If No One Reads the Manual, That’s Okay. Most people take time off during the holidays, so if you don’t, you end up mostly sitting alone at work, wondering why you’re not taking time off too.
I wanted to follow Penelope Trunk’s advice about pursuing your pet projects while working during the holidays, but instead I was trying to finish a project with an end-of-year deadline. The project I’m working on is critical, but it has only about 3 to 4 users, most of whom are already familiar the application. One of the users even drives the design. The manual I’m writing, which is nearly 200 pages, is mostly a safety measure for business continuity planning.
I don’t expect anyone will ever read it. It’s a project I managed to procrastinate for months, working on other projects, even outside the scope of my regular assignments. The idea that “no one reads the manual” is certainly not new. I need this fantasy about the way my manuals are used because without it, there’s no motivation to write. Flipping Sides No One Knows Conclusion inShare0. Is There an Enhanced eBook in Your Future? A lot of people are talking about eBooks these days.
And while a lot of the conversation seems to hover around a handful of examples, it’s great to hear that people are discussing eBook functionality and how it can and should vary. Regular eBook A regular eBook is simply a book you publish in electronic format, with no special bells or whistles. Many people tend to push these eBooks out in PDF format, but professionals like us know that a PDF is not a good format for reading long-form content.
If you want your content to be read anywhere but the desktop web – say on a Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone, Android phone or tablet – then you are going to want to convert your eBook into .mobi format (for the Kindle) and .epub (for everywhere else). Enhanced eBook An enhanced eBook typically includes all or some of the following elements: The hallmark of an enhanced eBook is that the book itself must take advantage of enhanced functionality built into the epub3 standard. Interactive eBook Oh, yes. Maven. A maven (also mavin) is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others.
The word maven comes from Hebrew, and means one who understands, based on an accumulation of knowledge.[1] History[edit] The word reached English through Late Hebrew mēbhīn, which in turn derived it from the Hebrew mevin (מבֿין), meaning "one who understands," and relates to the word binah, which denotes understanding or wisdom in general. It was first recorded (spelled mayvin) in English in 1950 (in the Jewish Standard of Toronto), and popularized in the United States in the 1960s by a series of commercials created by Martin Solow for Vita Herring, featuring "The Beloved Herring Maven. " The “Beloved Herring Maven“ ran in radio ads from 1964-1968, and was then brought back in 1983 with Allan Swift, the original voice of the Maven.[2] Many sites credit Vita with popularizing the word maven. Usage[edit] In popular culture[edit] See also[edit] Pundit References[edit]