All I’ve been thinking about the past week, it seems, is real-time and how it affects docs. Yesterday I wrote a post about it. Today, I tested it out. I wrote a procedure in Twitter.
Tech writers – take a look at it and let me know what you think. Tweets are from today, December 29, 2009. The first tweet is:
 1) Procedure: How to Create Twitter Lists
Note: This is the same procedure I wrote a few weeks ago on this blog, in as an abbreviated a fashion as I could muster. This cuts that even more. Looking at my procedure tweets, I think we can definitely do with less verbiage. What do you think?
Update 1: 11:50 am
In the spirit of real-time writing, as noted in my previous post (real time, soooo last second), I’m updating this on the fly. No time to think. Just have to get something out quick. Letting my thoughts spill onto the page and my fingers fly across my keypad.
Should have: included a bit.ly link to my original procedure blog post (Twitter List: Create) in the last procedure tweet. Would/could have more detailed info. General > specific.
Need to: create hashtags for procedures to use for searching
Update 2: 12:45 pm
Corrections: Based on input from users (in this case, tech writers), fixed glaring omissions. Added step 6 re adding feeds to list. Also, info re identifying successful completion of procedure. Also added new, more detailed partner proc re adding feeds to the list. Fixed up this post a bit. Applied heading styles and time reference updates.
Update 3: 1:04 pm
More thoughts: This started as an example/experiment in writing a quick procedure in Twitter. Evolved quickly into a real-time situation. I had immediate feedback from users (other tech writers), and I did my best to quickly address errors and omissions. Ended up adding correction tweets and another procedure. Got me thinking. Perfect example of handling emergency situation.
Let’s say your company has immediate need to fix something, tech support needs to respond, and you have a support feed in place. (You do have a support feed, don’t you?) You must get info out immediately. So, boom! I’d get one person quickly writing tweets, and perhaps another testing and writing details. Yelling over the wall if need be, depending on the emergency. Posting updates constantly, as it’s a real-time, highly fluid situation.
In this case, I’m pretending that my tweets are for a company, that the tech writers responding are customers, and that I better get info out quick.
I uncovered a few problems. How to handle corrections? Also, there’s always the fact that followers will also be getting other tweets by the second, so the updates may get lost in the lists. How do we handle that? I have no idea at this particular moment. Perhaps create a list for your company that includes support feeds? Encourage customers/users to follow that list? One idea. If I have more, I’ll add them. In the meantime, I want to post this. So off it goes.
History
All times are Pacific Standard (PST)
Posted: 12/29/09 11:30 am
Update 1: 12/29/09 11:50 am
Update 2: 12/29/09 12:45 pm
Update 3: 12/29/09 1:13 pm
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