October 6, 2015 — Every technically minded person needs to know how to communicate technical knowledge clearly and effectively. This talk examines the fundamentals of “explaining hard things to humans,” including:

– What makes technical communication uniquely difficult, and uniquely important.
– Avoiding two major impediments to technical communication: arrogance (relating to gaps in knowledge as a hassle or irritation) and breeziness (attempting to gloss over gaps in knowledge).
– How and why to make technical communication both audience-aware and strategic – tailored to both the knowledge level of the audience and the goal of the communication.
– The value of analogies in technical communication.
– Principles of clear technical writing.

Presentation Slides »

August 3, 2015 — The Principles of Effective Technical Communication – This talk summarizes things I’ve learned over the past 18 months writing WordPress tutorials at WPShout, as well as co-writing an e-book and screencast series on WordPress development. It describes principles for communicating technical knowledge clearly and effectively.