The written word..

Writing, in any form, has always been very central to who I am, and technical authoring is simply an extension of that basis overlapping my professional life in IT.

From an early, albeit quite mad attempt at modern poetry and travel diaries (for personal consumption only) it became clear rather early that words came easy to me. Adding to the old adage of "those who can, do; those who can't, teach" a third part of "and those who won't, write" I became a journalist and correspondent before I was shanghaied early on by computers and all they promised. Technical writing quickly became a natural extension of the various roles I was contracted for: for one, I usually could supply documentation in the IT's lingua franca, ergo English; and where native documents were the requirement, more often than not I could supply these, too.

Although my earlier roles were focused on providing support (software & hardware, all lines), OS migrations, and project management, invariably it fell to me to provide the reports and documentation required by the function and its tangential tasks. And while I have, in the past, worked as a translator, proof-reader, and editor, my official entry as a technical author began with Electrabel-Suez in 2008.

And it does not always have to be full-fledged documentation: copy-writing and web site content creation are as important as turning out user manuals or help files by the pound. My more recent efforts in that direction can be inspected under the heading on the web, or more directly at my current test bench (a site under construction).

These days I write originals in both English and German, and will translate from Dutch or French to English or German (but not the other way around), and this not only covers manuals, software or hardware documentation, and process documents, but business and legal documents as well. From business plans and presentations to service level or budget agreements, I cover the entire gamut of required documentation.

My current, ongoing workload involves creating & editing on-line help systems for .NET web applications, as well as writing scripts for on-line video tutorials, for a specialised software solutions provider in London. The primary tools of trade are MadCap Flare 4.3, MSO 2007, Corel's PaintShop Photo X3.

My preferred environment is Microsoft's Office, but I also use Adobe's Framemaker and InDesign DTP-oriented packages, and have begun to set more store by AuthorIT, and still more in MadCap's application suite, especially for web help system. I am somewhat wary of pre-packaged document management solutions, such as are on offer by Honeywell and Xerox, since it has been my experience that every company requires a specialized and highly customized approach. Hence my preference of MSO & MadCap - these can be tailored with relative ease to meet specific requirements.

Whatever the writing tool, today's end users do prefer an image over quite a few hundred words, and here my proficiency with such tools as Adobe's Photoshop, Fireworks, Flash and Premier does come in handy - it means I can create the final documents, regardless of the media they will be displayed on. Even if that media is streamed video.

A portfolio is, of course, a place where one shows off sample of previous accomplishments; unfortunately I cannot post former customer's in-house documents on the world-wide web without contravening all manner of ethical and legal objections coming to the fore. I can, however, supply prospective clients with references and (limited) samples when the need arises.

Instead of actual content, maybe some testimonials (from LinkedIn) will do: