on death and all of that
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still absolutely terrified, but the thing is that I’m starting to get it. I know a number of people who are dying right now of cancer. I’ve also had a number of friends in the past who have died of accidents or overdoses. The cancer is harder though. It’s hard to face someone who’s dying. Watch them look worse and worse. We like to deny death, it’s hard to look at it take over people we know and love. Sometimes we wonder if it’s an omen for our own life. Grief is so largely personal. So much about our own fear. I have a lot to learn about talking with people who are nearing death, and not dodge the issue when they talk. I think my relationship with God has helped a lot so far.
I just know there’s something after life. Something greater than ourselves. To deny that and leave our existence to chance is the highest display of hubris. I also know that life has to be lived in the most dynamic way possible so that when it’s our time, we can reflect on how much we have done and declare that we are ready for the next level. Until that point, we have to fight for life, treasure what we have. To not do that would be to disrespect all people as well as God.
I’m building a website for a friend who is deep in that fight for her life right now. She has extremely extensive cancer. Her legs keep giving out and she’s all swollen but when she writes, she has the most extraordinary sense of humor and is so full of life. It’s absolutely amazing. In the face of this all kinds of bills are coming that she can’t cover because her insurance is terrible and attributes everything to preexisting conditions. Anyway, hopefully a Chipin will be up soon and friends’ll rise up and throw in. I’ll link up here when it’s ready.
::UPDATE:: Netty died July 14, 2009 of a blockage. Her (now memorial) site is here if you would like to give to the family.
Filed under personal | Comment (1)Tech writing what what?
Hey guys hey guys! Little known fact: I went to school for technical communication. You know, like writing manuals and web content and all that biznass. True story. Did it for a while in conjunction with dev.
At any rate, I got to dust off my not so rusty (after all, I communicate about technical stuff every day) skills to write some web copy for a startup the other day. SO. So. I thought maybe. Maybe I could write about it here for whatever audience that stumbles upon this entirely unfocused collection of ill constructed paragraphs.
STEPS TO CLARITY (aka what I think about before putting fingers to keyboard in writing startup copy)
- Figure out what you do. Whether it’s easy, like Drupal dev for nonprofits, or more obscure, like myriad js based services development, sit down and come up with a one-sentence definition. CAREFUL: showing this definition to non-technical users will probably cause glazed-over looks and slight drooling.
- What are you good for? Really. What the heck are you good for. In totally simple terms. Give some examples, list it all out. While you’re at it, list what you aren’t good for. Finding the space where you operate off the bat saves you and your customers the pain of figuring it out as you go.
- Who is your audience? What level of experience are they coming at you with? Are you pitching to major corporations, in which you’ll have several levels of bureaucracy and knowledge? What kind of buzzwords are they stuck on? Here’s where you need to research the trends of your target consumer.
- Pull it all together. Rewrite your first line, the definition of services, in terms of what you are offering, and who you’re offering it to. This is where you develop some diagrams, lists, whatever to make your purpose easy to access. Try to boil it down initially to one or two sentences, but if that sacrifices clarity for the sake of conciseness, don’t do it. If you end up with a full paragraph, break out the bullets. The idea is to put on a different pair of glasses when approaching your content. The glasses of your typical consumer.
If you can’t do this, you might want to hire a middle person like a technical communicator lest interaction with customers become difficult. Also, it can be very tough to be as close to your product as a developer or engineer is without losing objectivity that enables you to communicate non-technically.
Filed under web dev | Comment (0)¡¡BODA!!
Estoy haciendo un investigación sobre bodas en España. Mi novio y yo queremos casar en Barcelona. Esto no es un anuncio sobre nuestro compromiso (mamá!), solo es un investigación sobre si es possible. Si tienes sugerencias, recomendaciónes, comentarios, etc. ¡¡dígame por favor!!! 
