maxwrites.com

Here’s the briefest of summaries of my career so far:

1. Retail (bookstores)
2. Freelance web design
3. Technical support for nursing courses (Jr Developer)
4. Technical support for learning technology (Content Specialist)
5. Learning technologist and technical support (Content Developer II)
6. Learning technologist and product manager (Learning Technology Specialist)
7. Knowledge manager and documentation specialist (Learning Technology Documentation Specialist)

In No. 2-4 there was a lot of writing involved in my job and I grew to love it. I found myself researching best practice and expanding my understanding of how to present and communicate information for a job that wasn’t focused on that at all.

After I was promoted into #5, something clicked and I knew it was time to pursue a career where the primary focus of my position would be documentation. (Of course, we all have other duties as assigned.)

Learning Technology Documentation Specialist

I finally got rewarded for years of patience, helping everyone around me see the importance of documentation and all that goes into it by managing the team’s resource library. Things finally came to a head after several years, and I asked my boss whether a position to do that full-time would ever be possible.

We went back and forth for a while until two very immediate needs came around:

• We built a unit to support the technical portion of the LTI integrations into D2L (the university’s LMS) so the courses could include simulations and engaging scenario-based activities to help students learn and retain information. Someone has to document the setup steps for the course builders, instructors, and students.
• As our client team worked with more vendors, so rose need for better onboarding, internal software documentation with learning methodology and technical best practice included, and shared resources that multiple vendors would be using. Suddenly there was a huge gap in knowledge management. That’s where my name came up, and I’m glad it did.

As of May 2024, I’m a Learning Technology Documentation Specialist! I still have some work leftover from the job I was doing a mere two months ago, but my primary responsibilities are a dream.

Job Description Medley

In November 2023, I started to reflect on my career desires. This was only a few months before I found out about the new position. I was having meetings with my boss about what a writing position might look like, were we to go down that path.

I pulled out the following:

1. Writing and editing guides, acting as a “documentation SME” for others who write guides – to keep consistency in templates, formatting, language, etc.
2. Developing knowledge management systems, processes, and practices
3. Acquiring and synthesizing information from interviews, meetings, trainings, etc., to produce thorough documentation
4. Identifying opportunities to introduce efficiencies and streamline new or existing processes
5. This, with the understanding that I’d spend about 30% of my time on other non-knowledge priorities such as product management, testing, and support

I am so glad I went through that reflection, as now I have a clear measurement of how well the new job “fits” my checklist. As the LT doc specialist:

1. Writing and editing guides, acting as a “documentation SME” for others who write guides – to keep consistency in templates, formatting, language, etc.
2. Developing knowledge management systems, processes, and practices
3. Acquiring and synthesizing information from interviews, meetings, trainings, etc., to produce thorough documentation
4. Identifying opportunities to introduce efficiencies and streamline new or existing processes
5. Collaborating with product owners, developers, and technical support teams to establish standards and best practices
6. Supporting business partners in developing and managing change through documentation in alignment with organizational objectives cross-functional teams
7. Other duties as assigned (product management, testing, support)

I won’t lie, it’s a lot, but I can do all of it. I’ve been doing all of it for a while now.

Thoughts so far

It’s only been a few weeks so I don’t have a big reflection ready on how it’s going, but so far I’m happy as can be! Suddenly all the little stressors throughout the day are less meaningful because I know that I’m going to spend the majority of my week doing something I love.

Do you ever do something that fits so well that you completely bypass imposter syndrome? I’ve literally been training for this for years, reading technical writing textbooks, listening to podcasts, attending the Write the Docs virtual conference, and managing guides in my “free time” at work. It makes sense that I am good at it and that I enjoy it.

Support for support

The way I’ve been framing myself as a writer is “support for support.” I am writing documentation and managing knowledge that helps people get their jobs done. Though they aren’t all technical support teams, they are supporting the online classroom experience for students attending the university. From course creation to build to support and maintenance to revision to deactivation, I probably had a hand in creating that documentation.

It’s nice to finally have a title to reflect that work, which for me has been a huge accomplishment. I’ve also upgraded as I’m contributing to the creation of student-facing guides, so I’m onto bigger (much bigger) audiences and I’m already more succinct in my delivery. It’s taken seven years of patience and working on docs “as an aside” to my usual work, and I finally have a documentation-focused job. I don’t want to disregard how I got here, though.

When I think about what I loved most about all my jobs so far, I see how much I have developed some of the essential skills for writing professionally:

• collaborative process development,
• writing and organizing information,
• sticking to standards,
• improving workflows,
• developing trainings and onboarding to give new employees an awesome first three months,
• mentoring, and
• learning industry best practices for writing, designing, and communicating information so I can keep improving my work.

What a career I’ve built! I celebrated by buying my cat some new treats, getting a hamburger, and sleeping in.

Because of this change, the scope of this site is going to change slightly. I’ll be doing some work in the background to finesse and refine my approach!

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