My daughter made me watch a 4.5 hour Minecraft “movie” on YouTube. It wasn’t really a movie, it was several videos stitched together by a very talented gamer, Katherine Elizabeth. We came away from that experience with the question: “If...
Last year, I had the privilege of contributing to the 2nd edition of the highly regarded technical writing guidebook, The Technical Writing Process. The original edition was authored by Kieran Morgan back in 2015. To update it to the 2nd...
In December 2023 I did a thing I’ve never done before: I hosted a panel discussion. The panel was my idea (yay me), so I got to choose who to invite and work out how the whole thing was going...
When you sit down to write, how do you ease the transition from everyday activities to the more creative? You may have rituals that you find non-negotiable: Cup of tea. Headphones on. Do not disturb. These hint at an unconscious...
My five year old daughter and I do a lot of creative activities together: painting, drawing, coloring, playdoh, crafting. Last year, we started playing games together on a digital device. This shared screen time is as rich and fulfilling as...
A year of learnin’ and growin’. This year I decided to slow down. It took me many months to wake up to the pace I was moving at. A great book (Essentialism) helped me jettison the things that weren’t serving...
I was privileged and proud to be on the T3CON Jury this year, to help judge the TYPO3 awards website competition.
An unclear antecedent is what happens when you can’t tell which noun a pronoun is supposed to stand in for.
Here’s what’s on my plate (or should I say, shaping my algorithm?) these days.
Aim to write concisely and make every word in your sentence count. But don’t make it dry - your words should still have life and color.
I used to be a really good writer. I mean, this thing I wrote back in 2014 is finger-kiss-good mwah. What’s it got? It’s light but weighty. It conveys a point neatly, has my voice, is just the right length,...
This year I encountered the phrase “career dysmorphia”. I think I have this! Ever since going freelance, I have struggled to value my own achievements and see how much I’ve grown. I find that writing these yearly wrap-ups help me...
In October 2022, I was pleased to be interviewed by a Googler friend of mine who was presenting at Burning Pen, Google’s internal tech writer conference. We discussed all things open source from a tech writer point of view.
Wallets are integral to interacting with blockchain technology. Unfortunately, the wallet mental model is misleading, and the term “wallet” is a bit of a misnomer.
I’m very pleased and proud to receive a Google Open Source Peer Bonus award. Yay!
I encourage technical writers and documentarians to check out episode #2 of The Interface Podcast: Do content designers need portfolios?
In February this year I used the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) to buy my eth name—my first experience doing anything on a blockchain.
With over 220 channels and more than 15,000 people, the Write the Docs Slack can get noisy. Here is how I use Slack to navigate one of the best free tech writing resources around!
Tom Johnson wrote a series about the ‘trends to follow or forget in tech comm’. He’s put a lot of work into pulling it together and I encourage you to check it out. I feel like I could call BINGO!...
Open source projects have many visible cues (or signals) that let people make rich inferences about the health of the project and the tone of its community. These signals inform their decision about using a product or joining a project....
I’m pleased to see an ever-increasing amount of content being created by tech writers for tech writers.
Here is a round-up of some podcasts (and one YouTuber) that I’m particularly enjoying right now.
A writing portfolio is a collection of samples of your own writing—basically, it shows what you can do. A strong portfolio goes further and shows how you think. Whether it’s private or public, it’s a good idea to have one,...
Web3 is a polarizing issue. It’s difficult to find balanced views on the topic, which means you have to traverse the two extremes (for and against) to form your own view.
Another challenging year during which I achieved more than I thought I would.
As a technical writer, I can relate to DevRel.
You don’t often see a technical book amongst the list of DevRel content creation.
August 2021 marked the final episode of my favorite podcast, Answer Me This! Do yourself a favor and check it out.
A list of newsletters that I subscribe to for work and play.
I’m proud of everything I achieved during such a challenging year.
I presented this talk at the Write the Docs Meetup Melbourne in February 2020.
The inaugural Google Season of Docs program ran from March through to November 2019, to bring open source projects and technical writers together.
I love collaborative writing. I think it is sometimes the best way to achieve excellence in a piece of written work.
How much problem solving do you do in your role as a tech writer? I used to do quite a lot. The company I was working at had a start-up mentality and culture. New ideas were encouraged and we usually...
Let’s face it: DITA is hard work. There is a steep learning curve and once you get it, you feel like you deserve an “I’ve climbed Everest” t-shirt.
The craft of crochet is fundamentally the same, but the stitch names are different in the UK and the US. The same stitches have different names. A single crochet (sc) in America is a double crochet (dc) in England. You...
English is a living language.
Some time ago I applied for a tech writing job and part of the application process required me to fill out some questions online. They were standard scenario questions like “Describe a time you had to handle multiple conflicting priorities” but one...
I stumbled across a great 404 page the other day over at GitHub. I’m a Star Wars fan so this really tickled me. It’s got the parallax affect too. Kinda cool.
Ever had to write a fortune?
I have only ever documented software.
Being able to reclaim work is very important as a writer and a crafter.
A cool example of instructions without words:
