Monday

Attend Technical Training

Being a technical writer at NI gives me the opportunity to continually learn new skills. NI offers a variety of different courses that provide both technical and career development training. In addition to internal training, we can take formal Customer Education courses to learn about products alongside our customers. Within the Technical Communications department, we also are encouraged to find solutions to address gaps in our knowledge. For example, today, I'm learning about JavaScript in a hands-on training course, which was developed by another technical writer specifically for technical writers.

Most of the documentation that I work on is in online help format, so using JavaScript helps me to make my help files more interactive. I signed up for the course because I wanted to learn enough about JavaScript to implement a new feedback feature in our documentation. The course gives me some good practice. I have a good idea of how to go about creating the feedback script and what resources I can use if I need additional help.

Write an Internal Process Document

When I get back to my desk after training, I use my class materials and notes to write out what I have learned and then post it to my group's wiki page. By taking what I have learned today, applying it to my previous knowledge, and then writing my conclusions down, I can enable new writers to benefit from my training as well. For example, because I have learned how to create a feedback script, I can write down my process for creating it, including rationale for decisions made and implementation details, which will benefit other writers seeking to perform a similar task.