An in-depth guide to technical communication on a wiki, with a focus on the Confluence wiki. Discusses planning and selecting a wiki, installing and maintaining your wiki, and developing technical communication content on a wiki. While the focus is on Confluence, the book contains useful information for anyone using any wiki for technical communication.
Confluence, Tech Comm, Chocolate
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Words just may be the nth wonder of the world. Reading is my relaxation. Writing is my passion. Fiction, fact, fantasy - they all work for me. I'm an author, blogger, and technical writer. Please let me know what you think of my books. I'd love it if you share your words with me.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
EVERY Organization with Confluence Wiki needs this book - or five!
March 31, 2012
Format:Paperback
This is a *must have* book for EVERY organization that is using or working with Confluence Wiki - regardless of whether you are a new user or many-years-old user. EVERY user will find very valuable insights in this book - and for the price, it is a steal. By *every user* - this means, engineering users, tech writers, marketing users, executive users - EVERY!
Simply, it is that rich!
I'd also argue that if you bought Confluence in the first place, the reason was because you wanted your organization to work better, be more collaborative, be more transparent, work in a central platform vs. old-school desktop applications, and ultimately - get more things done faster. That said, again - this is the tipster book of all time on the topic "Confluence Wiki" - way beyond strategic documentation.
This book is not a pitch to buy Confluence - this book assumes you already have it. Yet like most tools, having them and using them to their full strength is not usually the same thing, especially for an organizational-use tool. Instead, all too many users flail around, poking and prodding at the features, or doing the bare minimum, often without a plan, long learning curves, and certainly not optimized efforts.
And sometimes, even with a plan, when built without deep knowledge in advance, the plan is more controlling/damaging, then optimizing/grabbing the full potential of the platform, and more -- the potential of your community through viral adoption.
Sarah, as expert extraordinaire on the Confluence platform (rightfully so, given Atlassian's own amazing documentation set; Google search it!), takes the reader down the path of coveted "secrets" used by Atlassian tech writers for building strategic documentation, and a whole lot more.
Even though documentation is the premise of the book, I would argue that it is far more of an authoritative work on using Confluence smarter. Under the guise of the thesis instructions are a million-and-one other *extremely valuable* tips on every page - both at the tool level and why-psychology level - that extends this book's scope well beyond the documentation use case. Which, by the way - is also Confluence. Confluence is for documentation, and a whole lot more!
I have referred this book to two clients so far, and both came back two weeks later, with raving thank yous. Buy one, or five - and remove excuses in your org to work smarter, not harder.
Simply, it is that rich!
I'd also argue that if you bought Confluence in the first place, the reason was because you wanted your organization to work better, be more collaborative, be more transparent, work in a central platform vs. old-school desktop applications, and ultimately - get more things done faster. That said, again - this is the tipster book of all time on the topic "Confluence Wiki" - way beyond strategic documentation.
This book is not a pitch to buy Confluence - this book assumes you already have it. Yet like most tools, having them and using them to their full strength is not usually the same thing, especially for an organizational-use tool. Instead, all too many users flail around, poking and prodding at the features, or doing the bare minimum, often without a plan, long learning curves, and certainly not optimized efforts.
And sometimes, even with a plan, when built without deep knowledge in advance, the plan is more controlling/damaging, then optimizing/grabbing the full potential of the platform, and more -- the potential of your community through viral adoption.
Sarah, as expert extraordinaire on the Confluence platform (rightfully so, given Atlassian's own amazing documentation set; Google search it!), takes the reader down the path of coveted "secrets" used by Atlassian tech writers for building strategic documentation, and a whole lot more.
Even though documentation is the premise of the book, I would argue that it is far more of an authoritative work on using Confluence smarter. Under the guise of the thesis instructions are a million-and-one other *extremely valuable* tips on every page - both at the tool level and why-psychology level - that extends this book's scope well beyond the documentation use case. Which, by the way - is also Confluence. Confluence is for documentation, and a whole lot more!
I have referred this book to two clients so far, and both came back two weeks later, with raving thank yous. Buy one, or five - and remove excuses in your org to work smarter, not harder.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By TheToucan
Format:Paperback
I'm sorry I did not have this book sooner, as it would have saved me a lot of research time. The section comparing the major wiki brands and describing what is best for an enterprise wiki was very useful.
About 60% of the book covers Confluence in depth and in many aspects, including planning, installation, third party add-ons.
There is excellent information on best practices around managing and using a wiki - any wiki. There is a lot of useful information on managing wiki content like... community contributed content, managing spam, crowd sourcing (the good and the bad), content reuse, and single source publication (the book was written on a wiki).
The author clearly has had many years of experience in all these issues, so it's very good to be able to access all this knowledge in one easy to read book.
About 60% of the book covers Confluence in depth and in many aspects, including planning, installation, third party add-ons.
There is excellent information on best practices around managing and using a wiki - any wiki. There is a lot of useful information on managing wiki content like... community contributed content, managing spam, crowd sourcing (the good and the bad), content reuse, and single source publication (the book was written on a wiki).
The author clearly has had many years of experience in all these issues, so it's very good to be able to access all this knowledge in one easy to read book.
By Ville Kilkku
Format:Kindle Edition
A great book on technical communication on Confluence platform. Essential for technical writers interested in wikis both because of the content in the book itself and for extensive references to top blogs on the subject (many of which I was already reading). It is also a useful reference to Confluence 4 users, although some may not be all that interested in tech comm.
The book is a mix of step-by-step Confluence guidance and general themes. This is a bit of a downside as well though, because the specific advice on Confluence 4.0 will get old before the general themes do.
The main weakness is handling of localization, which is barely touched. In that aspect, wikis are not yet ready. If localization is not a concern for you though, a wiki just might solve your technical communication challenges today, and Sarah has told how in this book.
The book is a mix of step-by-step Confluence guidance and general themes. This is a bit of a downside as well though, because the specific advice on Confluence 4.0 will get old before the general themes do.
The main weakness is handling of localization, which is barely touched. In that aspect, wikis are not yet ready. If localization is not a concern for you though, a wiki just might solve your technical communication challenges today, and Sarah has told how in this book.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Covers the topic listed in the title perfectly for the intended...
This book fits a useful niche between marketing materials that are more useful in an early product evaluation stage and technical documentation that is most useful during the... Read more
Published 10 months ago by M. Helmke
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful book related to Confluence, not just wikis and technical...
Great book. Lots of good, relevant information. This is a must have book for anyone working with Confluence, or anyone wanting to know more about wikis in general.
Published 11 months ago by Carolin
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great for a broad overview
I am currently in the process of evaluating Confluence for deployment in our team, and this book provides a great overview of the system (and to some extent, Wiki-use in general,... Read more
Published 12 months ago by JerryJvL
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clear, concise, and usable
Confluence, Tech Comm, and Chocolate is a very valuable Confluence Wiki resource. My organisation has just introduced Confluence Wiki and I needed a book that could get me up and... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Deb
2.0 out of 5 stars
Confluence Only
This is a useful book if you're working with a Confluence wiki. However, if you're using some other software--MindTouch or MediaWiki--don't bother. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Stephen P. Arrants
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