Technical writers need to expand their personal and professional friends because they need to. Building a strong personal and professional network 1. The product manager The product manager can be the technical writer’s best friend or worst enemy. Knowing a competent product manager can aid technical writers to better understand the product they are documenting. On the dark side,… Continue reading The technical writer’s 5 best friends
Tag: Technical Writer
A lesson I learned as a contract technical writer
As a favor to an old friend, I spoke to one of their friend’s kids who got laid off and was forced to go into contract IT work so they could keep paying the bills. Here is one question and answer that stuck out from our phone call: Them: What do you find true about… Continue reading A lesson I learned as a contract technical writer
Reflections on my technical writing career
I was once asked in a job interview: “Why do I stay a technical writer when it must be such a dull and boring profession?” After the meeting when I was peeling rubber out of the parking lot, I took a few moments when I was decelerating to think about some of the more interesting… Continue reading Reflections on my technical writing career
My advice to junior technical writers
Much of my technical writing career has been spent working in the trenches directly with technical teams. Unfortunately, this means I don’t know any junior technical writers anymore. I’ve seen a lot in my time as a technical writer, and if I did advise new or junior technical writers, it would be the following:
An alternative perspective about taking meeting minutes
I was talking to a recruiter once who asked me how I felt about taking meeting minutes. The first thing I said was “I think meeting minutes are overrated because I’ve rarely if ever seen them consulted again by meeting participants. When is the last time you consulted meeting minutes after a meeting was over?”… Continue reading An alternative perspective about taking meeting minutes
Lessons learned from working as a computer book industry technical reviewer
I was a computer book technical reviewer earlier in my career. It was a freelance gig, but I still consider the work one of the more formative chapters in my professional writing career even though it wasn’t writing work. Computer book technical reviewers sometimes called technical editors are responsible for ensuring the technical accuracy of… Continue reading Lessons learned from working as a computer book industry technical reviewer
6 ways to sabotage your technical documentation
Every job hunt and even unsolicited discussions with recruiters during the past few years brought me more tales of organizations continuing to have issues producing and maintaining technical documentation. It is not isolated in one sector, and I keep hearing the same problems repeatedly. This has been a real disappointment for me over the years… Continue reading 6 ways to sabotage your technical documentation
