Becoming a Technical Writer

I have received quite a few emails asking me about becoming a Technical Writer. I appreciate these emails and do what I can to steer people in the right direction.

After a couple of emails asking similar questions, it seemed prudent to create a post dedicated to this issue. Here is the advice I have for you concerning becoming a technical writer:

What is a Technical Writer?

The most important thing about being a technical writer is being able to convey, in simple terms to a wide audience, how a product works and how it is used. You can have the best product in the world but if your audience is unable to figure out the features and functionality then the product might be perceived as crap.
The main skill of a technical writer is the ability to speak with developers and subject matter experts and then translate this information into useful units of information for your audience – whoever that audience may be: developers, network administrators, end users. Your job is to document concepts, how the product works and how to use it.

Technical Writing Cycle

To create good usable content, you need to follow a creation cycle. Here is an example of a production cycle:

• Read specs or initial product information – create rough drafts and schedules for content
• Get an idea of features and functionality by using the product, and talking to Developers and Subject Matter Experts
• Write initial content to be sent out for review
• Cycle of Review / Revise – repeat until content is ready
• Content delivery and possible localization into other languages, if appropriate

Becoming a Technical Writer

I have a couple of posts that to review as technical writing samples:

• Zoho Writer gets Upgrade
• Windows Live Writer – Set Publish Date

These posts will give you some examples of technical writing. I have others if you want to dig through my blog a bit. If you are really interested in becoming a technical writer, you should start building up a portfolio on your blog, or on your computer. Pick some ‘how to’s’ you want to write about, and then document them. If you get the chance have your friends review this content to ensure that you have written the information that people need to get the task done. This will start giving you some experience and will give you samples to hand over to potential employers when the time is right.

Check if your local college offers any technical writing classes. Check out the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications – you can purchase a used version on Amazon.com. The style guide will give you a foundation for technical writing, such as how to write about the interface, and what the different interface components are called. I will admit the style guide is Windows biased, but it will still give you a solid foundation about technical writing. I am sure there are other excellent style guides out there, but this is the one I am most familiar with.
Technical writers can earn a decent living, and doesn’t necessarily mean you will earn less then developers. Remember you are the voice of the product, and without a good voice a product will not do well. Good technology companies recognize this fact.

Microsoft.com/college is a site that contains great information about the requirements for becoming a technical writer at Microsoft as well as information concerning other careers. It is an excellent resource for understanding the different careers available at Microsoft.

Technorati Tags: Technical Writer, Careers in Technology

Career Talk at PSU Went Well

Here is a quick email I received from Allison, who helped coordinate the Halo 3 event at Portland State and the fancy flyer.

Thank you! You were, as usual, very informative, had everyone engaged and were funny to boot. Great job!!

 

It is nice to know that your efforts are appreciated, and I am always happy to help the community.

I also saw some people from my career talk for the ISSA back in May, and they were willing to stay for this talk also. I must be doing something right, if people are willing to sit through my talking not only once, but twice.

Part of being an evangelist, is to help others. With these career talks, I am just trying to do my part.

Technorati Tags: Careers in Technology, Portland State University, PSU

Career Talk at Portland State University

The following is the flyer that advertising the Halo 3 tournament, and my presentation about careers in technology.

I am ‘teh Fan-cay’. If you are in the area, stop by, play Halo 3, and listen to me talk. This sounds like it will be an interesting evening.

COME ENJOY A DAY OF GAMING!

Portland State University and the Microsoft Innovation Center will be holding a Halo 3 tournament event at PSU on November 19th. Come and play XBoxes, win prizes, enjoy food and beverages, listen to Microsoft speaker, Thomas Willingham talk about careers in technology and learn what exciting courses your school offers in the world of gaming and development.

There will also be several X-Box 360’s for those who are not playing in the tournament to have a chance to play Halo 3, and other games.

When:

November 19th, 2007

Where

Portland State University, EB 325

Time

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Speakers will include

Sergio Perry, Microsoft Student Partner
Microsoft Technical Writer, Thomas Willingham

If you are planning on coming to the event, please e-mail wuchi@cs.pdx.edu with the subject: “XBOX event: <name> will attend”. This is just to give us a rough estimate of the number of people showing up.

See you there!

Technorati Tags: Careers in Technology,Portland State University,PSU

Upcoming Presentations Delayed

Sorry for the late notice, but Apparently there have been some scheduling conflicts, and the Careers in Technology Presentations, I was planning to give have been delayed. The dates were as follows:

• October 30th – Portland Community College Sylvania Campus – Microsoft Across America technology truck will be there.
• October 31st – Portland State University – XBox 360 / Halo 3 set up, with associated career talk.

Apparently the Microsoft Across America technology truck was re-routed to help with communications in Southern California due to the fires. I want to be upset, but knowing the truck was re-routed for such a good cause I just can’t. It is times like these that I am proud to be a Microsoft Employee – I know that our company does what it can to help out local communities.

As soon as I receive updated information I will post it.

Technorati Tags: Careers in Technology, Portland Community College, PCC, Portland State University, PSU Microsoft Tech Bus, Community

Upcoming Presentations Dates – Careers in Technology

I will be presenting at a couple of upcoming events. I will post additional information about these events when I receive it.

• October 30th – Portland Community College Sylvania Campus – Microsoft Across America technology truck will be there.
• October 31st – Portland State University – XBox 360 / Halo 3 set up, with associated career talk.

Both events will be held from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm.

If you attend either of these events, stop by and say hello.

Technorati Tags: Careers in Technology , Portland Community College , PCC , Portland State University , PSU Microsoft Tech Bus

Speaking at PCC – Careers in Technology

Last Tuesday I gave a presentation on careers available in technology. This event was set up by Portland Community College Sylvania campus, and the Microsoft Innovation Center.

We had an XBox 360 set up for students to play Halo 3, I talked about careers for 25 minutes, a program manager from Ascentium spoke and there was a raffle. Students seemed to receive the presentation well. The presentation was given in the Campus Commons at PCC Sylvania campus. The Campus Commons is a large indoor mall like area with a book store, administrative offices and the cafeteria. At the beginning of the talk I was handed a microphone. As I was speaking into the microphone, I noticed my voice had become the ‘overhead, booming voice from everywhere.’ I could hear my voice coming back to me from about half a football field away. That part was a little surreal, and took a little getting used to.

I met some motivated students that asked some great questions about securing a career in the technical field. The event was focused on the recent release of the game Halo 3, and the careers available in the game industry. During my presentation, I focused on the following technical oriented career areas. Click a career category to find additional information about those careers.

Career Opportunities

Software and Hardware Development

• Program Manager
• Software Design Engineer
• Software Design Engineer in Test
• Hardware Design Engineer
• Test Apprentice Program

User Experience

• Technical Writer
• Programmer Writer
• Usability Engineer
• User Experience Researcher
• User Experience Designer

IT Operations

Marketing

Sales

Technical Consulting / Services

Besides speaking about the different careers available, I gave the students resources for additional information and tools to help them in the future.

Microsoft Career Information

Microsoft’s college career site contains information for the college student. This site is a wealth of information and resources about career requirements and understanding the corporate culture at Microsoft. If you are attending college and interested in a career at Microsoft, it is worthwhile to review the College Careers site.

http://www.microsoft.com/college/

Another excellent resource is Channel 8, a community and video site dedicated to students.

Developer Resources

It is important to not only understand career specifics, but know the tools that are available to help you reach your goals. The following resources are developer specific.

Visual Studio Developer Center

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/default.aspx

Free Hobbyist Visual Studio Edition

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/express/default.aspx

XNA Game Studio Express – Developer Center

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/directx/aa937791.aspx

The students that I talked to seemed interested, or at least faked it well. Some students even hung around and asked questions after the raffle was finished, so I guess I started some conversations, which was the goal.

Technorati Tags: Portland Community College , PCC , Sylvania Campus , Careers in Technology , Microsoft , College

Resources for Creating using XNA Game Studio Express

Yesterday I posted about how the XNA Framework Games at Swedish Game Awards 2007 gives an idea of what you can do using Microsoft Visual Studio and XNA Game Studio Express, and I figured that it would make sense to follow up that post with resources available for getting started using XNA Game Studio Express.

Creating a game is an excellent way to become familiar with the tools used by developers and programmers.

From the XNA Games Studio Express site:

XNA Game Studio Express is based on Visual C # Express Edition, and allows you to create games for Windows PC’s and the Xbox 360. XNA Game Studio Express contains the following:

• The XNA Framework, a set of managed code development libraries that make it possible for game developers to be more productive when creating games for Windows and the Xbox 360.
• The XNA Framework Content Pipeline, which is a set of tools that allow developers to more easily incorporate 3D content into their games.
• XNA Game Studio Express also contains a full set of documentation, how-tos, and starter kits that demonstrate how best to use the content pipeline and XNA Framework.

Here are some resources to help you get going with XNA Game Studio Express:

XNA – Creator Clubs Online – Excellent resource for learning how to use XNA. This resource includes samples, and video tutorials to help you get going. There is even a link – New to XNA Game Studio Express, Start here.

There are quite a few tools on the Microsoft Developer Network site:

• XNA Developer Center – Microsoft’s Developer Network resource. This resource has a lot of links such as access to forums, FAQs and help getting started using XNA.
• XNA Game Studio Express Product Documentation, in case you actually want to RTFM.
• Learn XNA Game Studio Express a good place to get started, with links to additional resources.

XNA Team Blog – Get information directly from the team working on the product. I read this blog to get the initial information about the Swedish Game Awards. They have great posts such as this XNA Game Studio Express Video Tutorials Available for getting started.

Channel 9 has videos and posting on developer technologies, including content for XNA, such as Looking at XNA – Part One.

These are resources to initially get you started. As you start reading in the forums, you will learn access to additional resources.

If you get stuck and have questions, use the forums, and ask questions on the blogs. When you are just learning how to use these tools, no one expects you to know everything up front. Search the forum for your question to ensure that the same question isn’t being repeated. Searching the forums might also give you additional ideas of information you hadn’t thought of yourself.

Technorati tags: XNA, XNA Game Studio Express, Career, Career Development, Technology, Microsoft Development Platform, MSDN, XNA Team Blog

XNA Framework Games at Swedish Game Awards 2007

I read a post from Michael Klucher Program Manager – XNA Community Game Platform. In his post Awesome XNA Framework Games at the Swedish Game Awards 2007, he mentions a new award category – Best XNA Game.

During my talks on Careers in Technology when I start talking about access to resources, I normally mention that students should download the Free Hobbyist version of Visual Studio, and they should look at XNA Game Studio Express. I figure if you are going to learn programming you may as well be doing something fun.

• Winner was Gravitron Ultra (http://www.gravitronultra.com)
• Runner up / nominee was Bullet Hell Tactics (http://shmup.blogspot.com/)

These games are an example of what can be done using XNA Game Studio Express.

Nic Fillingham Microsoft Evangelist has a video about XNA on On10.net covering GDC 2007 – XNA Challenge; Four Games in Four Days. On this post is link to source code for the XNA games created during the competition.

These are great resources if you are interested in learning to how to program using Microsoft Visual Studio and XNA Game Studio Express.

Technorati tags: Visual Studio, XNA, Career, Career Development, Technology, Swedish Game Awards, GDC, 2007, Microsoft Development Platform, Gravitron Ultra, Bullet Hell Tactics

ISSA Meeting at PSU – Feedback

I received good feedback from my talk on careers at Portland State for the Information Systems Students and Alumni(ISSA).

Some of the feedback I received:

Thomas, you did an absolutely wonderful job speaking yesterday and I think I speak for all of us when I say that we learned something new.

You are a very clear speaker, very engaging with your audience and you made it fun. 🙂

Thanks again to the group, you hung with me through the initial technical difficulties – it turns out my built-in wireless was causing issues with my laptop booting, but has now been resolved.

It is nice to know that I had a favorable impact. When I worked as a Microsoft Certified Trainer, MCT, and a Certified Novell Instructor, CNI we used to talk about edutainment = education + entertainment. There is no reason that giving information can’t also be fun.

Technorati tags: Career, Technology, PSU, Information System Students and Alumni, ISSA, Portland State University

ISSA Meeting at PSU

I meet a good group of Business / Information System students at the ISSA Meeting at Portland State University, PSU.

I initially had some problems with my laptop – I have been trying trial / beta software on it, so it isn’t overly surprising that it is starting to die. I will have to start using Virtual PC 2007 – from the product website –

Use Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to run multiple operating systems at the same time on the same physical computer. Switch between virtual machines with the click of a button. Use virtual machines to run legacy applications, provide support, train users, and enhance quality assurance.

That way if there is a problem on the machine, I can just start the image back from scratch. Easier to start an image from scratch, than have my laptop re-imaged. More about Virtual PC later.

The first 10 minutes or so I gave the demo without any slides – I just gave an overview of my careers in technology talk – basically a geared up version of the one I gave at the NW Youth Career Expo.

I reviewed the careers that are available and then the students asked questions. They asked some good question – remember being in college about to graduate and you weren’t sure what your realistic next steps were? I tried to bridge that gap, and let them know what types of careers are available and what it will take to get them there.

Hopefully a few from the talk will drop by ScissorMonkey, I hope they found the talk informative, they seemed to, but they are students so they are used to faking interest.

If any of you from PSU or other students are here, feel free to ask your career oriented questions and I will do what I can to help. Being that many schools offer different classes, I am probably not the best person to ask specific class questions to, but I will try to offer career direction advice if you want.

Technorati tags: Career, Technology, PSU, Information System Students and Alumni, ISSA, Portland State University