Aug 2Snorkel-Screaming through PresentationsSomewhere between middle school and early adulthood I grew afraid of fish touching me. I didn’t realize I had this fear until my mid-twenties, as I was snorkeling off the coast of Maui, I looked down and began ~s c r e a m i n g~ through my snorkel. …Public Speaking7 min readPublic Speaking7 min read
Published inI’m Technically Write·Jul 25Is Generative AI the Death Knell for Tech WritingI had a wild hair a while ago to take this massively open online course in Computer Science. There was a series of recorded video lectures and I’ll never forget one of them, because it was still the best explanation I’ve witnessed to date for how computers work. The professor…Technical Writing7 min readTechnical Writing7 min read
Jul 7Maybe this summerI was reading Let Me Tell You What I Mean the other morning while I was rocking my six month old to sleep, and there’s a chapter where Joan Didion talks about being in a writer’s workshop at Berkeley. She recalled being nineteen and not feeling as though she had…Nostalgia2 min readNostalgia2 min read
Feb 25, 20212021: The Darkest Timeline?Hello Internet, we meet again, it’s me, the Doogie Howser of tech docs. It feels a bit hasty to just launch into tech docs blog-mode without first at least briefly mentioning the Covid and the coup and other insane things that have happened over the past — checks calendar— wait……Writing7 min readWriting7 min read
Published inI’m Technically Write·Sep 25, 2020No One Is Going to Pay You to Be Their Spell CheckI often have a hard time explaining what I do to people, and I really shouldn’t, because I explain things for a living. But there’s a lot more to it than people generally think. Normally conversations about what I do tend to go something like this: Person I Just Met…Technical Writing13 min readTechnical Writing13 min read
Published inI’m Technically Write·Jul 10, 2020Managing Technical Documentation, The High-Level JunkRandom thoughts from a not-that-qualified person — I remember being new to technical writing and being out of my depth when it came to the behind-the-scenes architecture of how things got from my inbox all the way out to the web for customers to consume. Sure, I knew what XML and HTML were, but how in the…Technical Writing9 min readTechnical Writing9 min read
Jul 6, 2020A Defining MomentI was texting a friend earlier about my problems, which are plentiful and of little to no consequence to anyone but me and the people I force to play the role of my therapist, and I said, “I’m going through a thing. I’m having a defining moment I think.” And…Opinion6 min readOpinion6 min read
Published inI’m Technically Write·Apr 27, 2019Technical Writing is DyingNo, not really, no it’s not, nuh uh, nope, nah… — I keep hearing that technical writing is a dying field. I have been hearing this “fact” since I first started doing the technical writing thing back whenst I was a wee babe. However, what I’ve observed in my LinkedIn inbox is very much the opposite. It still seems to be…Technical Writing5 min readTechnical Writing5 min read
Published inI’m Technically Write·Jan 9, 2019Technical Writing: Not SexyI cannot even begin to tell you how many times I’ve seen peoples’ eyes glaze over with boredom when I’ve been asked to describe what I do for a living. Usually the response is, “Uh hah. Interesting…” and then they wander away. Far far away. “Come back! I’ll talk about…Technical Writing6 min readTechnical Writing6 min read
Jul 19, 2018Some Things Never ChangeOne time when we were out on the smoker’s patio, a friend of mine cocked his head to the side and looked at me for a solidly uncomfortable period of time. Then he spoke, “You just firmly believe you’ll be a kid forever, don’t you? Like you just view yourself…Harry Potter2 min readHarry Potter2 min read
