The Not-Boring Tech Writer

Skill #11: Surviving in the Dev World

Michal Skowron and Pawel Kowaluk – technical writers at Guidewire Software in Kraków, Poland – about how you can survive in the dev world, including how technical writers can gain trust and respect from developers and how technical writers can start learning programming languages.

Best of 2016

2016 was a lovely year for The Not-Boring Tech Writer podcast. We had 10 episodes with 11 guests, covering a variety of topics that truly captured the theme of the podcast: how technical writers can break the stereotype that technical writing is a boring career. This episode includes my favorite segment from each of the 10 […] The post Best of 2016 appeared first on Jacob Moses .

Skill #10: Implementing Single-Source Authoring

Paul Stoecklein knows documentation: As Documentation Manager at MadCap the industry leader in documentation software and longtime technical writer, Paul understands what does and does not work for documentation teams. A methodology that Paul believes is essential for documentation teams is single-source authoring: to use a single-source of documentation for multiple outputs. In this episode, Paul shares […] The post Skill #10: Implementing Single-Source Authoring appeared first on Jacob Moses .

Skill #9: Creating a Human Connection in Your Documentation

We’ve all read (and perhaps written) a boring document: the robot-like language, the walls of text. And we’re all familiar with the result: a disengaged reader who’s likely missed the message. Enter John Espirian, freelance technical writer and Director at the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. John believes the difference between a boring and a not-boring document […] The post Skill #9: Creating a Human Connection in Your Documentation appeared first on Jacob Moses .

Skill #8: Acquiring the Three Types of Knowledge Tech Writers Need to Succeed

Knowledge as technical writers, it’s one of our greatest assets. However, amid the information overload technical writers often face, it’s also one of the most difficult assets to acquire. Enter Tom Johnson and Lisa Meloncon. Today’s guests and tech comm. advocates that have graciously shared how you can filter the information overload and shift your focus […] The post Skill #8: Acquiring the Three Types of Knowledge Tech Writers Need to Succeed appeared first on Jacob Moses .

Skill #7: Preparing for the Future of Tech Comm

As the tech comm industry develops, technical writers must embrace a sobering truth: As Dr. Stan Dicks writes in Digital Literacy for Technical Communication, “Technical communicators who add value to their organizations do not merely write and edit documents.” So how do we prepare for the future of tech comm so we can ensure we’re […] The post Skill #7: Preparing for the Future of Tech Comm appeared first on Jacob Moses .

Skill #6: Bridging the Gap Between Documentation and Support

Documentation and Support teams share a common goal: to give customers the information they need to get the greatest value from a product. But despite a shared goal, consistent communication rarely follows. The result: tech writers missing out on content-rich customer feedback, thus, as our guest Neal Kaplan phrases it, “creating documentation in a vacuum.” In […] The post Skill #6: Bridging the Gap Between Documentation and Support appeared first on Jacob Moses .

Skill #5: Getting Involved in a Community

We’ve all experienced the joy of community: colleagues mentor you; friends encourage you; strangers point you towards their favorite pizza shop downtown. For that moment, whether you had previous ties to each other or not, you feel that sense of community. And while every community is unique, one concept is constant: As urbanist Charles Montgomery defines it, “people gathering, talking, and helping […] The post Skill #5: Getting Involved in a Community appeared first on Jacob Moses .

Skill #4: Understanding UX Design

Where should user experience (UX) design fit in the technical writer’s toolbox? Well, think about how your users experience your documentation: Are they following a workflow path, following a series of pages to complete a series of tasks sequentially? Are they following nav links, jumping around to find task-specific information? Understanding how your users experience your documentation […] The post Skill #4: Understanding UX Design appeared first on Jacob Moses .

Skill #3: Creating Just-in-Time Documentation

Face it: sometimes, documenting software can be tricky. Not because we don’t understand the software we get that. Nor because we can’t articulate it in layman’s terms we’ve got that covered, too. But because feature guides the traditional style of software documentation isn’t enough to ensure your end users can find the information they need […] The post Skill #3: Creating Just-in-Time Documentation appeared first on Jacob Moses .