kathymadison

About Kathy Madison

Comtech Consultant and CIDM Member Liaison

Unconscious Bias Creep in Technical Writing

headshot of a smiling women with long dark hair and a diamond stud nose earringheadshot of a smiling women with long dark hairAnita Chaudhari and Vidya Vasudevan, VMware
July 15, 2022

As technical writers, we don different hats at different stages of producing technical content. We interact with people who perform various roles and have varying degrees of technical capabilities. Our audiences are of different genders, are from different geographical locations, different religions, cultures, and ethnicities, and might have different disabilities.

As writers, we do audience analysis, plan, design, and document our content accordingly. So where are the gaps? What we might be overlooking are the biases that creep in. […]

CIDM Sponsor Profile – Fluid Topics

Fluid Topics' logoGéraldine Boulez
June 15, 2022

 

Remember when you needed paper maps to go on a road trip? You followed the route but were never sure what was ahead. Now you plug your destination into Google Maps and go. You get information in real-time and navigate around traffic and problems automatically. Is your organization using the equivalent of paper maps for its technical documentation?

In today’s digital age, tech companies understand that documentation is necessary for their business and expend significant time and money on its production and maintenance. While most companies produce good and exhaustive documentation, when it comes to delivery, they still offer pre-generated, one-size-fits-all static documentation. […]

JoAnn Hackos Honored by STC

Kathy Madison, Comtech Services
June 1, 2022

JoAnn Hackos, founder of Comtech Services and The Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM), received the President’s Award during the 2022 STC Summit. The President’s Award honors those who have made distinguished contributions to the profession of technical communication or the Society.

Here’s what Kirsty Taylor, President STC 2021-2022, said during the award presentation:

[…]

Adopting a Data-driven Content Strategy

Headshot of a smiling women with long dark straight hairAditi Kashikar, Automation Anywhere
June 1, 2022

Why be data-driven?

Data is a critical element to scaling your organization’s content strategy because data gives you access to insights and metrics that can objectively demonstrate the value your content brings to your customers. Without data and insights, it is difficult to gauge if your users are getting to the content they need, and finding it complete, relevant, and accurate to achieve their goals. Data is a useful tool to quantify success metrics for your internal content improvement initiatives and benchmark if they are producing the desired outcomes and overall ROI (return on investment). […]

The Quizzical Lament of a Technical Document

Sairam Venugopalan, Qualcomm
May 1, 2022

Dogu is an inanimate inhabitant in the scientific literature mansion,
With its amusing nickname arising from a Documented & Guide fusion.
At least, we know we aren’t characterizing any creature,
That exists in live and true form to feel any pressure. […]

Welcome Trish Grindereng!

Headshot of a smiling woman with shortish hairDawn Stevens, Comtech Services
April 15, 2022

Comtech and CIDM are pleased to welcome Patricia (Trish) Grindereng to our team. Over the next five months, Trish will be transitioning into the roles currently held by Kathy Madison, who will be retiring in September 2022.  She will also be taking over a portion of the responsibilities previously performed by Lovonya Thomas, who passed away in March. […]

CIDM Sponsor Profile: RWS

Arpita Maity
April 15, 2022

From CMS to CCMS: powering great user experiences

Most businesses create digital content every day, using a content management system (CMS) to enable multiple stakeholders to collaborate on authoring and review. A CMS simplifies the process of gathering and consolidating feedback, and reduces reliance on time-consuming, error-prone methods such as manually copying and pasting from numerous email attachments. […]

Remembering Lovonya Thomas

Headshot of a smiling women with long ringlet curlsComtech Services
April 2022

The team at Comtech and CIDM are very sad to announce the passing of our friend and colleague, Lovonya Thomas. Lovonya was Comtech’s workshop coordinator for 18 years and, as a result, everyone in our entire database, literally 1000s of people, knew her name, if they hadn’t met her directly. She was constantly emailing them to make sure they were aware of our upcoming trainings. While you might expect that people would ignore those emails, we received many memories from people who indicated that they always opened Lovonya’s emails. One person said, “Lovonya has been a welcome member of my “To Read” inbox for so many years – and during so many phases of my career! I faithfully opened Lovonya ‘s emails …. because they came from someone I DEFINITELY trusted through the years.” […]

The Growing Importance of Soft Skills

Headshot of a smiling man with short hair in a plaid button down shirtTim Milbrath, Almon, Inc.
March 1, 2022

When something goes sideways with a technical writing project, it’s usually not related to subject matter expertise, use of the software (tools), or the technical skills of the writer.  The problems often come from the soft skills bucket. A mix-up in communication, process, follow-up, or accountability.  Soft skills have always been critical to the success of technical writing projects. And their importance is growing as remote work becomes the norm.

Here are 6 soft skills that are important attributes for successful technical writers. As well as some tips to enhance these skills. […]

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