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Thursday, May 4, 2006
"Dancing
With Objects"
By Dr. Jonathan Price
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Program
Description
Say goodbye to documents and hello to objects. Rather than
publishing more static documents and closed systems like help,
learn to enjoy working in the midst of thousands of discrete
objects, growing a complex interactive system that takes on
an electronic life of its own. Moving beyond paper lets you
set structure in motion. Explore the new freedom to get in
closer contact with your customers, adapt your content to
their changing circumstances, and allow individuals to personalize
the structures for themselves. Transform the patterns you
developed when you worked exclusively on paper. Enter this
electronic whirl, joining your customers in a virtual waltz.
In place of books, we create objects. Rather than turning
out a series of products (books, help systems, CD's, posters,
whatnot), we tend a process. Instead of creating, editing,
and producing content, we set the pace, establish the rhythm,
and, if we are lucky, occasionally call the tune. But we share
the floor with many other people, all of whom are publishing
their own objects, and our job, often as not, is to keep the
music going, without bumping into anyone else. We adjust to
the other creators, and their partners, on the fly. That's
dancing with objects!
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About our Presenter
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Dr. Jonathan Price has authored or co-authored
two dozen books, including "How to Write a Computer
Manual, " "The Trail Guide to America Online,"
"How to Communicate Technical Information"
with Henry Korman, "Hot Text: Web Writing That
Works" with his wife, Lisa. Dr. Price has coached
documentation teams in his object-oriented approach
to creating hardcopy and electronic information systems
for major computer manufacturers in the US and Japan.
He has assembled and edited special issues about organizing
information for the Web for two major journals in technical
communication, Technical Communication, and IEEE Transactions
on Professional Communication.
Dr. Price has worked professionally in technical communication
for 20 years, with an A to Z of clients from Adobe to
Zycad. For a high-level view of his approach to restructuring,
see his articles on "Structuring Complex Interactive
Documents and Complexity Theory as a Way of Understanding
our Role in the World Wide Web" at www.theprices.com.
Dr. Price has a Doctorate in Fine Arts from Yale and
a BA from Harvard. He has taught at the undergraduate
and graduate level for New York University, the University
of Bridgeport, Rutgers, the University of New Mexico,
and New Mexico Tech. He has also taught extension classes
for Bentley, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and UCSC. He frequently
gives workshops and talks at meetings of the Society
for Technical Communication, in which he is a Fellow.
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