Technology writing everyone can understand.
Willem Popp
November 26, 2022
Welcome!
This is the 3rd edition of the Technology Wordsmith newsletter!
Since I began this journey four months ago, many people have asked me what is a “Technology Wordsmith”?
It’s a great question but not easy to answer as it’s such a new thing*.
(* So new that no one has ever thought of it before… check this out yourself. Just Google the term and see how high it ranks.)
So in this newsletter, I will explain what I mean by technology wordsmithing and how I became the first Technology Wordsmith in the world! …. (Bold claim, but you gotta live on the edge sometimes).
So:
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- What is “technology wordsmithing”?
- Why do I call myself a “technology wordsmith”?
- Why should you care?
1. What is Technology Wordsmithing?
Journalism and technology writing: a strange combination, isn’t it?
Journalism is all about simple news stories and trashy headlines, right?
Quick snippets of information you glance at between other activities.
Always kept simple so you can digest them quickly over your morning coffee.
Whereas technology writing is “serious” stuff: full of complex terminology and complicated ideas. Only the geeks and techno-heads read technology documents. Yes?
That about sums up these two domains:
– one is simple to understand and digest while you are on the go,
– the other is full of heavy-going, serious content that takes time and effort to digest.
So we “skim” our news and “skip over” our technology reading. But it does not need to be so.
What if we could combine a news story’s “ease of reading” with the “detailed in-depth understanding” presented in a technical document?
What if our readers could pick up a technology strategy or client presentation and quickly grasp the main concepts from the title or introductory paragraphs?
What if our white paper and bids were written in plain English so that every person in our target audience could connect with the content, whatever their role or level of education?
Wouldn’t that make our technology writing that much more accessible?
Wouldn’t that increase our audience reach and understanding, allowing more and more of our customers to understand what we are on about?
This is the bridge I want to build. Between simple, plain English writing and detailed, complex technical concepts.
A bridge to allow everyone and anyone to better understand the complex modern world we live in.
2. Why do I call myself a “technology wordsmith”?
So what makes me think I can do this?
How can I simplify technology writing to make it accessible to everyone?
How can I bridge this gap when no one has bridged it before?
Because I ALREADY DO IT and have been DOING IT FOR YEARS!
I have been cleaning up and re-editing complex technical documents for years and years.
I just never called it “technology wordsmithing”, as it was just something I did to make sense of the stuff I came across day after day.
Let me explain.
A Journalist is Born
After I left university many moons ago, I drifted around the world, working as a print journalist in four countries on three continents.
I started out doing a cadetship with the West Australian before joining their regional masthead, the Kalgoorlie Miner, in the Australian gold fields.
Writing for a daily regional paper is the best journalism training.
It was a small paper with only half a dozen journos, but we had to fill the 20-odd news pages every day, so nearly all our copy made it to print.
What a great way to learn: by writing day after day and seeing your writing getting edited and printed with direct feedback from the sub-editors and chief of staff.
I did that every day for two years, so my writing became very, very sharp.
Subbing my way around the world
I then set off on a 10-year journey, travelling and living in different parts of the world.
First stop was Vietnam, where I worked for the Vietnam News and Vietnam Economic Review in between partying and living an “expat” lifestyle.
Alas, the good times came to an end eventually, so I headed off to Thailand where I scored another subbing gig on the Bangkok Post working on their features section and the international desk for 12 months.
I followed my then-girlfriend (now wife) back to her home in London, where I picked up more sub-editing gigs to pay the bills (which started to mount as domestic bliss loomed!)
I did a raft of casual shifts for the National News agency (a la paparazzi for hire, yikes) before scoring a full-time job with the Press Association editing their Teletext service.
Teletext = Fast or Gone!
Teletext was probably the hardest gig I’ve ever done.
We had to edit 40-plus stories per shift using three different software systems.
Each story had to fit into one television screen with a very limited word count.
However, it still had to tell the complete story on that single screen (there was no scrolling!)
The software systems were completely incompatible: the only way you could work fast enough was to use shortcut keys which were, of course, different on each system!
What a nightmare.
But boy, did it make me fast.
There was no option. You either did the allotted work within your 8-hour shift, or you didn’t have a job. It was that simple.
I survived six months before securing a far more sane job as a sub-editor on Building Design, a weekly architecture magazine for architects across the UK.
I was with BD for two years before making the transition to technology.
Practice makes you perfect … and very fast!
With all this writing on a daily basis and sub-editing at speed under my belt, I had become a pretty good and very fast writer.
(As I type this, I am averaging around a 1,000 words an hour writing off the top of my head… and that’s with the dog distracting me for a pat every 5 mins!)
The move to technology
After some 10 years working as a journo, I made the transition to technology with the parent company that owned BD.
I started out on the Help Desk before quickly moving to a Business Analyst role – I was terrible at tech support – and then Project Management as I helped my company’s IT department better understand the needs of their journalist workforce.
This was the beginning of a technology-focused career that spanned over 20 years and a plethora of roles with a dozen companies.
And all along the way, I continued to use my journalism skills to review, write, and edit countless documents ranging from simple one-page PowerPoint presentations to master services agreements spanning many hundreds of pages.
As I read a document, I would get frustrated by clumsy phrasing and poor expression, so I would correct them as I read: often just to make it easier for me to read but also to help anyone that followed me understand it as well.
I did it “organically” without thinking because I was used to it.
Read, edit, re-phrase, edit, save…over and over and over.
Day after day, without flinching or thinking.
It just came naturally.
So that is what makes me a “technology wordsmith”.
My ability to read, edit, and update complex technology documents very quickly.
3. Why should you care?
Great question.
Why should you care about your technology writing?
Who cares if your document is hard to read? After all, you are the expert, aren’t you?
You know your topic better than anyone, so you should be able to write however you feel, right? No matter how complex and dense the copy is. Right?
Wrong.
Just because you understand what you are writing does not mean anybody else does.
In fact, the very opposite is true.
The fact that you are writing something means you want to explain it to someone.
It means you are trying to get your point across. To convey some meaning to someone, your audience.
So the easier you make it to read, the more likely your audience will understand it.
And that is why we should all care about our technology documents.
We should make them as easy to read as possible so everyone can access them and understand them.
And that is what I intend to do as the “technology wordsmith”.
Make complex technical documents easy to understand for everyone.
Join me on my journey every week as I share my tips and tricks in this weekly newsletter.
This is me!
Willem Popp: Technology Wordsmith
How can I help you?
If you need help writing plain English technology documents, get in touch with me to see how I can help.
I am “open for business” and available right now to help you write easy-to-read, plain English and simple-to-understand documents.
Click on the link below to be added to my email list.
The Technology Wordsmith
Tips and Tricks to write better technology documents in plain English