Description
Being a good technical communicator is a lot more than knowing how to write a good sentence and use a word processor. John Hedtke, the presenter, says “When I was starting out in the 80s, I would have benefitted strongly from having someone sit me down and say ‘Here are things you should know that will save you time, money, and pain if you learn them now.’ ”
The presentation groups these ideas in four categories:
- Who are you?
- Career development
- People skills
- The Really Important stuff
There will be a handout of the slides available as well.
About the Presenter
John Hedtke is the award-winning author of 27 books. He has over 30 years in the software business and technical writing and close to 15 years in technical publications management. John has developed and written documentation and books for many leading software products and has received 26 writing awards to date. A complete list of books, articles, projects, and awards can be found online at his website, www.hedtke.com.
John owns Double Tall Consulting, a company that offers writing and business consulting services for a variety of private, public, and governmental clients. He also does numerous radio and magazine interviews and frequently travels to do lectures and guest appearances at conferences and seminars. John was the last Region 7 Director on the Society for Technical Communication’s Board of Directors and is a Fellow of the Society. When not otherwise occupied, John writes magazine articles and sleeps late as much as possible. He lives near Tacoma, WA.
Other Cool Stuff Worth Knowing:
- John has donated 85 pints of blood.
- John writes and sells buttons to a button company in California. Some of the clean examples are “I’ve suffered for my art; now it’s your turn,” “Stop me before I log on again,” “Death is nature’s way of telling you to turn off the computer,” “My spirit animal is the gummy bear,” “Failure is not an option—it already comes bundled with the software,” and “How’d you like to curl up in bed with the author of a good book?” It doesn’t pay the rent, but it’s a lot of fun.
- John has been playing banjo and guitar and singing for over 40 years. He says he gets a lot of requests when he plays the banjo, but he goes ahead and plays it anyhow.