In this week’s episode of the Knowledgebase Ninjas Podcast, Gowri Ramkumar is joined by Idan Englander, Technical Writer at Anaconda. They discuss the difference between software and hardware documentation requirements, how to track and analyse client’s content success, and how to manage document workflow.

Key Facts

• Idan’s LinkedIn
• Anaconda website
• Idan holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Writing and Rhetoric (Professional Writing) and Business Administration from St.Edward’s University 
• Idan is a former Technical Writer for Amazon Publisher Services, Bazaarvoice, and Hilltop Views  
• Idan is a former Technical Communications Intern for National Instrument and a former Journalism Intern for Community Impact Newspaper
• Idan is certified in building front-end web apps from scratch by Codeacademy

Key Takeaways

• During his master’s degree program, Idan did his internships with Community Impact Newspaper and The Jewish Outlook, where he wrote features and web stories for multiple Travis County municipals
• After gaining eleven months of experience in journalism and writing for newspapers, Idan moved on to explore his core competency with an internship at National Instruments as a Technical Communications Intern 
• During his master’s program, Idan’s teachers always advised him to pursue technical writing as his career. His teachers’ and peers’ confidence in his technical documentation skills and his inner drive led him into technical writing. After completing his master’s degree, Idan began his professional career as a Copyeditor at Hilltop Views St. Edward’s University 
• Idan believes that his education and experience at St. Edward’s University taught him the core skills of technical and general content writing 
• Throughout his professional career, Idan has worked at renowned companies such as Bazaarvoice, National Instruments, Amazon Publisher Services, and Anaconda 
• Currently, Idan is working as a Technical Writer at Anaconda where he manages the technical documentation process single-handedly 
• Idan believes that technical writing provides you with the ability to answer complex and hi-tech concepts. “A proficient technical document enhances the readability and understanding of the concepts” 
• Idan shares that knowing what questions need to be answered and your targeted audience helps increase the effectiveness of your document
• At Anaconda, Idan strives to work closely with the product manager, engineers, and marketeers. He believes in “making the process unbreakable, and consistent by  knitting all the stakeholders together throughout the process” 
• Idan begins documentation with Jira, where he creates a ticket that helps him track the progress of each content piece through different stages. He finds Jira is the best tool to track the actions needed for each piece of content 
• At Anaconda, Idan and his team of product managers and engineers meet quite often to better understand different aspects of the process 
• Idan believes that technical writing has become an integral part of business. It works for both internal (management) as well as external (audience) stakeholders
• Idan believes in “constant learning to groom your tech writing knowledge”. He shares that learning adds contrast to your writing and makes it easy and alluring for the audience to develop a comprehensive understanding of the message you are intending to deliver 
• To produce high-quality documentation, writers must; 
• Gather knowledge about the product
• Know your audience for whom you are preparing documents
• Put high-quality pictures along with descriptive content
• Know what your aim is
• Make it an easy pill for the targeted audience to swallow
• Idan further says that innovation and grooming are inevitable factors to boost your success rate and that you should keep a sharp eye on the needs, fault lines, and necessities of your audience

Idan’s biggest influence

• Amy Constant – Senior Integration Technical Writer at Expedia Group, his coworker, and mentor. Idan shares that Amy taught him a lot about how to manage and execute documentation processes.

Key resource

• The Grand Unified Theory of Documentation by David Laing
• Maybe it’s time we re-think docs by Kathy Korevec
• Jira

What documentation-related advice would Idan give to his twenty-year-old self?

“Find a style guide that I would hold as my gold standard”. Idan shares that this gold standard means a steadfast approach on how he would create documentation that he could stick to and always refer back to. Kind of like a guiding rod or a northern star. 

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