Today’s NYT has an article about how PowerPoint (read: bulleted lists) cannot communicate complex information. The article links to the essay Dumb-dumb bullets by retired Marine Colonel Thomas X. Hammes. Hammes summarizes “…it [PowerPoint] is not appropriate for developing a deep understanding of most subjects.”

We don’t create Help documentation in PowerPoint, but we’re restricted by style guidelines that produce a similar result. After an experience with either, you end up dazed, confused, and ultimately, needing more information. The article suggests that the solution for the military may be longer technical papers. At Adobe, the solution is social media.

Adobe is embracing all things social, including contributions to the docs. When you create a tutorial, write a blog post about how to develop apps that use Flash Media Server (or any Adobe technology), or find useful information on the web, link to that content from Adobe Help.  Locate the most relevant Help page, click the Add Comment button, and add a link. The Flash Media Server Help is located here:

http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flashmediaserver/

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/

Add a link to any content that helps you and other developers get your work done. I’ll be looking for content, too. Thanks to social media, it’s my job not only to create content but to help you share information. They’ve even changed my title from “Senior Technical Writer” to “Senior Content and Community Lead”. This is a good thing. Instead of worrying about rules, I’m empowered to help you build things and solve problems as easily and quickly as possible.

For example, I was poking around on fmsguru.com and noticed that Graeme has a great video tutorial about using virtual directories. The Flash Media Server docs have a section about using virtual directories, but I’m sure many people would love to have Graeme walk them through the set-up. I asked Graeme if he wouldn’t mind adding a link from Adobe Help to his tutorial. He was happy to do it and said he didn’t realize Adobe allowed such links. And it’s true, in the past, you couldn’t. But happily, things have changed.

Adobe Help Social Media Round-up

Community Help app

Starting with CS5, Adobe is delivering Help in an AIR app called “Community Help”. Use Community Help to view content online and offline, download updates, search using the custom community search engines for each product, rate content, contribute content, and more. Check it out on Adobe Labs before the CS5 release:

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/communityhelp/

Add content to the official Adobe documentation

When you create a tutorial or use one that helps you, locate the most relevant Adobe Help page, click Add Comment, and add a link.  Every Help page has an Add Comment button on the bottom of the page. You can also add content in the Community Help app.

When a moderator approves a comment, they decide how substantial and appropriate the contribution is and award points accordingly.  Get enough points and you may be asked to become a moderator. Moderators are often nominated to become Adobe Community Professionals.

When content is particularly helpful, Adobe Content and Community leads integrate it into the official documentation and cite the author and source.

Create recipes in Adobe Cookbooks

Create or request code recipes in Adobe Cookbooks. Flash Media Server code is often tagged with “ActionScript”, “video”, “P2P”, “Flex”, and “Flash Professional”.

Create articles with the Adobe Community Publishing System

To create a longer article, you can use the Adobe Community Publishing System (CPS). Click the badge on the left side of this page to download the CPS AIR app. The CPS contains templates that let you create and publish content  about Adobe technology directly to Adobe.com.