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The data is in: High-quality documentation matters. When I recently attended the Write the Docs conference in Portland, and TechDocsCon at the Open Source Summit in Seattle, two presentations made this point abundantly clear.  At both conferences, I saw a fantastic presentation by Michelle Irvine, a technical writer with Google Cloud. Michelle has been working

On December 7, 2023, Expert Support’s CEO, Paul Gustafson, will be presenting at Write The Docs Australia 2023 in Melbourne. Paul’s presentation, Improving Documentation at Scale, describes a recent initiative started to improve the effectiveness of open source software, the scalable approach, and lessons learned so far. You can learn more about the conference here, and

[UPDATE: Due to technical difficulties with the webinar platform, this event has been postponed until January 10, 2024.] If you’re a career technical communication professional, you undoubtedly encounter people who don’t understand or appreciate the business value of technical writing.  Sometimes, these people are in roles where such understanding is crucial. To be successful, you

Effective technical overviews turn skeptics into customers The technical overview is a critical component of any developer-to-developer documentation suite. Regardless of whether the technology is a fundamental platform technology (such as a programming language) or a simple, incremental product (such as a plugin), the technical overview orients new developers who are just getting started with

Expert Support (https://expertsupport.com) is creating a training program for the next generation of technical writers. As part of that effort, we’re inviting members of our community who are working on API documentation to participate in our first ever course that is open to outside participants. Do you aspire to be a world-class API reference writer?

In a previous post, we discussed the context gap—the difference in understanding between technology experts and technology users—created by innovation. One challenge in bridging this gap is the sheer volume of information available to technology users. When new users attempt to find their way through this vast ocean of information, they inevitably make poor choices.

Discover ways you can defend your budget for technical writers, and see how technical communication excellence improves your business.

Technical writers, documentation managers and product managers often reach out to us when trying to gain the support they need from their engineering colleagues, managers and executives. They often find that gaining such support isn’t always easy or, in extreme circumstances, even possible. They discover that some of the smartest people on the planet have

Expert technical writing leads to better engineering. See how improving your internal documentation leads to enriched technology, greater employee engagement, and increased customer satisfaction.

What improvements could accelerate revenue from your hardware or software products and services? Typical ideas include new features, improved server response times, and better user experience design. But what about better technical writing? Far too often, the tangible benefits of technical communication are overlooked, especially as a catalyst for revenue acceleration. Technical documentation and the

When you ask someone why they love a software product or technology service, you probably won’t hear them say, “It’s that awesome documentation.” Instead, they’ll talk about how easy it is to use the software, or how intuitive the user experience is, or how product support can always answer their questions quickly. The funny thing

Thank you to all who joined the Society for Technical Communication (STC) and Paul Gustafson, CEO of Expert Support, for the virtual event discussing the crucial skills that technical writers and editors will need to capitalize on the coming boom in demand for expert technical communicators. You can now watch and share the on-demand replay!