the left-hand navigation bar in  the Documentation theme shows a page tree, including all parent and child pages. So it’s probably overkill to show the children at the bottom of every page too.

To hide the child pages, add some CSS to the space. This is the CSS you need:

#children-section{   
display:none;   
}

I’ve tested the above CSS in Confluence 4.3 and 5.0.

To add the CSS to your space, you need space administrator permissions. Go to Browse > Space Admin > Stylesheet, edit the stylesheet and dump the above code into the text box.

The documentation has more guidelines on using custom stylesheets: Styling Confluence with CSS.

Have fun!

Things Unseen – introducing my new novel

I’ve published a novel! It’s called Things Unseen , a psycho-romance, available in eBook format from Amazon.com (Kindle) and Smashwords (Kindle, EPUB and other formats).

Yes, I’ve joined the ranks of technical writers who write fiction, following in the footsteps of the indefatigable Dave Gash and the irrepressible Patty Blount. (And more, I’d guess.)

What’s the book about?

Dirk and Elise meet in Cape Town in the mid 1980s. They fall in love. Things happen. Well, you’d expect that! But some of the happenings are tragic, scary, or just plain weird.

Dirk and Elise bump heads with lovable rascals and with more complicated people. Evil people, supernatural beings? That’s for you to find out.

What do I think of it?

I am delighted with this book, and proud of all it represents. A love story. African and European cultures meeting, competing, and merging to produce something new. The results of careful study of African culture, language and stories.

Is there a link between African witchdoctors and Carl Jung? Read the book to see what Dirk and Elise discover. In this, I am indebted to M. Vera Bührmann’s book, Living in Two Worlds, Communication between a white healer and her black counterparts.

I think you’ll enjoy Things Unseen. I hope you’ll love it as much as I do.

The artist

Ryan Maddox designed the cover for Things Unseen. He’s the talented artist who created the illustrations for my technical book, Confluence, Tech Comm, Chocolate, a wiki as platform extraordinaire for technical communication.

I’d love to know what you think

If you read Things Unseen I’d love to know what you think of it. If you can add a review on Amazon.com, that would be awesome. Or add a comment on this blog post. This is exciting and just a bit scary!

Here are the links again:

Amazon.com (Kindle)
Smashwords (Kindle, EPUB and other formats)

How do you blog at conferences

A fellow technical writer asked me today for tips on how to blog at conferences. He is soon to attend the tekom conference in Bangalore, India. I replied via email, but then thought this is an interesting discussion to have with everybody else. There are a number of technical writers who create copious and awesome conference reports. I’m looking at you, Kai, Ellis, Val, Roger, Rhonda, …

Blogging at conferences is a lot of fun. I find it helps me keep my attention focused during the lectures, and the post is a very useful reference months later when I’m trying to remember what a particular session was about. It’s also great for the presenters to read the post and see how much I understood of what they were saying, and what I made of their overall thesis. Colleagues at work benefit from reading the posts too, especially those who wanted to but couldn’t attend the conference.

In case they’re useful, here are some examples of past conferences that I’ve blogged about:

Tekom tcworld 2012 wrapup
STC Summit 2012 wrapup
WritersUA 2011 wrapup

In days of yore…

When I first started going to conferences, I wrote notes during each session by hand – yes, on paper! Then I transcribed them into a blog post and published it late that night. Phew, lengthy process.

Soon I started taking my laptop into the sessions with me. (When I buy a laptop these days, one of the “must haves” is a quiet keyboard.) I took notes in a text processor (I like NotePad++) then copied them into a blog post and published it late that night. Better, but still lengthy.

Now…

I take my laptop to the lectures, and type detailed notes during the session. I have a very simple “template” – more like a format in my head that helps me to get the post started and to give it some shape. If possible, I get a wireless connection from the conference organisers, and write the material directly into the blogging platform (WordPress). Then I publish the post immediately, as soon as the session finishes. If I don’t have an Internet connection then I take notes in NotePad++ and put them on the blog later. But that takes a lot of time that would be better spent socialising or sleeping.

I usually plan the sessions that I want to attend beforehand, and try to blog about them all. Sometimes a session is just too technical or detailed, and then I abandon the post. Very occasionally I find myself in a session that’s not very good or that I’m not enjoying for some reason, and I abandon those posts too.

When choosing sessions, I look for topics that are new to me, or for something that will supplement what I’m already doing at work. For the last conference my manager even told me which sessions he would like me to attend and blog about, so that the team could read about them!

While taking notes, I’m constantly filtering and organising the information. This is something our brains do anyway, I think. But I do find it easier to write notes about almost everything in the session, because it actually takes more time to filter the content than to note it all down. Also, I usually write the notes in sequential sequence as the speaker introduces the subject matter, but occasionally I re-arrange sections on the fly, into a sequence that I find more logical – at least for the blog post!

How do you do it?

A giraffe I met in Africa recently

The Confluence, Tech Comm, Chocolate wiki has moved to a shiny new site

The Confluence, Tech Comm, Chocolate wiki is a companion to my book about technical communication, technical writers, wikis and chocolate. This week we moved the site to a shiny new Confluence OnDemand server. Please take a look, sign up if you like, and also please consider changing any external links you may have pointing to content on the site.

The new address of the Confluence, Tech Comm, Chocolate wiki is: https://wikitechcomm.atlassian.net/

The old address was: https://wikitechcomm.onconfluence.com/

What does the move to Confluence OnDemand mean?

Confluence OnDemand is Atlassian’s new hosted platform. Our site will now automatically get the latest and up-to-datest version of Confluence. It’s currently running an early version of Confluence 5.0! So we’ll be able to play with the latest Confluence features before anyone else. If you’re interested, keep a watch on the frequently-updated Atlassian OnDemand release summary.

My seat-of-the-pants feeling is that the new site is significantly faster than the old one.

The hosted platform restricts certain functionality, primarily add-ons and customisations of the wiki. I won’t be able to install add-ons or plugins that are not pre-approved by Atlassian. This won’t have a big effect on people using the site. We no longer have the awesome add-ons from K15t Software for creation of ePub and DocBook exports. The Copy Space plugin isn’t there either. Gliffy, for drawing diagrams, is available in Confluence OnDemand, along with the add-ons listed here: Atlassian OnDemand Plugin Policy.

Existing content, redirects, and external links pointing to the site

This bit is for the 77 people already using the wiki. All your pages, blog posts, comments and other pieces of information are safely on the new site. Please let me know if you spot anything amiss.

Atlassian has put redirects in place. If you try to go to the old address, you should automatically end up on the new site. The old site will be decommissioned in a few weeks’ time. There’s no scheduled date for the shutting down of the redirect service, but it’s probably a good idea to update any external links you may have, to point to the new site.

The book

The book is called Confluence, Tech Comm, Chocolate: A wiki as platform extraordinaire for technical communication. It’s about developing documentation on a wiki. It’s also about technical communicators. And chocolate.

Online purchase:  Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble
Purchase also at the publisher: XML Press (The ebook version is currently on holiday sale.)

Do come and join the fun at the book’s wiki site: Confluence, Tech Comm, Chocolate wiki.

Mozilla Popcorn Maker and a tour of the Confluence documentation

Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker is pretty neat. You can grab a video and augment it with clickable text boxes. You can also add other interactive widgets, such as a live Twitter stream or a fully-functioning map from Google Maps. I’ve been playing with Popcorn Maker for a couple of weeks, and I thought other people may like to have a go. So I’ve put together a video for you to mess up… hrrm… review. It’s cunningly disguised as a tour of the Atlassian Confluence documentation. But actually, it’s a bit of fun.

Popcorn Maker is all online. There’s nothing to download. You give it the URL of a video from YouTube or another supported location, then drag and drop events onto the video. The Popcorn Maker editing environment adds a timeline, a bit like the one you see in a Flash editor, but driven entirely by Javascript, HTML, and CSS. You also get a library of widgets to add and configure, such as text boxes, popups, maps, Twitter streams, and so on.

Jumping right in

Are you keen to try Popcorn Maker? Try making a remix of my Popcorn Maker movie, “Popping the Confluence docs“. I’d love it if you’d add a comment on this blog post with a link to your remix!

Making the video itself

I used Screencast-O-Matic to record the movie itself. It’s a great tool too. Just like Popcorn Maker, everything is online. You do need to install Java on your computer, and it’s handy to have a webcam for the audio part of the movie. Other than that, all you need is your connection to the Internet. You can use Screencast-O-Matic free of charge, if you’re happy to have a watermark at the bottom of your movie.

Once I’d made the movie, I uploaded it to YouTube and then used Popcorn Maker to annotate it and make it available for remixing.

Some thoughts on Popcorn Maker

It’s pretty cool to be able to grab a video from YouTube (or Vimeo, Soundcloud, or an HTML 5 video) and add bits to it online, all within your web browser. Nifty technology!

But I think the huge potential lies in the fact that anyone can remix the videos. Just grab a movie that someone else has created, and decorate it yourself.

This has very interesting possibilities for collaborative development of “how to” videos. Another use that springs to mind: The review of videos. Instead of writing separate notes, people can paste their comments directly onto the relevant spot in the video. And they don’t need specialised tools to do it.

The icons and styling in general could do with some tender loving care from an artist or designer.

The integration with Twitter, Flickr and Google Maps is awesome! It makes me wonder what other integrations would be useful. Perhaps a HipChat room. Or an RSS feed from WordPress?

I’d also love to see some way of finding and sharing remixes of a given video. Ha ha, searching for “Popcorn remixes” brings up a number of song remixes!

References

A Mozilla blog post introducing the Popcorn Maker technology: Introducing Popcorn Maker
The main Popcorn Maker site: https://popcorn.webmaker.org/
A Popcorn Maker tutorial
An article from PCWorld: New Mozilla tool lets anyone create and hack interactive videos
An article from Co.Design: Popcorn Maker: A Dead-Simple Drag-and-Drop App For Remixing Web Videos
A list of Popcorn Maker projects
Screencast-O-Matic, an online tool for recording screencasts: http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/
The video on YouTube, without the Popcorn Maker annotations: Confluence Documentation Tour
“Popping the Confluence docs” – a Popcorn Maker movie for you to remix to your heart’s content.

Book review – SOCIALIZED! How the most successful businesses harness the power of social

I’ve just finished reading Mark Fidelman’s book “SOCIALIZED! How the most successful businesses harness the power of social”. The publisher offered me a copy of the book for review, an offer which I accepted with alacrity and pleasure.

This is an inspirational book. Read it for an injection of excitement. It’s also a practical book. Read it for its action plans and social business playbook, and for the many real-life stories that illustrate the pitfalls and triumphs of organisations navigating our brave new world of social media and organisational change.

First impressions

The copy on the inside cover is excellent.

It’s not about the platform, it’s about the people.

Hire people who can bend the latest technologies in innovative ways to achieve your purpose. People who will not be afraid, nor complacent, when the next new thing comes along.

I opted for a printed copy of the book rather than an ebook. It’s a pleasant hard-cover format. The cover design combines a light and airy colour scheme with an interesting, detail-filled graphic. The book is easy to hold, and feels satisfyingly smooth and soft to the touch. The fonts chosen for the content are easy on the eye. Congratulations to Mark and the publishing team on a well-presented and attractive book.

Diving in

In this post, I’d like to take you on a tour of the bits of the book that leapt out and grabbed my attention. But the book is jam-packed with information. When you read it, you’ll find plenty more sections that speak to your specific environment, whether you are already part of a social business or just want to be.

At this point, you may be wondering exactly what a “social business” is. On page xiv of the book is this definition:

“[Social businesses] are businesses that have learned the philosophy and strategy of using social technologies to create more adaptive businesses. Think of a new kind of business that’s agile enough to capture new opportunities, can change shape when confronted with threats, and can call on vibrant communities to support its initiatives.”

Mark goes on to explain that such organisations cultivate internal social networks (digital villages) as well as external ones. But how? The aim of the book is to give the reader a playbook for the social era, to answer just that question.

Getting started with a social mindset

Right on page 1, Mark compares the old and new ways of doing business. In the old way, still prevalent in many organisations, the mindset among top-level management is “do as I say”. The new way is, “I want to hear your opinion”.

Executives must recognise that, to succeed, they must harness the wisdom of the organisation they run. They must set up a cultural framework to gather and manage this wisdom. Part of that framework is formed by collaborative and social technology platforms. Mark makes this bold assertion (page 14):

Some people argue that we should focus more on developing the skills of people and not on the technology to support them, but that is completely false. Technology can be used to influence people’s behavior – it always has.

(There’s a bit of a tension here with what’s on the inside cover: “It’s not about the platform. it’s about the people”. I only noticed the contradiction when reading through this post just before publishing it. I think it’s true that the skills and technology complement each other. They’re pretty entangled, actually. Have we reached cyberpunk utopia? We’re pretty close.)

Mark also puts the interesting and persuasive notion that you need an internal social culture before an external social business will work (page 100).

Six steps towards a business case

The book goes on to present guidelines on using social tools such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s not good enough to use them as just another advertising channel. The key is to interact with customers via those channels, and to give real and valuable information.

Pages 28-36 describe how to build a case for becoming a social business:

Find the types of people you need (they have cute names like “social butterfly” and “quant”)
Define the vision
Find the gaps
Set your goals
Create a purpose to rally around
Build and present the business case

How would your company fare in transforming to a social business?

A survey on page 44 provides an interesting exercise in determining your company’s culture, and then deciding how easily it could transform itself into a social business. The book describes 5 cultural profiles, some of which will make the transformation more easily than others.

(In my own responses to this survey, Atlassian comes in as a mix between profile 1 and profile 5. Interesting – the two extremes, in terms of Mark’s assessment of ability to become a social business. Of course, as Mark points out, individual experiences differ, as do experiences in different business units within the same company.)

The story of IBM

The book tells the fascinating story of how IBM dragged itself out of a pit by revolutionising its social strategies (page 53 onwards). A large part of its success comes from the development of BlueIQ, a centre of competence for social initiatives and collaboration. The aim was to share success stories, methods and patterns, and train volunteers from other areas to become more collaborative and social. More and more people took part, and culture change was underway. Cultural change going viral!

The technology platforms

Mark lists the primary social platforms that companies use to support their digital villages: SharePoint, Jive, Yammer, SAP Streamwork, IBM Connections, Salesforce.com with Chatter and Work.com, and Drupal (page 74).

(I was a bit surprised that Confluence isn’t in the list. I guess there’s an opportunity for Atlassian there.)

Titbits for technical communicators

If you’re a technical communicator, like me, you’ll find plenty of points in the book that ring true. Here are a few:

28% of people who follow a brand on Twitter do it because they want content. 61% want to be first to know information about the brand.
There’s an entire section describing how “content really is king” (pages 114-7).  It’s what technical communicators know from the bottom of our hearts. Mark makes some great points about creating simple, powerful content.
Businesses need to “hire fantastic writers and a content creation team… Don’t skimp here. Their ability to shape the organization’s story has never been greater” (page 166).

Oh yeah.

The playbook

Chapter 6 is all about developing a “playbook” and using it to drive your social business plan. The playbook outlines the strategies you want to follow. You will continuously update and refine it based on feedback and results. For me, the core of this chapter is on pages 148 to 167. Here Mark lays down the 15 best practices to follow in your social business playbook.

The social employee

Are you an employee who wants to take an active part in catapulting your company into the social business stratosphere? Some people would say that’s part of our duty to our employers now. Chapter 7 is all about the rise of the social employee, good reading for managers and team members alike.

Nothing can go wrong… go wrong… go wrong…

What happens when things go wrong? And they can go wrong in a big way, when social media are in play. Throughout the book, Mark tells stories of social successes and failures, using real life examples. For the failures, he analyses what went wrong and why, and how the organisation concerned could have acted differently. On pages 243-4, he gives a strategic synthesis of measures you can take to protect your organisation.

Any suggestions for the next edition of the book?

The book has a number of examples of “the 10 ways to do this” or “the five rules for that”. It became a little difficult to differentiate between them and to remember where in the book they occurred.

The table of contents is very high level – it contains just the chapter names. Perhaps a more detailed table of contents would help the reader gain an organised view of the content, and find specific bits again later.

It would also be extremely useful to have a separate list of all the “10 ways” etc sets. They are very valuable and it would be great to have the overview and be able to find them quickly.

Did I say “suggestions for the next edition”? Yes, because this is an excellent and timely book. It’s easy to read and packed with useful information and guidelines. I’m sure there’ll plenty of demand for it now, and for an update in a year or so.

In conclusion

Mark ends the book by saying, “I, for one, am excited about our world’s future. ” An exciting future, yes. And a bit scary. I’d recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn more about handling both those aspects of social business.

The book is SOCIALIZED! How the Most Successful Businesses Harness the Power of Social by Mark Fidelman, published by Bibliomotion, 2013.

What languages do our readers speak – from Google Analytics

I’ve grabbed some Google Analytics statistics about the languages used by visitors to the Atlassian documentation wiki. The information is based on the language setting in people’s browsers. It’s a pretty cool way of judging whether we need to translate our documentation!

The statistics cover a period of 3 months, from 7 September to 7 December 2012.

Summary

Approximately 30% of our readers speak a language other than English. The most popular non-English language is German (approximately 7%), followed by French (approx 2.6%). Japanese is hard to quantify, because we have separate sites for Japanese content.

The pretty picture

This graph shows the results for the top 10 locales:

Top 10 locales via Google Analytics

The grey sector represents a number of smaller segments, each one below 1%. In Google Analytics, I can see them by requesting more than 10 lines of data.

The figures

Here are the figures that back the above graph:

Locale
Number of visits
Percentage of total


1.
en-us
1,951,818
66.75%


2.
en-gb
163,897
5.60%


3.
de
105,526
3.61%


4.
de-de
102,578
3.51%


5.
fr
77,666
2.66%


6.
ru
66,342
2.27%


7.
zh-cn
38,850
1.33%


8.
en
38,826
1.33%


9.
es
37,129
1.27%


10.
pl
30,064
1.03%



More Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a useful tool. If you’re interested in a couple more posts about it, try the Google Analytics tag on this blog. I hope the posts are interesting.

Top 100 pages in the Confluence documentation

This week I took a look at the top 100 pages in the Confluence documentation, as reported by Google Analytics on our documentation wiki. Google Analytics data is nice-looking as well as interesting, and I thought you’d like to see the results too. So here goes.

The analysis covers the pages in the documentation space for the latest version of Confluence only – the “DOC” space on our documentation site. The analysis does not include the documentation for any other products on the site (such as JIRA or Bitbucket) and it does not include earlier versions of the Confluence documentation either.

I chose to do the analysis over a period of two months: 16 August to 16 October 2012. In the middle of that period was the release of Confluence 4.3, on 4 September. As the spike in the graph shows, something happened on 3 October too!

Inferences drawn from the Google Analytics results

I’ve drawn some conclusions which will help me in restructuring the documentation space and prioritising work on the documentation:

Information about specific, complex topics tops the bill:

JAVA_HOME variable (at position 1, this is the most popular page. It’s likely that many readers are not even looking for information about Confluence specifically.)
Wiki markup (position 4)
Working with tables (9)
Integrating JIRA and Confluence (10)
etc


Installation and upgrade come next:

Upgrading Confluence (5)
Installation Guide (8)


Release notes are popular:

Confluence 4.3 release notes (7)


“Getting started” information is popular:

Confluence User’s Guide (6)
Confluence 101 (23)
Getting Started with Confluence (24)
Dashboard (43)
About Confluence (54)


Both “Confluence 101″ and “Getting Started with Confluence” are popular. It may benefit customers to merge these two documents. Both need a refresh. We need to better define purpose and audience of each.
Something big happened on 3 October – possibly the launch of a “collaboration” campaign by our marketing team, heralded by this blog post: Collaboration Best Practices – 3 Reasons Interruptions Hurt Your Team’s Productivity.

The pretty picture

Google Analytics results in the DOC space

Summary of statistics for the whole space



Page Views
Unique Page Views
Avg. Time on Page
Entrances
Bounce Rate
% Exit

807,430

% of Total:

15.52%

(5,202,109)

663,691

% of Total:

15.53%

(4,273,708)

00:02:25

Site Avg:

00:02:13

(8.54%)

328,588

% of Total:

17.36%

(1,892,574)

58.70%

Site Avg:

55.64%

(5.50%)

39.60%

Site Avg:

36.38%

(8.84%)

Detailed statistics for the top 100 pages

Due to problems with the fixed width theme of this blog, I’ve split the table in two. First the list of top 100 pages:

1.


/display/DOC/Setting the JAVA_HOME Variable in Windows




2.


/display/DOC/Confluence Documentation Home




3.


/display/DOC/helptips/header/iframe




4.


/display/DOC/Confluence Wiki Markup




5.


/display/DOC/Upgrading Confluence




6.


/display/DOC/Confluence User’s Guide




7.


/display/DOC/Confluence 4.3 Release Notes




8.


/display/DOC/Confluence Installation Guide




9.


/display/DOC/Working with Tables




10.


/display/DOC/Integrating JIRA and Confluence




11.


/display/DOC/Installing Confluence on Linux




12.


/display/DOC/Code Block Macro




13.


/display/DOC/Adding a Template




14.


/display/DOC/JIRA Issues Macro




15.


/display/DOC/Working with Anchors




16.


/display/DOC/Working with Macros




17.


/display/DOC/System Requirements




18.


/display/DOC/Using Apache with mod_proxy




19.


/display/DOC/Supported Platforms




20.


/display/DOC/Connecting to an LDAP Directory




21.


/display/DOC/Importing Content Into Confluence




22.


/display/DOC/Using Apache with virtual hosts and mod_proxy




23.


/display/DOC/Confluence 101




24.


/display/DOC/Getting Started with Confluence




25.


/display/DOC/Server Hardware Requirements Guide




26.


/display/DOC/Table of Contents Macro




27.


/display/DOC/Page Restrictions




28.


/display/DOC/Confluence Setup Guide




29.


/display/DOC/Confluence Administrator’s Guide




30.


/display/DOC/Database Setup For MySQL




31.


/display/DOC/Customising Exports to PDF




32.


/display/DOC/Configuring the Server Base URL




33.


/display/DOC/Running Confluence Over SSL or HTTPS




34.


/display/DOC/Working with Links




35.


/display/DOC/Migrating Confluence Between Servers




36.


/display/DOC/Installing Confluence




37.


/display/DOC/Adding Pages




38.


/display/DOC/Installing Confluence and JIRA Together




39.


/display/DOC/Restoring Passwords To Recover Admin User Rights




40.


/display/DOC/Confluence 4.3.1 Release Notes




41.


/display/DOC/Setting Up Trusted Communication between JIRA and Confluence




42.


/display/DOC/Installing Confluence on Windows




43.


/display/DOC/Dashboard




44.


/display/DOC/Creating Content




45.


/display/DOC/View File Macro




46.


/display/DOC/Space Permissions Overview




47.


/display/DOC/Writing User Macros




48.


/display/DOC/Working with Spaces




49.


/display/DOC/Keyboard Shortcuts




50.


/display/DOC/Configuring the Documentation Theme




51.


/display/DOC/Page Tree Macro




52.


/display/DOC/Creating a Page using a Template




53.


/display/DOC/Assigning Space Permissions




54.


/display/DOC/About Confluence




55.


/display/DOC/Customising the Dashboard




56.


/display/DOC/Confluence 4.3 Upgrade Notes




57.


/display/DOC/Tasklist Macro




58.


/display/DOC/Exporting Confluence Pages and Spaces to PDF




59.


/display/DOC/Working with Page Layouts and Columns and Sections




60.


/display/DOC/Database Configuration




61.


/display/DOC/Confluence 4.2 Release Notes




62.


/display/DOC/Styling Confluence with CSS




63.


/display/DOC/Moving a Page




64.


/display/DOC/Confluence Security Advisory 2012-09-11




65.


/display/DOC/Confluence Wiki Markup for Macros




66.


/display/DOCSPRINT/The Simplest Possible JIRA REST Examples




67.


/display/DOC/Inserting JIRA Issues




68.


/display/DOC/Confluence Installation and Upgrade Guide




69.


/display/DOC/Running Confluence behind Apache




70.


/display/DOC/Quick Reference Guide for the Confluence Editor




71.


/display/DOC/Migrate to Another Database




72.


/display/DOC/Working with Templates




73.


/display/DOC/Confluence 4 Editor - What’s Changed for Wiki Markup Users




74.


/display/DOC/Confluence Release Notes




75.


/display/DOC/Configuring Tomcat’s URI encoding




76.


/display/DOC/Installing the Confluence EAR-WAR Edition




77.


/display/DOC/Using the Editor




78.


/display/DOC/Installing Confluence on Linux from Archive File




79.


/display/DOC/Upgrading Confluence Manually




80.


/display/DOC/Confluence 4.2.13 Release Notes




81.


/display/DOC/Linking to Pages




82.


/display/DOC/Adding a Navigation Sidebar




83.


/display/DOC/Chart Macro




84.


/display/DOC/Installing the Firefox Add-On for the Office Connector




85.


/display/DOC/Include Page Macro




86.


/display/DOC/Configuring a MySQL Datasource in Apache Tomcat




87.


/display/DOC/Configuring a WebDAV client for Confluence




88.


/display/DOC/Working with Templates Overview




89.


/display/DOC/HTML Macro




90.


/display/DOC/Deleting a Page




91.


/display/DOC/Examples of User Macros




92.


/display/DOC/Database Setup for SQL Server




93.


/display/DOC/Connecting to an Internal Directory with LDAP Authentication




94.


/display/DOC/Configuring Database Character Encoding




95.


/display/DOC/Expand Macro




96.


/display/DOC/Global Permissions Overview




97.


/display/DOC/Widget Connector Macro




98.


/display/DOC/Subscribing to Email Notifications of Updates to Confluence Content




99.


/display/DOC/Column Macro




100.


/display/DOC/Panel Macro







Page

And now the figures for each page:

1.
37,312
34,826
00:05:46
34,025
91.66%
90.44%


2.
35,926
28,186
00:01:04
13,313
27.89%
19.12%


3.
21,708
666
00:00:12
651
52.38%
2.99%


4.
14,408
12,707
00:03:29
9,039
64.55%
57.54%


5.
10,061
7,967
00:03:38
4,004
45.65%
38.32%


6.
10,050
7,851
00:01:03
3,756
34.42%
22.32%


7.
9,400
7,303
00:02:55
4,346
49.08%
39.49%


8.
8,669
6,616
00:01:12
3,976
16.55%
13.85%


9.
7,950
6,800
00:03:31
4,909
64.25%
56.29%


10.
7,497
6,326
00:02:26
4,274
43.54%
36.40%


11.
6,761
5,346
00:03:46
1,276
52.59%
32.89%


12.
5,619
5,056
00:02:56
4,070
72.85%
66.90%


13.
5,542
4,558
00:03:40
2,454
52.20%
42.69%


14.
5,475
4,601
00:04:13
2,706
60.31%
50.52%


15.
5,305
4,685
00:04:22
3,463
70.81%
62.09%


16.
5,165
4,196
00:02:06
2,070
42.95%
30.71%


17.
5,107
3,837
00:01:39
888
28.04%
16.41%


18.
5,064
4,364
00:06:31
2,866
80.98%
68.58%


19.
4,898
4,035
00:02:51
1,004
55.48%
34.24%


20.
4,895
4,260
00:04:19
2,552
72.84%
58.18%


21.
4,823
3,881
00:01:40
2,316
37.52%
30.81%


22.
4,201
3,767
00:04:44
3,119
78.94%
71.13%


23.
4,136
3,469
00:01:53
647
52.24%
27.95%


24.
4,108
2,858
00:00:48
371
25.88%
10.20%


25.
4,016
3,583
00:03:13
2,121
78.22%
56.55%


26.
3,892
3,400
00:03:29
2,503
63.88%
54.47%


27.
3,875
3,368
00:03:00
2,274
57.87%
49.83%


28.
3,782
3,258
00:04:03
1,238
45.80%
37.31%


29.
3,754
2,908
00:01:08
717
33.05%
15.64%


30.
3,714
3,151
00:06:22
1,487
69.20%
53.26%


31.
3,691
3,043
00:04:08
1,625
70.15%
53.13%


32.
3,462
3,085
00:04:18
1,580
67.78%
54.02%


33.
3,451
2,999
00:05:21
1,904
67.59%
58.39%


34.
3,397
2,946
00:01:53
1,707
53.19%
39.45%


35.
3,390
2,922
00:04:35
1,496
52.67%
44.54%


36.
3,359
2,695
00:00:32
125
18.40%
4.91%


37.
3,317
2,738
00:02:09
385
51.69%
24.60%


38.
3,305
2,530
00:02:08
1,058
30.53%
20.85%


39.
3,299
2,923
00:05:48
1,990
69.05%
58.23%


40.
3,224
2,628
00:02:52
1,181
45.39%
36.79%


41.
3,131
2,514
00:03:09
1,064
43.33%
31.56%


42.
3,129
2,542
00:03:48
401
43.64%
29.34%


43.
3,123
2,640
00:02:31
681
46.26%
25.68%


44.
3,055
2,414
00:01:03
501
23.95%
12.54%


45.
3,047
2,575
00:03:23
1,608
63.06%
54.78%


46.
3,040
2,635
00:02:29
1,006
42.84%
36.64%


47.
3,020
2,550
00:03:24
1,253
53.95%
39.93%


48.
2,968
2,479
00:02:04
716
46.65%
25.40%


49.
2,963
2,721
00:03:12
1,969
74.25%
61.80%


50.
2,913
2,532
00:04:15
1,054
62.24%
49.40%


51.
2,901
2,322
00:03:13
1,131
54.11%
41.57%


52.
2,850
2,490
00:02:16
1,266
42.02%
33.26%


53.
2,797
2,457
00:03:16
1,133
60.72%
51.41%


54.
2,795
2,359
00:01:41
189
41.27%
21.97%


55.
2,782
2,230
00:02:51
1,337
47.87%
38.43%


56.
2,757
2,110
00:02:18
597
24.79%
21.11%


57.
2,749
2,354
00:03:14
1,665
55.98%
50.35%


58.
2,677
2,354
00:02:59
1,613
58.09%
50.84%


59.
2,646
2,347
00:03:24
773
69.47%
44.07%


60.
2,645
1,866
00:00:53
672
20.83%
11.83%


61.
2,602
2,110
00:01:58
999
35.34%
27.59%


62.
2,599
2,081
00:02:45
1,370
50.07%
40.28%


63.
2,574
2,257
00:03:32
1,148
65.16%
55.67%


64.
2,570
2,128
00:04:06
634
69.87%
64.67%


65.
2,559
2,217
00:03:12
491
54.18%
43.34%


66.
2,555
2,121
00:05:54
1,828
70.30%
65.75%


67.
2,480
2,155
00:02:52
763
46.92%
35.69%


68.
2,473
2,007
00:00:38
242
10.74%
5.30%


69.
2,442
1,906
00:01:41
875
36.23%
21.66%


70.
2,440
2,136
00:02:42
969
55.52%
41.27%


71.
2,435
1,939
00:02:58
911
54.12%
35.44%


72.
2,420
2,056
00:01:23
589
37.18%
26.03%


73.
2,413
2,188
00:03:26
1,242
67.95%
59.64%


74.
2,411
1,807
00:00:59
394
30.96%
15.93%


75.
2,350
2,189
00:04:59
1,955
90.90%
83.57%


76.
2,319
1,744
00:04:16
593
50.93%
34.54%


77.
2,315
1,897
00:01:58
512
38.28%
24.28%


78.
2,312
1,814
00:04:42
365
50.68%
32.74%


79.
2,311
1,905
00:03:26
524
50.00%
34.62%


80.
2,304
1,827
00:01:31
709
37.24%
29.12%


81.
2,304
2,002
00:03:06
834
61.63%
44.97%


82.
2,297
1,968
00:02:55
1,307
52.49%
46.02%


83.
2,267
1,953
00:04:31
1,343
67.76%
58.49%


84.
2,232
1,653
00:03:25
1,135
67.75%
53.45%


85.
2,221
1,930
00:02:55
1,065
50.89%
41.11%


86.
2,186
1,990
00:05:58
1,719
84.53%
76.12%


87.
2,184
1,733
00:04:31
1,258
70.99%
60.07%


88.
2,167
1,926
00:01:41
1,613
52.45%
48.18%


89.
2,164
1,786
00:02:26
1,018
52.65%
42.05%


90.
2,132
1,953
00:02:49
1,514
69.82%
62.66%


91.
2,103
1,242
00:00:52
367
26.43%
10.98%


92.
2,033
1,598
00:03:32
638
60.19%
42.15%


93.
2,030
1,850
00:03:33
1,189
75.19%
61.87%


94.
2,013
1,842
00:06:00
1,253
88.35%
71.39%


95.
2,000
1,704
00:05:28
1,213
32.65%
56.35%


96.
1,991
1,777
00:03:01
669
59.19%
41.64%


97.
1,989
1,560
00:03:52
710
66.48%
52.89%


98.
1,953
1,736
00:02:58
1,079
67.19%
53.51%


99.
1,943
1,701
00:02:05
868
47.24%
37.42%


100.
1,942
1,691
00:03:28
941
58.24%
46.76%





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Engaging your readers via social media – a video

Recently I presented a session at Tekom tcworld 2012 called “Engaging Readers in your Documentation – How and Why with Social Media”. I also gave a slightly shorter version of the presentation at an Atlassian user group meeting in Wiesbaden, hosted by //SEIBERT/MEDIA. The team at //SEIBERT/MEDIA have just published a video of the presentation. Thanks to Christian Bareis for the video and editing skills!

If you like, you can download the presentation slides from SlideShare. The slide deck includes a number of useful links and references, as well as some additional sections that are not in the video. Here is the presentation on SlideShare: Engaging Readers in your Documentation – How and Why with Social Media.

Tekom tcworld 2012 wrapup

I’ve spent the last few days at Tekom tcworld 2012, a technical communicators’ conference and trade fair in Wiesbaden, Germany. What a huge event! It was great seeing old friends and meeting new people. Thanks to the tcworld organisers for a successful, rewarding conference.

My introduction to the conference was the speakers’ orientation session hosted by Michael Fritz, executive director at tcworld and Tekom. Here are some statistics that Michael gave us about this year’s conference and trade fair:

2400 participants registered for the conference
1300 more people registered for the trade fair
158 lectures, of which 52 are in English (the others are in German)
49 workshops, of which 16 are in English
17 tutorials, of which 6 are in English

Yes, a huge event.

Notes from some sessions

I’ve blogged about most of the sessions I attended. I hope these posts are useful to people who couldn’t make it to the conference and to people who were there but couldn’t attend these sessions:

Irreplaceable young professionals
Translation interoperability
Selecting a translation vendor
QA for authoring and translation
Engaging your readers via social media – this was my own presentation
Liquid content
Minimalism
Augmented reality
The cosmopolitan information topic
Meaning in technical communication
Content strategy and mobile devices
Content strategy connecting the dots
Content strategy at Tekom tcworld

Atlassian and K15t Software at Tekom tcworld

Atlassian and K15t Software had a booth at the trade fair. I popped in a number of times over the three days of the conference, to chat to the team:

There was a steady stream of people interested in Atlassian software, K15t’s software and services, and wiki-based documentation:

Lovely Wiesbaden

Before the conference started, I spent some time wandering around the sleepy spa town. There are more pictures on my travelling bookmark’s blog: Autumn in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Thanks to the organisers, delegates, exhibitors and speakers at Tekom tcworld 2012. It’s a great show!