Technical writing
Technical writers are a Venn diagram of detective, translator, and librarian.
- Detective: Tracking down information across wikis, SharePoint, Confluence, legacy systems, and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).
- Librarian: Knowing what information is available, what information users actually need, and where to find it.
- Translator: Tech writers interact with a bunch of folks with differing commands of the English language, as well as those whose priority or focus isn’t on the writing. We get it, we’re all busy. That’s where tech writers and editors come in.
Transforming technical communication for modern organizations
30+ years of experience means I’ve touched on all aspects of technical communication. My approach helps organizations not just create documentation, but build sustainable content ecosystems that drive user engagement and support business growth.
Strategic content leadership
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Transform complex technical information into clear, user-focused documentation.
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Implement data-driven content strategies that align with business objectives.
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Build and maintain robust content governance frameworks.
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Design scalable information architectures that grow with your organization.
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Society for Technical Communication (STC) Associate Fellow.
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Award-winning newsletter editor for STC NY Metro Chapter.
I’ve created:
- API reference documentation
- Cheat sheets
- eLearning modules
- Multimedia
- Online help
- PDF documentation
- Podcasts
- Printed manuals
- Technical illustrations
Docs-as-code
I use developer-focused tools like Jira, Markdown, Git, and VS Code to democratize content creation across your organization.
If you’re writing developer-focused (or -generated) content, there’s a good chance you’re working in a docs-as-code environment. Docs-as-code typically uses these tools to auto-generate documentation:
- Some sort of version control, like GitLab, GitHub, or BitBucket.
- A text-based, unstructured language like Markdown, AsciiDoc, or reStructuredText. These languages are easy to learn, easy to write, and are extremely portable. The downsides are often a lack of structure and governance.
- Conversion to HTML and display in a browser. This can be roll-your-own, or incorporated into various services like a CMS, GitHub Pages, static site generators, or other processors.