The world’s oldest profession has long been a euphemism for a very particular job but now a London researcher has found that technical writing is right up there, having traced the history of the user manual to a 4BC Babylonian clay tablet that details a step-by-step “guide to inducing dreams”.

And … not quite so old, but full of contemporary history, this Wired photo essay of classic instruction manuals from the 1960s is a good read, especially if you are looking for the air-con on a spy plane or the start button on a nuclear power plant.

I’ve found a pen that records and remembers what it writes and also records sounds and then links the recordings to the words that were being written at the time … when I first read about it I was blown away by the concept.

We don’t generally use this blog for product promotion, but as a writer and a regular interviewer who needs to record conversations, the Livescribe pen is one very cool piece of high-tech equipment.

But at $500 I won’t be buying one. Why? Well, when I can buy a full-spec computer for less than twice the price and a good quality digital voice recorder for well under half the price, I can’t see the value in that price point. If I could I would snap one up because it’s a neat toy, but unless the price drops a bit below its new-technology price, I’ll be sticking to my trusty blue biros and my hard-working, hard-wearing voice recorder.

Last week we talked about one of the icons of modern technical communication design — the London tube map — and how its simplicity and readability was key to its success. Thanks to a reader for this week pointing us towards the Londonist and its take on an even more pared back approach to a pared back approach!

Read more from the Londonist here.

One of the most famous communication tools of the last century may be on its way out. Not because it has been overtaken by anything better but because progress has made it too small to hold all the information officials say it requires.

The London tube map was created in 1931 by Harry Beck, a London Underground draughtsman. It turned a clumsy geographic map into a circuit diagram and quickly become an instantly recognised symbol not just for the underground trains but for London itself and, for many visitors, the frisson of  a visit to one of the world’s great cities (Circle Line pub crawl, anyone!). Nearly 70 years on, it is still as relevant and vital as the day Beck drew it.

With a design that millions of people stare at every day but that few might stop to think about, the simplicity and beauty of the map has made it a pin-up star for all technical communicators!

Click here for a look at a pictorial history of the London Underground map.

London Underground original map 1931 (image from the Guardian -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/nov/26/london-tube-map-design)

Online video is fast becoming a popular and powerful communications device. And they’re pretty cheap and easy to put together.

With a bit of planning and writing you can have a highly effective educational or persuasive tool to put on your site.

Here’s some good tips from the Open Forum about making DIY videos.

There are lots of great wiki tools around for building collaborative intranets, extranets, blogs and other websites, including as repositories for user documentation and other tech writing.

Twiki is a strong open source product and Confluence (from Atlassian) comes highly recommended.

Wikis are new in the tech writing space but they are more and more getting big wraps as powerful tools for managing and displaying documentation.

A colleague, Jon Hertzig, has been using Confluence to build a wiki and technical documentation management system for Wellington-based software developers OpenCloud.

Tomorrow, midday (New Zealand time), Jon’s leading a webinar to explain the work he has been getting from this new tech writing tool. Find out more here about the webinar and how to join.