Adobe TechComm Conundrum: All puzzles solved

Firstly, a big “Thank you!” to all those who participated in the contest. Several people wrote on our Facebook wall requesting we share the solutions to all the puzzles. So here goes:

The contest blog explained that our technical writer, Tina, had disappeared and had left 10 techcomm puzzles on her computer that would lead us to her location. Each of the 10 levels had clues hidden on her work desk.

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Puzzle 1: Fill in the blanks:

The complete content professional of today is one who possesses the qualities of a ____ who understands the target audience, is ____ sound with the tools of choice and can render the information in the way that aids its ____ and ____.

Solution: Writer, Technically, Usability, Adoption

Clue: the computer screen flashes a YouTube logo which when clicked leads you to the “future of techcomm” video. The sentence is a part of the video’s script.

Puzzle 2: Welcome the new members in the Adobe Tech Comm Suite “family”. What are their names?

Solution: Illustrator, Presenter

Clue: the notes on the notepad told you to go to the product homepage.

Puzzle 3: According to Ann Rockley’s popular presentation “Developing an adaptive content strategy”, global mobile data traffic is expected to grow __ times its current^ volume over the next five years.

^quoted from a 2011 study

Solution: 26

Clue: Google the presentation title and read it on Slideshare

Puzzle 4: According to the FrameMaker website, which year was FrameMaker born in and where?

Solution: 1986, University of Cambridge

Clue: the video on the top of the FrameMaker 11 webpage gives you the answer.

Puzzle 5: Way back in 2002, CSG Systems Inc. discovered it was much more efficient to centralize its technical documentation in FrameMaker rather than MS Word. The even wrote a case study on “Word to FrameMaker Conversion”. How many hours did they spend in converting 11,667 pages of their Word Content to FrameMaker?

Solution: 4106

Clue: A little googling should lead you here.

Puzzle 6: The multiscreen HTML 5 publishing prowess of RoboHelp 10, Technical Communication Suite 4 and the FrameMaker Server 11 lets you publish to a wide variety of devices including which of the following: iPhone, iPad, Samsung Galaxy S III, Kindle, Nook.

Solution: All of them

Clue: Clicking on any of the named devices on the work desk would encourage you to select all. Or not.

Puzzle 7: According to the website of a widely accepted industry body on technical communication, which important world event firmly established techcomm as a professional field?

Solution: World War 1

Clue: The STC logo was a small clue. On the STC.org webpage one had to browse to About > History > Our Story

Puzzle 8: He almost got unlucky on “The 400 Most Influential in #Techcomm and #ContentStrategy” list. According to him, the official online soccer rulebook PDF is how many pages long?

Solution: 144

Clue: Colum McAndrew was 12th on the list and wrote the following blog that could have been easily googled.

Puzzle 9: The future is also about knowing our past. Or watching our history closely (say for about 7 minutes?). The person who wrote the first computer user manual in 1949 left his job in 1953 to take up a different profession. What was it?

Solution: Music / musician / organist / choirmaster

Clue: the question was the clue! Joseph Chapline wrote the manual for BINAC computer in 1949 – this could be googled or seen in Ellis Pratt’s video: “history of techcomm in 7 minutes”.

Puzzle 10 (the stumbling block for many!): Can you connect the following images?

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Solution: WYSIWYG

Clue: The actors were together in the movie “The Kids Are All Right” in which Mark Ruffalo’s character owns an organic farm and a restaurant (food cooked from the fresh produce) called WYSIWYG.

Hats off to those who completed all 10 levels! More puzzles to come soon. Keep reading, keep solving techcomm conundrums!

– Team TechComm @ Adobe