Clever Resourcing

25/11/2021

"I JUST want it black!"
Henry Ford, eat your heart out! Like many authors and product managers, I sometimes feel just as exasperated as clients specifying colours for graphic work. 'I JUST want it black!' is great digitally, you can easily choose CMYK C0, M0, Y0, K 100 , or as RGB 000 , or as hexadecimal #000000 ! When it comes to creating a real paint or image, thats not a lot of use.

Welcome to the world of pigments!

Screens are set differently, and default 'black' from my old version of Corel Draw, comes out as RGB 41,42,43 or I discovered. (groan!). There is a tendancy for people to choose dark greys for print. Brilliant (maybe) no need to chance it! The customer will never know. Hmmm. Are you sure about that? Maybe I get to meet more attentive people. At least dark grey trends are so much better than light greys against white or light backgrounds which in high ambient light levels on a screen or low light levels in small printed text is indistinguishable. i.e. unreadable!

I'm very happy, when I find resources I can point clients and fellow artists, designers and printers towards, to help them understand a little more about pigments. Winsor & Newton have a great video about oil colour blacks. Brilliant if you can absorb and quote everything back verbatum. If you need to write everything down to refer to later, not so good. A few notes, maybe as a comparison table improve the communication tremendously!

Here's the link to their great video, and my comparison table. If you would prefer a pdf, please message me. Great video W&N !
(I'm happy singing 'She wore black!')
https://www.winsornewton.com/uk/masterclass/understanding-oil-blacks/

P.S. My eco-tank printer is great! Two years before you need to refill it. Very environmentally friendly ... errr... NO!!! Does anyone have suggestions for removing black inkjet printer ink from the office carpet? Err...anyone? Surely it isn't lunchtime yet. I've got all this ink too clear up. What risk assessment memo about wearing gloves before ... oh glommets! I'm wearing black again!

02/11/2021

How to make a website more accessible.

- change colours, contrast levels and fonts
zoom in up to 300% without problems
- navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
- navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
- listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

02/08/2021

kits coming soon.

Bobbins are made from 100% FSC recycled hardwood. Everything you need to start or extend a productive hobby in a sturdy kit box. Why not make a garter as a 'something borrowed' or 'something blue' gift?

02/05/2021

If you have clever new systems and products to launch, hire a technical communicator to help. Running around like a chicken, headless or otherwise, benefits nobody.

18/12/2020

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year
The next ISTC Institute of Scientific Communicators free virtual zoom call is 6-7pm on Thurs 14th January 2021.
Will you be firefighting or feeling the penalties of decisions or bad luck?

Documentation required for export post-Brexit should be clearer, and the effect of Christmas relaxation of Covid rules, mass covid testing of some school children will start collecting results and the rollout of your new systems and processes to start a new year may be underway - or about to be if your CEO spent time making new year resolutions!.
Send me an email to request a zoom link.

13/12/2020

The abducted Nigerian Science and Technology students represent the future generation of global scientists, engineers, innovators, entrepreneurs ... and communicators!

Our thoughts go out to the boys themselves, their teachers, their families, and friends at this difficult time. May the authorities bring about a peaceful resolution, and those abducted, not be forced to use their specialist knowledge to aid terrorism.

Now, is an unprecedented global time of need to help combat Covid, climate change and cyber attacks and to build on technology advances to build future businesses. Every science, technology and communication organisation needs to do all in our power to not allow this story to be lost amongst other news items. Thank you, BBC for sharing this important item. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-55288114

ISTC Community, The Association for Science Education, IEEE, East Anglian Astrophysical Research Organisation, Anglia Ruskin University, University of Cambridge, Cambridge Network, Founders4Schools

13/11/2020

Thurs 10th Dec is the next ISTC Cambridge Area Group meeting, then 14th January 2021; The second Thursday of each month. ISTC is the Institute of Scientific and Technical Communicators. It is free and open to anyone interested in communication. Meetings last an hour with further discussions after that for those wishing to stay. Email [email protected] or contact me at Clever Resourcing.
On Monday 16th November at 1pm, the ISTC will hold an ISTC Technical Communicators short talk and questions. The format will be similar to TCUK events. TCUK is the Technical Communicators annual conference. Email [email protected] to attend.

07/10/2020

Is it? Isn't it?
It IS Space Week, So Dennis Goldsmith, John Beal, and eagle-eyed Robert Young spotted an anomaly on 13 year old student Alex's SID experiment screen at about 4pm during our visit to the East Anglian Astrophysical Research Organisation tea@EAARO visit. PLEASE solve our dilemma ... does NASA confirm it? Is it a solar flare? Fellow Junior EAARO member, Erin found 2 solar m class flares affecting the Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance - the first since 2007. Can Alex match this or find out if it's a phenomena caused by .... something else ...

Do you want to come along to visit this not-for-profit centre? Are you a teacher who wants to find out more space experiments you can do? Do you want to become a member of EAARO? Email [email protected], Oh, and do book to watch meteors on 20th October and look out for Mars at midnight while it is close to Earth!

26/06/2020

ISTC Cambridge Area meeting
Thurs 9th July 6-7 pm Free Zoom meeting
Theme: Operations communications

In addition to PROCESS and PROCEDURE document updates in the light of returning to work post-Covid lockdown, I've been amazed by the softer side of communication. Our WHY? Our motivation to do things to the best (and safest) standards we can. It is not the WORST CASE Agile... 'it's good enough' but looking beyond to how we could, and arguably, should communicate. PROCESSES are ACTED ON, SURROUND us, and are SAFER. We want to comply with them!

Thank you particularly this week to:
Steve Judge, Stephen Walker, McNicholas [on LinkedIn], Lesley Anne Hetherington and Vivienne Joy.
You have all demonstrated some aspects of thinking and helping others. The importance of softer-side operations communications. Badak of Get Zest [on Linked In] suggesting using IT to track those discussions.

This Reddit version of IKIGAI shows the CONCERNS to solveby softer communications and make things POSITIVE, whenever and wherever you can.

11/05/2020

Need help organising 'return to work' and new Covid 19 precautions? See this link for an online meeting 6pm Thurs 14th May or contact Deb Stevens for a quick phone call now to get things started for your company.

Do you have 2 days to prepare for workers to return after yesterdays PM anouncement? Do you want to check you have covered new risks, your contingency ...