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 »

September 20, 2015 — Once you’ve designed, coded, and deployed your clients amazing new WordPress site, the job feels “done”. We’ve all dropped the ball here, so my goal is to provide a guide to efficiently training your clients on how to use and maintain their new site. This makes for happier clients with more successful businesses. Oh, and you don’t get a call 6 months later because they “broke” their site.

Takeaways

Learn how to efficiently train clients on how to use & maintain their WordPress site
See how getting the client “into the dashboard” early on makes a huge difference
Get a glimpse of my process for providing training in person or remotely

June 8, 2015 — This talk is about the different options out there, your clients’ learning styles, and how to better understand what your clients need while making sure they are comfortable moving forward. And the most common needs people have when looking for support and documentation, as well as strategies for making your documentation easier for your customers to understand.

November 5, 2014 — Contributor Track: Traning