Usability, Software and Web Credibility

Photo Source: NASA

"Usability applies to every aspect of a product with which a person interacts (hardware, software, menus, icons, messages, documentation, training, and on-line help). Every design and development decision made throughout the product cycle has an impact on that product's usability.

As customers depend more and more on software to get their jobs done and become more critical consumers, usability can be the critical factor that ensures that products will be used." Denise D. Pieratti, Manager Usability Analysis & Design, Xerox Corporation

My definition of usability is minimal effort for maximum results. Others say it is that technology should work and not make you feel stupid, or that usability is anything that gives us the tools to build better software and Web content.
Whitney Quesenbery's definition of the basics of usability is the best I've found.
As for you...why should you care about usability? If you work on the Web, create content for the Web, or use the Web...you should care about usability. For example, by incorporating just one usability technique, paper prototyping (sitting down with your software development team and using 8 x 11 inch pieces of paper and Post-itr notes to create prototype web pages BEFORE coding...you can save thousands of dollars in programming costs and staff hours by avoiding errors with this simple exercise. For more information on usability engineering, visit the World Usability Day website.
I belong to the Society for Technical Communication (STC). They have a number of special interest groups whereby you may attend seminars, meet, and learn from some of the experts, or just read up on the body of knowledge known as technial writing. STC has a number of special interest groups where you can gain in-depth knowlege in your particular interest, such as usability.
Visit the Website of the Leonardo DiVinci of usability, Jacob Nielson:
http://www.useit.com/
Denise D. Pieratti, Manager, Usability Analysis & Design, Xerox Corporation, describes the steps involved in usability engineering as:
User and task observations observing users at their jobs, identifying their typical work tasks and procedures, analyzing their work processes, and understanding people in the context of their work
Interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires meeting with users, finding out about their preferences, experiences, and needs
Benchmarking and competitive analysis evaluating the usability of similar products in the marketplace
Participatory design participating in design and bringing the users perspective to the early stages of development
Paper prototyping including users early in the development process through prototypes prepared on paper, before coding begins
Creation of guidelines helping to assure consistency in design through development of standards and guidelines
Heuristic evaluations evaluating software against accepted usability principles and making recommendations to enhance usability
Usability testing observing users performing real tasks with the application, recording what they do, analyzing the results, and recommending appropriate changes
In reply to the question, "What does your poem The Road Not Taken, mean?" Robert Frost said, "What would you have me do...explain it in other and less good words?"
So...I refer you to the following Web links to find out about how vital usability is to useful software and hardware in this digital age.
Why are tech gizmos so hard to figure out
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2005-11-01-usability-cover_x.htmThe Secret of Making things work
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4393468.stm
Pushing the right buttons requires a human touch
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/pushing-the-right-buttons-requires-a-human-touch/2005/10/31/1130720481954.htmlUsability and User Exprience Design: The Next Century
Book Review: Institutionalization of Usability A Step-by-Step Guide
http://www.stcsig.org/usability/newsletter/0505-institutionalization.html
Usability in Sweden
http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/p1/program/artikel.asp?ProgramID=406&Nyheter=1&artikel=726365
Usability question comes of age
http://www.hindu.com/2005/11/05/stories/2005110519080400.htm

But what good is usability without credibility? They are interdependent principals. The more credible you website, the more useful. If you can use the software...that's great, but is it believable? Nowhere is this more true than on the web. Once your software is easy to learn and useful, do you then use it to create credible material?
There are 5 principles of Web credibility:

1. You must prove there is a real organization behind your website
2. Your website needs to provide sensitive (important inside) information
3. All statements should be backed up by third-party evidence
4. There has to be proof that the organization is growing and has clients
5. Your website needs to have an air of professionalism and confidence

Usability testing, done right, can make your burden easier.
For how to do usability right, visit Jacob Nielsen.
And see Zillan's White Papers for how to do it right.

Quality Software, Process, and CMMI

Go to the penultimate website for creating good and useful software through a disciplined process that documents everything (a senior technical writer's idea of heaven), and for how to relaunch software that has failed.

Creating useful software can save a company large amounts of money in reduced production time and significantly reduced errors. 

The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon teaches the Capability Maturity Model Intebration (CMMItm) to thousands of companies every day which proves that good management, planning, and a continual improvement process lead to changes in key process areas along the software development cycle. Their CMM tools are to the modern software cathedrals what a plumb and level were to medieval cathedrals.

CMMI Overview PowerPointtm Presentation
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/general/general.html
What is CMMI
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/general/general.html
CMMI Performance Results
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/results.html

As to why you might want to use CMMI as your process system to improve your product and profits, the table below, courtesy of the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute CMMI Performance Results website page, is worth a look.

Results (reported as of December 15, 2005)

You can view examples of CMMI performance results by organization or by performance category. The following table contains a summary of the performance results:

Performance Category	Median	Number of Data Points		Low	High
Cost	20%	21		3%	87%
Schedule	37%	19		2%	90%
Productivity	62%	17		9%	255%
Quality	50%	20		7%	132%
Customer Satisfaction	14%	6		-4%	55%
Return on Investment	4.7 : 1	16		2 : 1	27.7 : 1

This table summarizes quantitative information from 25 organizations that have reported results that can be expressed as performance changes over time.

The Need for Software User Survey's

Photo Source: NASA

User survey's are necessary to the process of software design, creation, testing, marketing, and use in the product lifecycle...and to data mining and sampling. Why? Because software surveys allow you to test, observe, and rewrite software's Tower of Babel code to be more useful for the average person. Oftentimes, unfortunatley, the attitude among software engineers and developers is "Build it and they will come!" rather than "What do they want built and how will they use it?

Zoomerangtm is the best survey software I've found thus far to discover what tasks people really want from their software . Their motto is, "Easiest way to ask! fastest way to know!" I have used may survey instruments over the years, and Zoomerang's really is the easiest and fastest. And the bar chart results are a wonder to behold. Even Fortune has said, "Zoomerang is the market leader." Take 5, click, and try it here: Test Zoomerang

Zoomerang also offers a Spanish version.
They give you a free basic account to test it out that will:

• Create short surveys (30 questions maximum)
• View data online (results available for 10 days after survey launch)
• Collect less than 100 survey responses per survey

Create Surveys
http://info.zoomerang.com/quicktour/createsurvey.htm
Deploy Your Survey
http://info.zoomerang.com/quicktour/deploysurvey.htm
Analyze and Use Your Results
http://info.zoomerang.com/quicktour/surveyresults.htm

More Information about Zoomerang and MarketTools, Inc., is available at their website: Zoomerang,

Harry Newton Technology Investor

Harry Newton warned in his Technology Investor column (Now In Search of the Perfect Investment) about the technology bubble burst a year before Allen Greenspan used the phrase, "irrational exuberance."
He offers unique insights on what tech stocks to look at, what tech stocks to avoid, and when to move in and out of cash. 

His theories on investing are erudite (see, for example, his Cockroach Theory.)

He has that rare gift for translating highly complex technical information into clean, clear, consistent reading...and he does it all with a great sense of humor. 

Each column includes a good joke at the end. He also highlights the latest tech gadgets and gear. Link here.

I first discovered him when I used his witty tome Newton's Telecom Dictionary -- The Official Dictionary of Telecommunications, Networking and the Internet daily when I was creating router, modem, central test equipment, and other telecommunications manuals. 

I still use it. Amazon gave it five stars. 

If you have questions about the Internet, networking, telecommunications, or just enjoy funny writing, buy his dictionary here. 

Years hence, he may be seen as the Samuel Johnson of this Internet age.

Memorial Day Writer's Project

Here is a link to the Memorial Day Writer's Project at the Vietnam Memorial.

http://www.memorialdaywritersproject.com/PoetsPages/Curley.htm






I read these three poems there:

• Screaming Like a Banshee
• Future Dust
• Lament for American Hands and Hearts

Screaming Like a Banshee



My wife screams like a banshee

to cover wailing with neutral sound

when my toddler Eamon fights her

and refuses to take a nap.



I hear Grandmom Curley screamed

like a banshee when the telegram arrived

from the War Department in 1945

to tell her the oldest, Frank, the one

who was supposed to be the Jesuit,

instead had been killed in action

when the Japanese ack-ack

turned his B-24 into a fireball

on his 39th mission over Haha Jima

in an ocean grave in the South Pacific.



Grandmom Curley screamed

like a banshee for weeks

until they hooked her up

and shot electricity through her brain

to cover wailing with neutral sound.

She never screamed like a banshee again.



Instead, she wailed so deep down for 20 years

because the hole in her heart was so vast,

laughter was no longer a planet in her galaxy

and the only way people would describe her was,

“She was never the same after Frank died in the Pacific.”

Future Dust

"I'll never look like that!"
I said to myself when we were offloaded
from the Lakeland Air Force Base
Officer Training School bus
and heard the upperclassmen
bark orders at us, the arriving class,
and saw the triple rings under their eyes.

Six weeks later, I looked like that
as I stood at the attention outside my room
on Saturday Morning Inspection

(as one upperclassman stood
outside my room looking at every detail
of my appearance for deviations
"Details will save your life!"
repeated by my teachers so often
it is forever burned into my mind,
and another ran over every detail in my room
from the folds in the mattress
to the spacing between my socks).

I broke after they left
to scan my demerits book
aware that so much depended
on my finally bringing those demerits down:
my graduation, the cohesion of my flight, honor,
the future of the United States of America.

And there it sat, like a turd
the inspector left behind
from his white-gloved hand:
"Future dust."

When the inspector returned

for questioning, I fired it right at him,
"What's 'future dust', Sir!?"
"I'd have had a perfect inspection
but for that demerit."

"Come over here, son."
he said in a thick Southern drawl.
He opened the blinds to let in the sun
and pointed at the air.

"What's that?" he said,
a thin grin opening on his face,
all the muscles in his future fighter pilot's body
preparing to press the red button on the joystick.

"Dust, Sir." I stated.
"Wrong, Officer Candidate Curley!
That's future dust!
In a few minutes it will land
on your desk and you failed to prevent it!
Therefore, you Sir, are guilty!
Guilty of letting down your flight!
Guilty of failing to prevent future dust!"
Three demerits. Good-bye!

As our teachers told us so many times,
they were preparing us for war.
Waging war has rules and surprises,
and surprises repeated often enough
become the rules of warfare.

Like future dust,
Or the future dust of a company
that fails to plan for the next bear market,
or the future dust of a family death,
or the future dust of the lack of preparation
for the next war and the deaths that will result,
or the dust of skyscrapers brought down

by fanatical jihadis,

or the future dust we will find

clogging the oxygen filters

of our interplanetary space ships.

So many years later,
I now know they were right.
We all must be eternally vigilant
to prevent future dust from landing,
if we are to have any chance at all
of a life in the space dust of the future.

Lament for American Hands and Hearts

 

A father will not be coming home tonight, or ever.

He was among 45 passengers

On a routine American commercial flight, Flight 93

When terrorists, Satan’s gift to the forces of evil,

Unjust war, pestilence, anger, murder, envy and all mortal sin,

Slit the throats of some mothers who were stewardesses,

Bound them, sprayed mace at the men, who tried to help,

Herded them into the back of the plane,

Rushed the pilots, murdered them, and hijacked the plane.

 

Nevertheless, this Father Thomas Burnett

Calmly phoned his wife to say,

“I know we’re all going to die.

There’s three of us who are going to do something about it.”

As Mark Bingham phoned his mother to say,

“I just want you to know I love you.”

 

They organized and planned in nanoseconds,

And acted with fearlessness in minutes.

They overpowered the murders before them,

Charged down the 33 rows and 290 feet of 767 aisle,

Kicked down the locked cockpit door,

And 3 unarmed average Americans

Subdued 4 armed, vile, and unclean Bin Laden terrorists

Because they overheard the terrorists plans to turn

The civilian airliner into a war missile

To kill more innocent civilians

In a new kind of war, the terrorists

Decided and stated for decades ago, had no rules.

 

The unarmed Americans fought bravely and well.

They pulverized the puny terrorists who,

Now stripped of their most advanced weapon…surprise…

Cowered beneath the first and fierce counterstrikes

Of many future ones from average Americans

Until we drive these terrorists back to the caves

From which they emerged,

As their caves become their tombs,

As we carry forth the spirit of those who fought and died

Above the Amish Pennsylvania countryside

Who put into practice the ancient Amish saying,

“Hands to work and hearts to God.”

Discipline of Writing Resources

Photo Sources: NASA
"I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution." Wernher Von Braun

Like walking on the moon, good writing requires discipline. Here are a few places to go to learn that discipline.

Society for Technical Communication (STC)
STC Washington
One way to learn the skills necessary to communicate effectively is through constant reading and study. A disciplined approach includes joining a professional society. I recommend the Society for Technical Communication. Also, take classes from your local Society for Technical Communication, such as the Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD Chapter.

Why? It is the only way to stay disciplined and current in the field. For example, my local STC chapter, Chapter 2 for the Washington, D.C. area, has seminars, newsletters, meetings, communications tools, jobs, Web resources, search tools, competitions, and special interest groups (SIGs), and other ways and means to make you and keep you an first-rate technical communicator.

50 Writing Tools
For a quick primer on How To Write, see Poynteronline.

Try Mike Markel's Technical Communication manual...it lists for above $80 but you can get one on e-bay used for $20. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312403380/104-6699886-0596706?v=gla...

He also has a website that is useful: http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/techcomm/default.asp

Your Local Community College Example
Austin Community College Example
Your nearby community college has first-rate, inexpensive courses on technical writing. It is a good place to get started with the nuts and bolts of how good technical writing is accomplished.

A Certificate from a Graduate School
University of Alabama Huntsville
Huntsville, AL has one of the highest concentrations of high-tech manufacturing in the nation. Redstone is there. So is Space Camp, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, where I took my college student in mechanical engineering when he was six-years old (hmmm...maybe he got the idea to be an ME from the Wernher Von Braun exhibit there) and Redstone. There may be many places to get a graduate school technical writing certificate, but few would seem to be in the shadow of Wernher Von Braun.

A College or University Example

UMBC

If you have the money and the years, there are numerous college and university technical writing programs where you can get an undergraduate or graduate degree.

A Local Writer's Center The Writer's Center Example
Many areas have writer's centers where you can go to hone your craft. Although they do not have the rigor or depth of a college or university writing program, they are excellent places to meet other writers, take courses around your work schedule, and where you can choose from a variety of writing disciplines, from scriptwriting to corporate writing to one-on-one manuscript mentoring. Most of the classes are taught in a workshop format and are a good way to begin to learn the discipline and skills required for good writing.

The Writer's Center in the Washington, D.C. area is one such center. I have taken workshops at The Writer's Center (e.g. HTML and the Web in 200) and can vouch for their quality. As they say on their homepage: Whether you are a seasoned author or are just beginning to write seriously, the workshop experience can nurture your artistic life as few other activities can.

Technical Writing Bookstore's
Reiter's Technical Bookstore Example
Like becoming an astronaut, technical writing is a discipline that requires much self-learning to be able to master the body of knowledge required to be a first-rate technical communcator. It also requires the kind of devotion to the mission astronaut Neil A Armstrong showed when he was so busy carrying out his tasks when he landed on the moon that he did not get around to taking photos of himself there.

But to keep current with the current and past technical communication body of knowledge, read constantly.

Eamon's Salute

Eamon's Salute

Mummer's Parade

STRUT!
It's a surreal celebration of freedom, creativity, theater, self-expression, and the beauty of family and friends and life in the cold winter in Philadelphia each New Year's. It's the Mummers.
And if you have ever strutted there, or at a wedding or wake, you know what I mean. If not, get to the parade and learn what tradition and freedom and family and hard work and American know-how can create and celebrate!

Here We Stand Before your door
As we stood the year before
Give us whiskey, give us gin
Open the door and let us in
Or better give us something hot.
A steaming bowl of pepper pot.

WHO DAT FROGGY CARR! Read about him here: http://www.froggycarr.homestead.com/ClarkDeleoncolumn.html
I was at 2006 New Year's Mummers Parade with my immediate family in a hotel off Broad Street called The Latham Hotel. My Philadelphia family gathered at my brother's house on American street in Society Hill. It was built during he Mexican-American war and has a privy in the back and a cobble stone street in front. Independence Hall, Carpenter's Hall, the Liberty Bell, National Constitution Center, Betsy Ross's House, and other sites in the most historical square mile in America are only a few blocks from American street.
What a day! WHO DAT! WHO DA! WHO DAT FROGGY CARR! Find out here: http://www.froggycarr.homestead.com/
The mummers are a miracle, and my poem below is my effort to thank them for all their love, and affection and hard work that put a big smile on my father's face, brings one to mine each New Year's, and makes my wife and sons laugh and laugh and stare in wonder to rediscover simple fun and a depth of entertainment Hollywood could never imagine...let alone imitate.

Mummer's Miracle

Like soldiers exhausted in battle,
They sit in an back alley
At Juniper and Market,
Having marched 9 miles
Pushing props and stages
Dressed in a black outfit
That does not take attention
From the plumes and sequins
Of the up-front show mummers,
These marshals finally rest, 9 miles later,
After miles of walking up Broad Street
In Philadelphia during the New Year's
Mummer's Parade of 2005
Where they never got to strut,
To prance, to show off,
To enjoy the crowd, the applause
Or the recognition of the media
In this-media driven society.
Like working men everywhere,
They do their job quietly,
Far in the background
With no complaint or brag,
The job well done satisfaction enough
And the smiles on the faces of children
The extra bonus, the Mummer's Miracle
Until, laid out in their coffin at the wake,
As mourner after mourner at the kneeler prays,
It is said so many times, but never
Loses its genuine feel and grace
He was a good man, Lord.
He worked hard.
He took good care of his family.
Make a place for him in Heaven, Lord.
He deserves it. He was such a good man."
And the string band Ferko
Or fancy Quaker CityOr comic Froggy Carr line up,
And join him
for one more march down Broad,
To a City Hall where he is not judged,
But welcomed with O Dem golden Slippers
By hundreds of thousands of mummers
Who make the journey before him
And becomes one more saint they sing about
In When the Saints Come Marching In.

As STRUT! the "feel-good award-winning DVD documentary about a truly American phenomenon" puts it, "one day a year, the working people of Philadelphia rule." "Each New Year's Day, electricians, longshoreman, plumbers, cops, and other working class wizards transform the City of brotherly Love into the world capital of surrealism...the real flavor comes from the Mummers themselves, who personify what we hold most dear: The mandate of freedom and self-expression...the power of family and fraternity...the lessons fo the immigrant experience....and the extraordinary inclusiveness and tolerance of everyone except the competition."

Bruce Curley Writer Resume

Bruce Curley, Writer

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing; Others judge us by what we have done. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Senior Technical and Proposal Writer

Seasoned technical writer. Translate technical information into Plain English. Create user manuals, quick start guides, templates, instructions, and other digital and paper products. Collaborate well with subject matter experts. Versatile and deadline-oriented self-starter.

 

Skill Stack
Technical Writer	Word	Cyber
Proposal Writer	Policies	Quick Start Guides
Editing, Style, Formatting	Documentation Creation	Templates
Web Content Creation	Editing	Procedures
Proposal Writing	Instructions	Run Books
SDLC	User Manuals	White Papers

 

Senior Technical Writer, Sealing Technologies Inc., 10/2021 — 01/2023

With cybersecurity, mechanical, software, devops, and electrical engineers, wrote hardware and software user manuals, quick start guides, assembly instructions, and other support documentation for cybersecurity fly away kits used by special forces teams.

Conducted quality control and approved documentation for our Dashboard Solar Winds Service Desk Solutions website for internal and external customers.

Created and maintained the company Style, Formatting, and Writing Guidelines document.

Updated legacy documents to current corporate style and format standards.

With manufacturing manager, created multiple cyber documents for product support, sales, engineering, mission, and manufacturing engineers. 

Senior Technical Writer, Alpha Omega Integration, 02/01/21 — 10/03/21

Write templates and content for Planview Capability Technology Management Knowledge Transfer document, metamodel data dictionary, glossaries, and other artificial intelligence client deliverables.

Senior Technical Writer, STULZ, 4/2018 — Present

With design, software, application, mechanical and electrical engineer contributors, write, edit and rewrite installation, operation, and maintenance and engineering manuals and procedures.
Organize and write sales policies handbook, sales handbook, and the Product support handbook..
Update legacy documents to current corporate style and format standards.
Maintain Document Product Status Matrix as a management tracking tool.
Release final documents as PDFs versions to marketing, product support, sales, engineering mission energy lab, application engineering, and BOM configuration departments.

Senior Technical Writer, Allegis Group, 9/2016 — 11/2017

·    Create format and style templates and write content for security, procedure, policy. server build standards and other enterprise operations documents.

·    Research and write white papers to implement plans for the on European Union (EU) General Data Protection Requirements (GDPR) for May, 2018.

·    Write and update the disaster recovery plan, disaster recovery run book, standards, policies, data sheets and other work products to meet current and future needs.

·    Migrate and change hundreds of legacy documents to current standards, style, formatting and organization rules and regulations and upload to the new SharePoint website.
Created a Governance Document Product Matrix with title, description, status, owner, version and date of hundreds of documents to meet international standards and large international client audit requirements.

Senior Technical Writer, Transamerica (TEKSystems) , 4/2016 —  8/2017

With contributions from Manager, Risk Systems, Global Hedging Services and SMEs, re-write multiple store-of-knowledge artifacts into Plain English, such as:

Created 38 forms and templates for theSDLC to meet corporate and regulatory and financial standards and regulations..

Reviewed over 40 corporate continuity of operations and disaster recovery plans to write a model  business continuity and disaster recovery plan.

Reformat and rewrite Service Level Agreements (SLA's).in Plain English

Edit and provide quality control check on proposals.

 Education

Society for Technical Communication (STC) seminars ( STC 2008 Philadelphia Annual Convention, Shaping the Future of Technical Communication, STC Carolina, 2005, April 2005); Johns Hopkins, School of Advanced International Studies, Graduate level coursework; BA, Cum Laude 3.6 GPA, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, International Relations; American University in Paris, France, semester abroad program.

Professional Affiliations/Other Work

Senior Member: Society for Technical Communication (STC); Usability Special InterestGroup (SIG)

Featured in the article, “Bruce V. Curley: Poet” in Intercom, Society for Technical Communication magazine, November 2002, p. 44.

Editor, Opening NATO’s Door, How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era, Ronald D. Asmus, Council on Foreign Relations, Columbia University Press, NY, 2002

The American Civil Defense Association (TACDA), “Web 2.0 Tools for First Responders,” Spring Issue, 2009

Vice President, The American Civil Defense Association
Wrote the following articles:
Children and Civil Defense, JCD, Vol. 51, Issue 1, 2018, p. 18
When State Hackers Take Aim at the Power Grid, JCD, Vol. 50, Issue 2, 2017, p. 12
Rolling Up the ISIS Tactical Use of Social Media, JCD, Vol. 49, Issue 1, 2016, p. 17
How to Write a Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Plan, Vol. 49, Issue 2, 2016p. 32
ISIS Use of Social Media as a Force Multiplier, JCD, Vol. 48, Issue 2, 2015, p. 27
CBRNe: Low Probability, High Impact, JCD, Vol. 49, Issue 2, 2015, p. 30
Surviving a House Fire: Lessons Learned, JCD, Vol. 47, Issue 1, 2014, p. 27
Civil Defense Redux, JCD, Vol. 45, Issue 1, 2012, p. 13
The Importance of Private Sector and Local Government MOUs, p. 29; Creating a Church Emergency Plan, p. 38; Vol. 46, Issue 1, 2013
Active Shooter, Bomb Threat, or Just Rumors, Vol 47, Issue 1, 2014, p.3
Web 2.0 Tools for First Responders, Spring Issue, Vol 41, Fall/Winter Issue, 2009, p. 24
Creator of civil defense-themed Poetslife Blog (poetslife.blogspot.com). Sample posts follow.
EF-1 Tornado Lessons from Mt. Airy MD (https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2018/11/ef-1-tornado-lessons-from-mt-airy-md.html)
Church Emergency Evacuation, Shelter-in-Place, and Lock-Down Plan (https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2017/05/church-emergency-evacuation-shelter-in.html)
Emergency Exercise – EPLEX (https://poetslife.blogspot.com/search/label/Emergency%20Exercise%20-%20EPLEX)
Hawaii Ballistic Missile Alert Fail and Fix (https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2018/01/hawaii-eoc-mega-fail-and-simple-fix.html)
Emergency Management – National Disaster Medical System (https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2012/05/emergency-management-medical.html)
Children and Civil Defense (https://poetslife.blogspot.com/2018/10/why-civil-defense-matters-for-children.html)

Have written over 12 speeches for the Mayor of Mt Airy, MD.

As a volunteer, set up the policies, procedure, plans, continuity of operations, and equipment for an emergency operations center (EOC) and wrote continuity of operations plans for the Town of Mt. Airy. Helped write the memorandum of understanding to obtain supplies from local merchants in an emergency.
Member of the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). See: 

http://poetslife.blogspot.com/search/label/Tornado%20Emergency%20Exercise; http://poetslife.blogspot.com/search/label; Volunteer%20Mobilization%20Center;

http://poetslife.blogspot.com/search/label/Emergency%20Exercise
http://www.medcelt.org/feile-festa/v005/poetry/curley.html

I have been married for 33 years and have two sons.

  

I am listed in the Top 142 Social Marketing Blogs on the Web by re:think your strategy. Click:

http://classicnew.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/top-142-social-marketing-blogs-on-the-web/

In the dozens of proposals, manuals, hundreds of procedures, specifications sheets, on-line content, CDs and DVD I have worked on, I have taken and still dense, confusing, and disorganized text, pictures, diagrams and tables and convert them into a clear, concise, and consistent package in digital and paper form.  As a quick study, I master highly technical material with minimal supervision.

In software documentation, I have created works for the full document cycle, from design to project to user manual. Most manuals I have written include hundreds of graphics, which I have strategically placed to guide the reader's learning. 

On numerous software and hardware teams, I have always added value to the product throughout the product life cycle. Here is one example. At Northrop Grumman, I helped write the Biohazard Detection System (BDS) Operation and Maintenance Handbook (Introduction, Safety, Theory of Operation, Hardware, Software, Operation and Maintenance, Troubleshooting chapters). 

It was a complex with an X, Y, Z robot, a genetic tester, and fluidics. I took hundreds of photos of components and integrated those photos with the text. For accuracy and project requirements, I undertook detailed validation testing of the unit, software, and network against the written procedures and checklists.

The manual and the CD are used to train dozens of technicians who maintain and operate the system, and engineers who use it as a store of knowledge. At one employer, I created a detailed diagram to central text equipment that led to a 20 percent decrease in calls to the help desk. 

Richard Chandler Sole Survivor

Here is the story of the sole survivor S/Sgt. Richard Chandler (wedding photo, left) and his rescue by a DUMBO plane off Ha Ha Jima on 10 February 1945 as told by Cpl Zander Hollander in BRIEF on March 13, 1945, pages 6 and 7.

"Richard (Dick) Everett Chandler was born January 14, 1924 in Thief River Falls, MN. During WWII, he voluntarily enlisted to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1943 to 1945. 

Richard was a Staff Sergeant crew member filling the tail gunner position on a a heavy bomber B-24 Liberator aircraft. 

His plane was shot down by enemy fire on February 10, 1945 in the Pacific, upon which he became the crew's sole survivor. 

He received air medals for a total of 35 missions, a Purple Heart and an Asiatic Service Medal."

It took me 6 years to screw up the courage, but I finally contacted Richard Chandler (Armorer Gunner, S/Sgt. , Serial Number 97562389 - returned to duty), in December, 2006. He is the sole survivor after Frank's B-24 disintigrated near HaHa Jima.

In his "Casualty Questionnaire" he stated in question 9, "Where did your aircraft strike ground (even here it was the European Theater and not the Pacific Theater questions that ruled) he answered, "It didn't - some of the pieces hit the ocean."
Because the plane took Japanese ack-ack in the belly where the 500 pound bombs and fuel tanks were stored, it was engulfed in flame and only small pieces hit the ocean. Another piece of the puzzle.

On 12/8/2005, Mr. Chandler was gracious enough to talk to me about that mission. He said Frank Curley, my uncle, came running up to the plane as it was loading because he was assigned to the mission at the last minute...one of those last minute changes that cost lives in war.

But, ultimately, as I have heard from the pilot (Harry Gibbons) behind Frank, and from the tail gunner (Richard Chandler) on the flight who was there and who survived, it was the incompetent leadership of Major Holland that doomed the mission.

On October 18, 2015 Richard Chandler's grand daughter Traci McPhearson called to say that he had died. She thanked me for the letter I sent him in February when his wife died. And she provided these additional details:

"When the plane exploded, my grandfather ran to the other two tail gunners to check on them. Both were dead and the plane was exploding in fire. 

He put on his parachute, jumped, and saw that his parachute was on fire. 

Also, he had only been able to get half an arm through one strap.
On the way down a Jap Zero fired at him. 

He hit the water hard. 

He was badly burned and the impact injured his upper spine. 

He inflated his Mae West flotation jacket. 

As he did, he felt something beneath his feet and started kicking as he thought it was a shark. 

Fortunately, it was a dolphin that circled him protecting him from sharks until the PBY rescued him.
In the water he was strafed by the Jap Zero that hit the two life rafts that other B-24's on the mission dropped for him. 

From the shore, Jap machine gunners were trying to kill him."

Mr. Chandler died on October 18, 2015 with the following poem read at his service.

Why
(A Soldier's Poem)

Far above the storm clouds gathering

Far above that midnight sky
Looking out just past the rainbow
Where eagles dare not fly
Out among the ashes
Of heroes long since past
I will take my place among them

When that final die is cast

Let not your heart be troubled

That's what I've always heard

But I stood for what I believed in

With these my final words

For in this life but few things matter

In this short time that we have here

Leaving nothing behind but our honor

The thing we hold most dear.

The story of his rescue and survival and life is the stuff of fiction. His granddaughter is writing that story and so I will leave it to her to do him justice that I can only hint at here.

Girl at the Deli Poem

You walk into this friggin' deli where you've

never been before all summer hot and friggin' angry

and there, behind the counter, she stands,

lips big enough for a zip code,

hair as fine as spun satin and silk

and skin that breaks your heart in two...

you look right at her and stammer, "c..c...c...coffee"

and she says back, "two or three sugars?"

and you stumble again "uh...two...uh...three"

and cotton wads grow in your mouth,

you smile wanly and she smiles back

so unspoiled and athletic and young

and that chemical reaction starts

in your brain and WHAAAAAAAMMM!!!

once again life has possibilities and hope.

She brings you a cup of coffee

and you sip it and want to spit it out

because it tastes like its been there since World War II

but you smile instead because you notice

how fine and bright and clean her eyes speak to you now

and although you want to say "Dear God!

How can you sell this turpentine as coffee?!"

you smile again and gulp it down quickly

and say, "Just what I needed! Hits the spot real well!"

And she smiles and says, "Best for miles around!

How long have you been in these parts?!"

and now you know the chemical explosions

are going off in her brain, too, so you drink some more coffee

that is so toxic and strong and fierce

that your taste buds have all mutinied

but even it cannot kill the wonderful chemicals

that now grant you the absolution, benediction,

and grace of love and suddenly you know

Robert Graves knew what he was talking about:

for here, between the provolone cheese and the Zinfandel wine,

is clear and living proof of the unbroken chain

between the ancient Celts and the current White Goddess.

Bruce Curley
Mount Airy, MD

Magic Moments

Magic Moments

There are those magic moments

Before work when the day holds promise
And you know you can do what's required

The anticipation of the son returned
From college who left a boy, now a man.

The younger son who draws a picture
Of you asleep before Santa's arrival

A wife who designed the kitchen
In a way which you never could

And the truck that leaves the road
Around the S-Curve with ice

And instead of hitting the tractor trailer,
Or the oncoming cars and trucks

Stops 20 feet from the guardrail,
No damage but to the blood pressure

And you pause...and give thanks,
Now knowing what alive means.