The Not-Boring Tech Writer

No matter your industry—tech, nonprofit, marketing—your organization likely needs a knowledge base software, a dedicated place to capture essential knowledge. However, choosing the right knowledge base software can be challenging—and takes much more work then a quick Google search. You need to understand the core knowledge problems within your organization; compare softwares that, on the surface,...

As prospective tech writers look for ways to get into the tech writing field, many pursue internships. And understandably so: internships give prospective tech writers hands-on experience in tech writing, giving them an opportunity to boost their skills and get a feel for the industry.  However, finding that tech writing internship can be challenging, especially if you aren’t pursuing a tech writi...

One of the most important skills tech writers can have is the ability to analyze their audience—researching who’s using the product their documentation, understanding how they it, and most important, ensuring their goals are reflected in the documentation.  But as tech writers research their audience, digging deep into insights such as demographic and preferred device, tech writers can, admittedly...

All of the help resources tech writers create, such software documentation, video tutorials, or blog posts, require research. Imagine creating a document to explain a new feature before, say, even understanding how customers actually use the feature.  Tech writers use several different resources to research the information they need, including conversations with developers and support and reviewin...

As tech writers consider how to stay relevant in the field, many look to GitHub —the git repository service where people host their open-source projects, allowing others to contribute as well. And understandably so: as the demand for tech writers specialized in developer documentation grows, GitHub gives tech writers low-lift opportunities to ramp up their skills.  That’s why, in this episode, we...

As tech writers consider how to stay relevant in the field, many consider getting started in API documentation. And who can blame them—it’s one of the most trending and highest paying roles in tech writing.  But getting started in API documentation can be intimidating, especially if you’ve never worked with code.  That’s why, in this episode, we have Tom Johnson on the podcast: creator of the tech...

As technical writers, we help users learn processes or complete particular tasks. And we offer this help in several ways, including documentation, video tutorials, or learning management systems.  But get this: through gentle nudges and clues throughout the users’ journeys, technical writers can help users achieve their goal without sending them straight to the help site.  How? Through contextual...

John Espirian—technical copywriter and author of the soon-to-be-released book Content DNA —describes content DNA as the "shape" of your brand and then using the power of consistency and congruence to create content that gets remembered and acted on. As technical communicators, the content DNA could take several forms: a freelance technical writer could use their content DNA to own their niche; a c...

Think back to the early years of your career as you considered pursuing a career in technical writing. Unless you happened to pursue a formal education in technical writing; and perhaps land an internship, it’s a challenging period—just like any career change.  You have to learn the jargon of the technical writer; the networks with which they mingle; and the skills they use.  For people working in...

As technical writers, we often wear many different hats within an organization: we write documentation that teaches people how to use a product; we test new features to ensure they’re working properly; we write marketing copy that encourages people to research a product.  But, as you’ll learn in this episode, we wear another hat that perhaps haven’t considered but is essential to the technical wri...

All technical writers can look back on their career and likely think of a specific person or two who helped them advance their career. It could be a former professor who encouraged them to take technical writing courses; a friend who introduced them to the field; or a boss who invested time into their work. For prospective technical writers, these mentors are essential to professional development—...

As technical writers, we excel at turning technical information into documentation that helps users understand complex concepts. We write software documentation that helps users understand a product; we create video tutorials that teach users how to use a feature.  Software documentation is the technical writers’ bread and butter; however, perhaps unknowingly, technical writers could also thrive a...

Throughout technical writers’ careers, they may find themselves working in several different industries: they could start their career writing end-user documentation for a software company; shift to healthcare to write white papers; maybe transition into marketing to write web copy.  And this shouldn’t surprise us: technical writers have several skills that transfer well to different industries. ...

Anyone who’s been in technical writing for a few years or has attended a technical writing conference has witnessed how quickly the field has evolved. Technical writers have had to shift from Microsoft Word docs to single-source authoring; they’ve had to learn how to become project managers; they’ve had to learn basic programming skills.  In short, technical writers have had to learn how to be fle...

As a technical writer, you’ve likely not considered branding yourself and your work—and understandably so: your documentation—no matter how masterful and easy to understand—often isn’t associated with yourself.  You don’t get a byline; you don’t get a image of yourself below the headline; instead, it’s just another piece of content created by “the documentation team.” However, that doesn’t mean th...

As a technical writer, what does it mean to make your writing interesting? It’s a question you perhaps have never pondered—and understandably so: you spend your time ensuring that your docs are correct and easy to understand for users—not so much that the work is interesting to read.  It’s a comfortable approach to technical writing that’s easy to get stuck in—however, to the detriment of our work...

Instructional design, as described by my guest, instructional designer Katie Price, means you create courses to help people—whether it’s students at a university or end-users for a product—learn a new subject.  Take Lynda, for example: the career development website from LinkedIn. You visit the site to learn a new skill—and you find a course that, through videos, powerpoints, graphics, and good ol...

An open source project is a software program that’s open for anyone to use or modify as they see it. For example, a developer—anywhere in the world—could create an open source project that gives users real-time updates on the location of, let’s say, city buses.  The developer had the idea, coded the software, then released a rough version to the world. It likely has bugs and missing features. But...

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.

The technical writer has a variety of valuable skills – such as making documents enjoyable to read and complex topics easy to understand – however, the skill that I think is most valuable for the technical writer is the desire to stay relevant and advance their career.  So we pick up a programming language; we get continued education; we dig into API documentation, hopefully through Tom Johnson’s...

We all know that successful technical writers are more than writers: they’re designers; they’re knowledge managers; they’re support. However, for technical writers in the dev world, they’re expected to gain new skills, particularly, understanding (and writing) programming languages.  That’s a challenging next step for technical writers – and understandably so: We can create docs, but introducing p...

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 episodes. So if you hear a segment that interests you and haven’t dove into...

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,...

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 comes down to one essential...

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 to the three types of knowledge you nee...