What I learned from my pattern recognition talk at STC12

My session on pattern recognition for technical communicators was a very rewarding experience which taught me a lot. I thank Paul Mueller, Conference Manager, and Alyssa Fox, Program Committee Chair, for inviting me to speak, even though this was my first summit. Their friendly, indefatigable support set the tone for a high-energy, well-run conference. If you [...]

Leah Guren’s Tales of Terror: Avoiding Project Disasters at STC12

Leah Guren presented a spunky, fast-paced session of project train wrecks that offered many lessons to managers and writers in tech comm projects. She presented disasters in five categories: Communication, people, politics, implementation and global issues. “Failure to communicate” When poor communication derails tech comm projects, it’s often due to missing information. Specifically, a project [...]

Hiring 2 tech writers in Copenhagen

We are looking for 2 tech writers for financial software in Copenhagen, Denmark: 1 Senior Technical Writer with at least 5 years experience 1 Technical Writer, graduates welcome SimCorp is a leading provider of investment management software and service solutions. For details, see the company job page or ask me via twitter @techwriterkai or via [...]

Tribute to a fellow tech writer

PJ, a colleague and fellow tech writer, died last Thursday. It’s the first time that someone who I’ve worked with has died, and it’s made me pause and think about how well I know and appreciate my colleagues. He was the first tech writer I met when I joined the company in 2008. He had [...]

Summing up Scriptorium’s tech comm experts webcast

In Scriptorium’s “Ask the experts” webcast on 17 April 2012, Sarah O’Keefe, Nicky Bleiel and Tony Self reflected on frequently asked questions and trends. Here’s a timed play-by-play synopsis, so you can access the bits in the recording that interest you. I try to provide teasers, not spoilers, so scoot right over to Scriptorium’s blog [...]

Advice about breaking into tech comm

Some time ago, a lab technician asked me how to go about breaking into technical communications. I’ve already replied to J privately, but I thought the issue could be of interest to you as well, so here’s J’s question and my reply, both edited for publication. J wrote me: I’ve recently become very interested in [...]

My webinar slides as PDF handout

If you’ve attended my webinar “Getting ahead as a lone writer”, you might be interested in the slides in PDF: They were supposed to be made available to attendees by the STC, but apparently that hasn’t happened as I’ve just learned yesterday. If you have any more questions about the webinar or being a lone [...]

Kai’s Tech Writing Blog is 2 years old!

Kai’s Tech Writing Blog is 2 years old now – and it’s pretty amazing to me…! When I started blogging, I had no idea what it means to write publicly and (sort of) regularly about tech comm. And it’s been great, mainly thanks to you, my readers and followers: 148 posts have made it worthwhile, [...]

Short-sighted seduction: Tech comm as a task

Treating tech comm as a task, not a profession, is seductive, but harmful. This is the story of how a seemingly sensible management decision about documentation has inflicted avoidable damage on a product. Read how the idea that “anybody can write” can backfire. Best intentions Imagine a software company. They decide to revamp one of [...]

On being a tech comm influencer

MindTouch’s list of The 400 Most Influential in #Techcomm and #ContentStrategy does a great job of invigorating our profession, but has a few problems as well. [This blog post is victim to my regular blogging schedule: It was written before, but published after David Farbey's more elaborate post where all the action is in the comments and [...]