The Not-Boring Tech Writer

In this episode I'm talking to Swapnil Ogale, a Technical Writer Advocate for Redocly based in Melbourne, Australia, who is also a Community and Conference Manager for Write the Docs. He gives us the inside scoop on arranging Write the Docs conferences both in-person and online, and talks to us about the importance of advocacy for technical writers. The Not-Boring Tech Writer - feedback survey Twitter - Swapnil Ogale LinkedIn - Swapnil Ogale Write the Docs

We're back after a short and unexpected break! Sorry to keep you waiting! This episode you'll hear Kat Stoica Ostenfeld, an accomplished tech writer living in Copenhagen in Denmark. A linguist by credential, she says diplomacy is the key to being an effective documentarian, and shares how her translation and applied linguistics background helped her find common understanding and success in the world of technical writing. Additional topics: Beautiful limestone buildings; puppy chat; spouse sacrifices; documentation as its own pillar; language proficiency vs successful communication; the meaning of “documentation”; linguistics applied; the diplomacy of being a tech writer; full stack teams; writing rage; linguistic detective work. The Not-Boring Tech Writer - feedback survey Twitter - Kat Stoica Ostenfeld LinkedIn - Kat Stoica Ostenfeld Medium - Kat Stoica Ostenfeld Write the Docs Tekom Kat's talk from WTD Sweden 2020

In this episode, I'm excited to be speaking to Caity Cronkhite, Seattle-based founder and CEO of Good Words LLC... We talk about her experience of starting up as a tech writer both in-house and freelancing, before starting and growing her own successful business in the technical writing industry, and the successes and struggles of operating Good Words LLC in these strange and unpredictable pandemic times. Additional topics: U-Haul montage; Something Big and Impactful; (not) going the way of the startup; nurturing your network; adult, painstaking colouring. Good Words LLC Email Good Words LLC LinkedIn - Caity Cronkhite LinkedIn - Good Words LLC Society for Technical Communication The Not-Boring Tech Writer

This week we're speaking to Philip Kiely - author of 'Writing for Software Developers' - about being a first-time author, adventures in Budapest, and how to infiltrate a hackathon during a blizzard!  Philip's website: https://philipkiely.com/ TNBTW website: https://www.thenotboringtechwriter.com/ TNBTW Twitter: https://twitter.com/notboringtech 

The KnowledgeOwl crew joins longtime host Jacob Moses to discuss their acquisition of The Not-Boring Tech Writer podcast, including why Jacob started the podcast, how the podcast has evolved, and what listeners can expect for the future.

Mariana Moreira—Technical Writer at Zup Innovation and Community Manager at Brazil's budding tech writing community, Tech Writing BR—shares how you can begin creating usability tests for your organization.

Laci Kettavong—Marketing and Member Coordinator at Stoke—shares how you can understand basic design principles to improve your documentation.

Dr. Chris Lam—technical communication professor at the University of North Texas—discusses his newest platform, Crowdsource TPC, and how you can use it to find insights and resources to advance your career.

Open data advocates Jesse Hamner and Kyle Taylor how technical writers can use their skills to get plugged into the Open Data movement.

Mike McDermott—Director of Language Translations at MadTranslations—shares how organization can have a seamless, successful translation process, including how to research the right translation service, who to get involved in the research process, and how to create content optimized for translation. 

Kate Mueller—Support Sorceress and Cheese Monger at KnowledgeOwl reflects on her career to share the criterion you should consider as you choose the right knowledge base for your organization, including how to get started in your research, how to get company buy-in, and which essential features you should look for in a knowledge base. 

German tech writer Joachim reflects on his past six weeks in his tech writing internship to share skills and lessons learned to help prospective tech writers land a tech writing internship.

Alexander Yant shares how you can understand your readers as a whole, including why empathy is one of the most important aspects of audience analysis, how tech writers can boost their audience analysis skills, and how effective audience analysis can demonstrate your value as a tech writer.

Margaret Eker—technical writer at Magento, an Adobe company—shares how you can boost your researching skills as a tech writer, including how tech writers traditionally research new features, why tech writers should research the domain in which they work, and which steps you can take today to boost your research skills. 

Tad Dieken—tech writer at Accuray—shares how to get started contributing to GitHub, including how to find projects that interest you, how to overcome imposter syndrome in GitHub, and which new skills you may learn in the process. 

Tom Johnson—technical writer at Amazon—shares how to get started in API documentation, including where the tech writer fits in the API documentation process, what skills tech writers need to excel at API documentation, and where to find the best resources to ramp up those skills.

Kacy Ewing—soon-to-be-Brooklyn-based tech writer—shares the skills you need to excel in creating contextual help, including how to position yourself in the user experience process, how to practice your contextual help writing, and where to find the best examples of contextual help.

John Espirian—technical copywriter and author of the soon-to-be-released book Content DNA—shares how you can find your content DNA, including how to find your niche as a writer, how to market that niche to prospective clients, and how to use your niche to win big clients.

Chad Sterling—Product Technical Communications Specialist at KUKA—shares how you can transition into technical writing, including where to find a tribe of technical writers, how to use your existing skills to transition into technical writing, and how to ramp up your skills to find your first gig.

Jamie Roddy—Manager of Technical Communicators who leads a team of global technical communicators—shares how you can use your detective skills as a technical writer, including which detective skills are most useful for technical writers, how to ramp up those skills, and how detective skills can help you transition into other fields within a software company.

John Paz—Senior Content Designer at Atlassian and mentoring wizard—shares his experience mentoring prospective tech writers and how you can do the same, including how to find prospective mentees, how to foster a relationship with mentees, and how mentoring can boost your own technical writing career.

Chad Lott—content marketer at Zenreach—shares his experiences as a content marketer, plus, shares tips on how technical writers can transition into the field, including how content marketing differs from technical writing, how content marketers succeed, and how technical writers can use their existing skills to transition into content marketing.

Kathleen Franks shares how you can use your skills to start writing for nonprofit organizations, including which technical writing skills best assist nonprofits, how to use your skills to advocate for nonprofits, and how to use your skills for more than just grant writing.

Jody Winter—Auckland-based technical writer of 15 years—shares how you can embrace the long game of technical writing, including how to observe and respond to changes in the field, how to respond to seasons of burnout, and how to find opportunities to ramp up your technical writing skills.

Ash Blankenship—founder at Acme Design—shares how you can find your unique perspective on technical writing to brand your work, including how to use content to build your brand, how to choose the right platform to build your brand, and how to build a tribe that believes in your approach to technical writing.

Anne Janzer—author of Writing to Be Understood—shares how technical writers can make their technical writing more interesting. We discuss where technical writers may currently miss the mark in their writing, how technical writers can use cognitive science to make their writing more interesting, and small steps technical writers can take today to begin applying the concepts.

Katie Price, instructional designer at Azusa university, shares how technical writers can transition into instructional design, including what types of projects instructional designers work on, what skills you need to learn to excel in instructional design, and how to use your existing skills to transition into the field.

Kyle Taylor—Solutions Architect at FFW and President of a Denton-based technology nonprofit TechMill—shares with how you can contribute to open source projects, including how to choose the right project to contribute to, how to translate your contributions into your portfolio, and how to create open source documentation that developers will love.

Thaddeus Dieken – Technical Writer at Accuray – shares how you can get your first job in technical communication, including how to effectively search for jobs, market yourself as a qualified entry-level candidate, and how to navigate the workplace. 

Kim Campbell – Professor and Chair of Technical Communication at the University of North Texas – shares how you can begin teaching technical writing, including how to develop the right skills, adopt the right mindset for teaching, and enjoy a fulfilling career in academia. 

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.

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

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 .

What's the ultimate stereotype of technical writers? Easy: that once you begin your career as a technical writer, you're caught in a documentation vortex. And worse that there's no way out. But just like all stereotypes, they're meant to be broken. As communication experts, our skills analyzing an audience; writing crisp, clear, concise copy […] The post Skill #2: Transitioning from Tech Writing to Marketing appeared first on Jacob Moses .