The Polls are now closed and as you can see CommentLuv walked away with 50% of the votes. Clear winner in my book if I ever saw one.

Now that we have our subject to the Online Help System, what do we do next?  

Simple answer: Build the foundation. Like most great things in life, creating a blue print is essential. This blue print not only dictates what to do, but when. Before I start any project, I like to see what it is I’m dealing with. So let’s break this down into managable steps.

Online Help System Life Cycle

1. Research – this is a big area. This part of the process lets you not only see the system, but play with it as well.
2. Brainstorming – what is it the company wants to accomplish? Not just from a software or product view, but from a end user satisfaction.

Here’s your chance to be in charge. Tell a writer what to write.

Vote now on your choice of help systems.

This poll has been extended until Next Saturday. When the polls close you will get to see your Online Help System built piece by piece.

Come join us for this interactive demo and watch your the words on the page come to life. Participation is greatly appreciated!

Before any help system can be created, the subject needs to be defined first. Now that you know what a help system does and the components of the help system, we need to decide what to write about. I decided to

follow in a fellow blogger’s footsteps, “The King of Feedback”, Dennis Edell and let you decide what the subject of the help system should be. So, I can up with a few choice topics below. Pick one that sounds good and next week I show you how to lay the foundation of the new help system.

Wow! Has it been a whirlwind week. So, as I was planning my post explaining Laying the Foundation to an online help system, several things occurred.  First, a great event about Social Media Marketing came to my attention and then I was asked to judge a contest for CommentLuv and Famous Bloggers. So, if you pardon my digression, I promise it’ll be worth your wait.

Social Media Marketing Conference

First, let me take a moment to talk about Social Media Marketing. I think everyone knows about Social Media and that lots of companies are now using this as a means to promote their business. It’s a great idea and if you want the best of the best to explain it to you, then the conference in San Francisco is a great place to be in September. Go on and check it out and see how to use social media and email campaigns to get you and your company noticed.

You hear debates and conversations all the time about the best way to gain customers and keep old clients coming back. One tried and true way is through email and social media.  Check out this live conference on how to merge the two into a successful business practice.

Take the fast track to learning this new concept at an event being held in San Francisco, California on September 17, 2010. Go to Social Media and Integrated Email Marketing to check out all the details.

Support your local blogger and save 10% by using discount code iem6.

This is the first in a series of posts about creating an Online Help System. A lot of people are still confused by what online help is, as well as how to create the help and deploy it. Over the next few weeks I will show you how to create an online help system from the ground up. I will show you all the parts and pieces that go into deciding what to create and how to get the results for the end user.

Online Help Considerations

Before you start creating an online help system there are several things you must consider.

1) Decide what HATT (Help Authoring Tools and Techniques) to use.

2) Is there existing Online Help in place?

3) Is there existing user documentation?

4) What is the client’s budget?

5) Is there internal staff to turn the project over to at the completion of the project?

What happened to CreativeAce?

Hello everyone. Did you miss me? I want to take a moment and apologize to you for my sudden disappearance. A lot has happened in the last couple of months. Some good and some not so good.

Shortly after my last post, my site was hacked. After working tirelessly restoring the site to it’s former glory, I was hacked a second time in 10 days. Now some of you, I know, were also caught in this hacking frenzy.  While I won’t point fingers, let’s just say that restoring my site for a second time took a lot longer than the first time.