This would be Neat-o

I've never had the opportunity to learn DITA or XML. I have read about it, looked at examples of it, and tried to understand it, but, frankly, I just don't think of it as being any more valuable than, say, choosing to code HTML at work. I think I understand the appeal. I sincerely believe that writing in a structural way, with prescribed elements that have to follow other elements. For example, you might set up where you can't go from a "Title" to a "Procedure" without a "Introduction" section between them, meaning you can have:

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Title
Introduction
Procedure

---

but not

---

Title
Procedure

---

I'm uncertain if that's a realistic example or not, but it's the way I think about it in my brain now. The only reason I am writing about DITA & XML this morning while my recently purchased ...And Justice for All (Remastered Deluxe Box Set) downloads this AM is simple. I received an email from [A], a company I'm vaguely familiar with and, as I often do, I look at the Careers page. I do this not because I want to leave where I work - far from it! It is just a habit I have. Anyways, I noticed the ad below on this page: https://simplea.com/About/Careers. I realize fully that I don't have the skills described below but it sure would be neat if I did!

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DITA XML Engineer - Indy

Type: Full TimeMin. Experience: Mid Level

Do you love making content intelligent?

[A] seeks motivated candidates with experience with content acquisition utilizing DITA to work on as a Content Engineer.  This is a client-facing role and you’ll work from mostly a home office but may involve occasional travel to a client location.

As a DITA specialist on our Content Engineering team, you will work with our practice to craft intelligent content structure for multi-channel delivery and increase the value of semantically rich content. You will participate in, or lead, client projects surrounding customer experience management and personalization.
You’ll define content structure, metadata, content reuse planning, taxonomy, and other content relationships.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Structuring content through building content models, taxonomies and metadata definitions
• Leading client discovery onsite, gathering details and organized data about the current state and desired future state
• Educating clients on the value of intelligent content, workflows around Content Engineering, and related topics meant to build a client’s internal resources and capabilities
• Bridging the gap for clients between content strategy, the CMS platforms, operations, and other customer experience technologies
• Collaborate on information architecture and UX prototyping
• Determine schema strategy and structural rules

Skills We Are Looking For

• XML design and development
• Defining XML Schemas (DTDs, XSDs, RNGs)
• Configuring and integrating XML components (parsers, XSLT processors, etc) into application environments
• Experience in both authoring topic-based DITA content and converting unstructured content into DITA
• Review and fine-tune content that has been converted by an automated conversion service.
• Share DITA experience with our team
• Ideally have experience creating DITA using an XML Authoring system integrated with a  Component Content Management System (CCMS).
• Experience closely working with developers (and translating their language/work product to non-technical audiences), especially in the area of API and developer documentation
• Experience with the DITA Open Toolkit (DITA-OT), developing / deploying / maintaining DITA-OT plug-ins
• Integrating the DITA-OT into application environments
• Developing / deploying / maintaining XSLT stylesheets
• Formatting XML using CSS3

Cultural Fit at [A]

• You love learning, you love teaching.
• You enjoy wearing multiple hats and roles, and titles are not important to you.
• You do top-quality work, manage quality, and make everything you touch better.
• You are comfortable working under strict confidentiality agreements and often behind-the-scenes.
• You are self-organized and manage time and resources well.
• You work alone well but communicate well within a team.

[A] is the Content Intelligence Service.

[A] is a distributed, private, professional services firm that provides strategic support for building content intelligence practices into organizations. [A] helps complex organizations establish content engineering standards and practices to compete in a multichannel, multimodal, AI-driven world.
[A] engineers intelligent content systems for CMS/CEM platforms, and offers integration, training, workshops and custom development. [A] helps clients value content as an enterprise asset, and enables future-ready content through use of the Master Content Model.

What’s Your Name, [A]gain?

Our name is easy. Just say “A.” The [A] brackets represent markup, microdata, content intelligence. The letter “[A]” represents the start, initiation, beginning of change. We are going to help change the world with intelligent content.

[A] Team Benefits

Being an [A]gent comes with its benefits. Work from anywhere. Advance your career on the leading-edge of the content and technology sciences. Earn a competitive salary, and for longtime [A]gents, participation in a profit-sharing plan. But many [A]gents find the best part of working as an [A]gent are the other [A]gents you work with and the culture at [A].

We take care of each other and we honor each other's work and contributions to the team. We work to make ourselves better and our [A] team better. We make efforts to adapt new technologies and methodologies that can help us optimize our time, and we expect you to collaborate on these efforts if you’re an expert on any of those fields. We communicate and reach out to other [A] players.  We love learning. We love teaching. We write. We code. We support each other. For the right people, working at [A] feels like coming home.

---

The Irony of It All...

On the day that I noticed this job ad, which asks for experience with Info Mapping, DITA, XML and tools such as FrameMaker, oXygen, and XMetal also asks for "strong/expert skills" in tools not known for using structured authoring: MS Word, MS Publisher, and Adobe Acrobat. And, just as a point of reference, ACT was one of the companies I was interested in joining after I was laid off from Pearson. Obviously, this could certainly be a different opening, but it's funny (to me) that both Transamerica & ACT "passed" on me, at the time, and now both companies seek technical writers. I do especially love this line in the job description below - Ability to create content for reuse in different formats—documents, apps, training, etc. - as it is something I would include in a job description if I were able to hire a second technical writer to work with me. No, that's not even on the radar, just a side / interesting thought. I would also require experience with RoboHelp.

---

Senior Technical Writer, Product Delivery & Implementation

ACT, Inc.

Iowa City, IA

This role writes content for external consumption, primarily documents, emails and web content, for the operational fulfillment of ACT programs. This content explains the administration of ACT programs to different audiences, including testing staff, educators at the school and district levels, and students.

ESSENTIAL JOB RESPONSIBILITIES

Typical work-related activities include:

• Perform writer, editor and layout functions for content
• Creating and updating content that helps students, parents, educators, and counselors prepare for testing, participate in testing, and interpret testing results
• Coordinating input from numerous sources on complex, large-scale programs with multiple stakeholders and ensuring consistency in messaging and appearance
• Creating and updating content that helps test administrators prepare for testing, administer tests, and perform posttest activities
• Provide editing services
• Proofreading copy for quality control including grammar, punctuation, and style in accordance with the editorial style guide

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in a related discipline required
• Master’s degree preferred
• Or an equivalent combination of education and experience from which comparable knowledge and abilities can be acquired

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of professional writing and/or content development experience
• Experience with structured authoring, e.g., Information Mapping or DITA XML (strongly desired)
• Experience with structured authoring tools such as Adobe FrameMaker, oXygen, XMetaL, or a component content management system (CCMS) (strongly desired)

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Strong/expert skills in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher, and Adobe Acrobat
• Ability to create content for reuse in different formats—documents, apps, training, etc.
• Ability to adapt to new technologies and new/evolving communication channels

---

I see this in my CBJ Business Daily email:

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ACT begins realignment in Commercial Division 

Iowa City-based ACT informed employees this week about a new realignment in its Commercial Division that will include job cuts, transfers and some new positions.

The realignment was made as the nonprofit assessment organization began its fiscal year, and "in an effort to streamline operations and better serve our customers," spokesman Ed Colby said in an emailed statement. He said the changes are part of ACT's new approach to providing sales and support across its products and services.

The company did not disclose the number of employees that would be affected or file an Iowa WARN Act notice. The latter is typically required 30 days before a layoff event affecting 25 or more full-time employees.

ACT in February said it would cut 100 jobs, and in July announced the elimination of 23 jobs as part of an outsourcing effort launched in 2016.

The company announced last week that it has agreed to acquire the automated item generation (AIG) technology of MGHL Consulting Ltd. Terms of that deal have not been disclosed. 

---

Life goes on though, right?

RIGHT!!!!

6407 days to THE end

Still happy and excited to work where I do - 6407 days (17 years, 6 months, 2 weeks, 2 days) until I retire!!

---

Sr Technical Writer - Simulation & Training Solutions - Cedar Rapids, IA 52402

Want to work with some of the most talented, dedicated people on the planet? Do you value relationships, commitment, innovation and integrity? Want to be a part of a company that has been named numerous times as America’s Best Employer in Aerospace and Defense by Forbes magazine?


Then Rockwell Collins is the place for you. Join our team and build a rewarding career while helping to deliver the most trusted source of aviation and high-integrity solutions in the world.

We are currently searching for a Sr Technical Writer - Simulation & Training Solutions to join our team at our facility in Cedar Rapids, Iowa or at our facility in Richardson, Texas. A comprehensive relocation package is available for qualified candidates. Employing some of the most talented, dedicated people on the planet is not by chance. People from all over the globe choose Rockwell Collins as the place to build a rewarding career, while helping create and deliver communications, integration, and engineering solutions that our global customers demand so that our world keeps moving and stays connected. It’s an exciting time to become a part of our team. Join us and discover how high your career can soar at Rockwell Collins.

Job Summary

Researches, Analyzes, and translates technical information into government and commercial manuals and other documents for non-technical and technical users. Establishes and maintains internal and external company contacts for Rockwell Collins equipment and/or specific platform subject matter expertise.

Job Responsibilities

• Analyzes, designs and develops publication development for one or more type documents of moderate complexity using established procedures.
• May be considered a specialist in a specific publication product or a generalist in multiple publication products. Self-directed and provides guidance to team members.
• Assists in the development of policies, guidelines, and procedures to ensure quality and cost control
• Normally receives little instruction on day to day work, general instructions on new assignments. Participates in determining objectives of assignment. Plans, schedules and arranges own activities in accomplishing objectives. Work is reviewed upon completion.
• Obtains and analyzes engineering source data utilized for product development.
• May prepare product outlines and estimates to support product development and planning.
• Networks with senior internal and external personnel in own area of expertise.
• Be accountable for the cost, quality, and timely delivery of all work assignments.
• Must be able to represent the project team at conferences, in-process review, training, and pubs validations, as required.
• Job role could be assigned to Richardson, Texas facility as well

Knowledge and Skills

• Component level electronics skills and/or recent experience and/or training.
• Experience maintaining, using, or designing aircraft avionics equipment.
• Ability to understand and comprehend system operation from typical engineering documentation (schematics, software specifications, hardware interface specifications, and equipment specifications).
• Strong attention to detail and personal organization.
• Professional attitude toward work assignments, toward customer relationships, and toward company/department goals and vision.
• Must be able and willing to accept responsibility and perform with supervision.

Basic Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in appropriate discipline or in the absence of a degree six years of related experience

Position requires ability to obtain an active DoD Security Clearance.

Additional desired skills and qualifications include:

• Experience in writing or using intermediate and depot level aircraft maintenance publications.
• Experience producing electronic technical data.
• Knowledge of Industry Writing Specification ATA (Air Transport Association) and S1000D (ie, SGML and/or XML).
• Subject Matter Expert knowledge of some Rockwell Collins product(s) or product line(s).
• Simplified Technical English (ASD/AECMA version) writing experience.
• US Citizen required

At Rockwell Collins, we believe a solid work-life balance creates a healthy lifestyle and inspires creativity and innovation. We value our people and invest in their development, growth and success at our company by providing development opportunities through Rockwell Collins University, networking, mentoring, and tuition reimbursement.

And that’s just for starters.

Some of our competitive benefits package includes:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Three weeks of vacation for newly hired employees
• Company-paid winter holiday shutdown for most locations
• Generous 401(k) plan that matches 62.5 percent of the first 8 percent of eligible compensation you contribute (or 5 percent if you save 8 percent)
• An Incentive Pay Plan based upon company performance
• Tuition reimbursement
• And more

Interested yet? Apply now and embark on your next worthwhile adventure!

---

Not Quite There

This looked very interesting... VERY interesting...Too bad Flare is the tool they are using :<) 😢

---

Technical Writer

Other Remote with Travel, None

---

Description

Position at CynergisTek

CynergisTek, a leader in healthcare cyber-security and information management is seeking a Technical Writer.

CynergisTek is an award-winning firm earning KLAS’ Top rating for Comprehensive Security Firms in its June 2018 report, 2017 Best in KLAS for Cyber-security Advisory Services, CIO Bulletin’s 10 Best Cyber-security Companies in 2018 and many more. We desire a proven sales leader who can contribute even further to our company’s current success.
Job description
CynergisTek is looking for a Technical Writer to join our team. As a Technical Writer, you will create cyber-security-related reports and documents for our clients based on security assessments and industry best practices. Documents and reports including, but not limited to security assessment and audit reports, mandate-based policies and procedures, and internal documents.

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Write, develop, edit, and maintain security documentation for Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), policies, guides, system security plans and training materials, operation procedures and best practices
• Produce high quality documentation that meets security standards and is appropriate for its intended audience (i.e. PCI, NIST 800-171, HIPAA)
• Work with internal teams to obtain an in-depth understanding of security requirements in order to translate them into policies, procedures, and plans
• Provide analyses to validate established security requirements and to recommend additional security requirements
• Promote and develop awareness for different security risks and best practices across the company
• Assist sales in responding to RFPs when technical elements are required
• Assist marketing in generating content to support lead generation and conversion

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience managing cyber-security or writing to the requirements of NIST, HIPAA, PCI, etc.
• 5+ years of Technical Writing experience
• Experience in working on security certification exercises, from gap analysis to implementation
• Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Information Security or equivalent relevant experience
• Valid driver’s license (Traveling may be required)
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Strong customer service skills
• Excellent written & oral communication skills as well as presentation skills
• Ability to adapt content based on audience and context.

Desired Skills & Characteristics:
- CISSP, CISA or CISM certification
If interested, please submit your resume, cover letter, as well as a sample of any technical writing (preferably an assessment/gap report, policy/procedure, ISP) that displays your writing skills and critical evaluation skills.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Duties & Responsibilities:
Create clear procedures and reference topics on a wide range of networking and security technologies

• Research technical information, write original documentation and edit and update existing technical product documentation
• Participate in Watch Guard Engineering SCRUM meetings
• Provide suggested UI text that is clear and consistent
• Achieve competency with Watch Guard products
• Contribute to the creation of new training materials, certification exams, and product documentation in a variety of delivery formats

Education, Knowledge, Skills, Certifications/ Licenses, Competencies:

• BA/BS or an equivalent combination of education and experience
• Five (5) years technical or equivalent experience in related industry
• MadCap Flare
• PaintShop Pro, Photoshop, or similar graphics package
• Knowledge of networking technologies (such as firewalls, routers, VLANs, and switches), and network security and experience writing for network administrators
• Experience with cloud computing, Web Services, SaaS, hypervisors is a plus
• Experience writing API reference documentation is a plus
• Version control concepts
• XML editing skills

What You'll Be Doing

• Work with multiple internal teams and SMEs to understand product documentation requirements and gather the necessary information for their creation
• Create strong content that fulfills company standards and audience goals
• Write detailed, straight-forward user guides, installation manuals, and integration guides
• Take existing material and seamlessly add to or update as products evolve
• Analyze current content and make improvements as necessary
  

What We Value

• 5+ years’ experience in technical documentation of software development
• Solid working knowledge of MadCap Flare and/or AsciiDoc e.g. Antora.
• Experience with Atlassian JIRA and Confluence
• Familiarity with Agile methodologies
• Experience with SaaS based integrated product documentation and help pages
• Ability to take technical concepts and translate them into documentation to be consumed by non-technical users
• Ability to work well in a fast-paced team environment
• Capacity to balance multiple projects at once across multiple teams
• Keen attention to detail
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Experience with application security products is nice to have 

Position Responsibilities

Without direct supervision, responsibility includes:

• Collecting, analyzing, composing, and translating technical information into clear, readable documents to be used by both technical and non- technical personnel
• Obtaining data from technical staff by directly interacting with them and assisting in the creation of the technical documentation when needed
• Creating processes and procedures, user manuals, training materials, installation guides, and reports
• Editing requirements functional descriptions, system specifications, user manuals, special reports, or any other customer deliverables and documents

Required Skills

The candidate should have:

• Experience in writing and editing technical documentation for technical systems in accordance with established writing standards.
• The ability to work not only independent but in a team setting.
• Exceptional interpersonal, organizational and communication skills

---

Thoughts About Indexing

Updated with more thoughts about automating index creation.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Baker
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2018 8:49 AM
To: 'Jonathan Baker'; dick@rlhamilton.net
Cc: techwr-l@lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: RE: Looking for classes in indexing

Index automation can only take you so far. For the book I referred to earlier, we experimented with index automation. The book is about structured writing, so naturally we used structured writing techniques. This included the annotation of subjects mentioned in the text, and of the subjects covered in chapters and sections. This is essentially what an index does -- it points you to the places were different subjects are treated in a document. So it follows that we should be able to derive an index from these annotations.

This is already a much more controlled process than using software to scan an unstructured text for keywords, which is all that automated indexing software can do, short of an AI revolution that has not arrived yet. The subject annotations that we used noted the type of the subject and rectified the terminology (for example: {XML}(markup-language "Extensible Markup Language")). This gave us a significant degree of terminology control and allowed us to detect a lot of inconsistency in the book (as Richard mentioned earlier). It also allowed us to automatically create entries for the major types of subject matter discussed in the book:

markup languages
XML, 56, 68, 72
HTML, 345, 403
Markdown, 3, 76, 432

The result was a not bad index, but certainly not as good as Richard wanted. In particular, it did not let us do things like this:

constraints, 27, 228, 367–390
auditing, 431
cost of reuse, 153
data entry, 315
detecting duplication using, 414–415
extensibility and, 334
factoring out, 29, 42, 308
managing reuse, 134
media-domain, 29
personalization, 167
rhetorical, 246
semantic, 312–315
structural, 312–315
types of schema, 389
uniqueness, 174

These types of entries put terms in their narrative context. This requires a human reading of the surrounding text. It can't be done effectively from subject-domain semantic markup and it certainly can't be done reliably (yet) by indexing apps working on unstructured text.

Why is this important? Search engines have two big advantages over indexes (other than their enormous advantage in scope, which I mentioned earlier). First, indexes work on individual terms, while search engines can work with phrases and sentences. You can type an entire question into a search engine and it will use the whole sentence to discern what you are interested in. In other words, you can put your search terms in their narrative context up front by searching on the right phrase.

Second, they have a ranking algorithm that does a remarkably good job (most of the time) at selecting the most relevant entry and putting it at the top of the list. Indexes, by contrast, list pages in numerical order. If you want to get really fancy, you can bold page numbers for the main entries for a subject, but that is not in any way specific to the user's individual query. Search engines not only rank the subject matter statically, they rank it for the known interests of the individual user.

These entries that put terms into their narrative context help indexes partially make up for these deficiencies vis a vis search engines. They can only be created by hand, and Richard felt it was important to do this for the book, particularly in cases where a subject is mentioned many times. An undifferentiated list of 30 page references presents a rather daunting task to the reader. The context setting entries can help them narrow down what they are looking for.

We did not throw out the automated generation of the index altogether, however. Rather, we added markup that allowed us to supplement the generated entries with human created entries (100% of which were created by Richard, who is way better at this sort of thing than I am). As a result of this hybrid approach, we were able to reduce the indexing effort significantly, while still incorporating valuable index features than can only be created by hand.

I'm planning to blog about this and other aspects of the development process for the book sometime soonish.

Mark

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan Baker
> Sent: Friday, July 27, 2018 7:22 AM
> To: dick@rlhamilton.net
> Cc: techwr-l@lists.techwr-l.com
> Subject: Re: Looking for classes in indexing
>
> I’m not into religious wars, so I won’t go there. However, in following this
> conversation , it occurred to me that there may be some tools out there to
> automate the indexing process. I didn’t do a search, but did stumble upon a
> tool called TExtract (texyz.com). I haven’t used it, but may the next time I
> need to do an index.
>
> Also, one of the best books about indexing was written by Ruth Canedy
> Cross. Unfortunately, Indexing Books is out of print and only sometimes
> available on Amazon.
>
> Jon
>
> Sent from my iPad

---

Original Post below:
This is from a thread about indexing on the Techwr-L list which I am including here because I am weak at indexing and the links in Monique's email look like some sites I should investigate.

---

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l [Monique Semp]
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2018 2:20 PM
To: Lin Sims
Cc: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Looking for classes in indexing

Really old, but I have printout of an article from the October 2012 STC Intercom magazine that I found quite useful: The Top 10 Indexing Errors Made by Technical Writers, by Lorne Griffith. I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to find online. (And if it is, you can ping me and I'd be happy to scan it and send the PDF.)
And I second Lin's comments around the idea that digital search does not take the place of a good, human-produced index. For example, if the text says, "remove", but I search for "delete", I'll never find it. But in a manually-produced index, I'd expect to see an entry for "delete" that says, "see remove".
I was a member of ASI for many years even though, like Lin, the only things I indexed were tech docs that I wrote. But I thought of doing more (until I found how low the pay was for how much work it would take to write a really excellent, vs. mediocre, index), and I liked the erudite discussions among the REAL indexers.
It is unfortunate that ASI seems to require membership to take their courses. Maybe a personal note to them to ask for an exception might work? I did look at their webinars page, and those seem generally available to non-members, although the topics are mostly pretty narrowly focused to a given tool or a given indexing focus. See [1] https://www.asindexing.org/category/webinars.
The Portland chapter of ASI lists a bunch of non-ASI indexing courses: [2] http://pnwasi.org/wp/?page_id=141. Perhaps other chapters (don't recall where you are, so not sure if there's an active chapter near you) have similar lists of resources.
And here's a nice list of resources, including email discussion lists, but a lot of it is geared to people wanting to have their own indexing business. But of course, the email discussion lists would be useful for
all indexers. See [3]http://www.backwordsindexing.com/Novice/NoviceNotes.html.
And my last list on this listicles reply: [4]https://indexstudents.wordpress.com/education/ - lots of training and all sorts of resources.
(Yes, I like the subject of indexing!)

References

1. https://www.asindexing.org/category/webinars
2. http://pnwasi.org/wp/?page_id=141
3. http://www.backwordsindexing.com/Novice/NoviceNotes.html
4. https://indexstudents.wordpress.com/education

---

This post from Mark Baker was worth capturing as I like his writing style.

---

From: techwr-l [mbaker@analecta.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2018 6:20 PM
To: techwr-l@lists.techwr-l.com
Subject: RE: Looking for classes in indexing

I'm old too, but let's face it, indexes are the paper substitute for a search engine. Anything an index can do, a decent search engine can do better (yes, including synonyms). More to the point, even the old are so habituated to search now that the only way they are going to stumble into your index is if it shows up in a search results.

Unless, of course, they actually are reading on paper, because then the index is the poor man's search engine, and in that case it better be good, because it has a lot to live up to.

And if there are those out there that still want to claim that indexes are better than search engines, here is the clincher: An index only works when you have a the right book in your hand. Which means you have to find the book before you can use the index. But a search engine searches everything. The reader does not have to locate the book first. Indeed, they probably never know which "book" their results came from. They live in a world of pages, not books, and they find pages using search. Every Page is Page One.

If I was looking for a course to take in this day an age, I would take SEO before I took indexing. Unless, of course, I was actually preparing a book for publication on paper. (Which, as it happens, I am: Structured Writing: Rhetoric and Process, real soon now from XML press. I think it has a pretty good index, most of which is Richard Hamilton's doing.)

---

Nope - Not Me!

Sr Editor - Publications & Training Solutions Rockwell Collins 788 reviews - Cedar Rapids, IA 52402

Requisition ID: 11403
Want to work with some of the most talented, dedicated people on the planet? Do you value relationships, commitment, innovation and integrity? Want to be a part of a company that has been named numerous times as America’s Best Employer in Aerospace and Defense by Forbes magazine?
Then Rockwell Collins is the place for you. Join our team and build a rewarding career while helping to deliver the most trusted source of aviation and high-integrity solutions in the world.
We are currently searching for a Sr Editor - Publications & Training Solutions to join our team in Cedar Rapids, IA (1000). A comprehensive relocation package is available for qualified candidates. Employing some of the most talented, dedicated people on the planet is not by chance. People from all over the globe choose Rockwell Collins as the place to build a rewarding career, while helping create and deliver communications, integration, and engineering solutions that our global customers demand so that our world keeps moving and stays connected. It’s an exciting time to become a part of our team. Join us and discover how high your career can soar at Rockwell Collins.

Job Summary
The Sr Editor position is responsible for, but not limited to, processing text and illustrations to develop final reproducible material for military and commercial technical manuals, commercial instruction books, parts lists, and various other technical documents produced by the Publications writing teams. The candidate will perform word processing, editing, grammar check, composing, quality check, and layout of text and illustrations. Additional areas of responsibilities include management of processed text and illustrations, document analysis for content and structure, and delivery requirements to support department and industry standard processes. This is done by working closely with writers, illustrators and publishing personnel to produce a complete deliverable.
Job Responsibilities

• Must have highly developed organizational skills and able to work and prioritize multiple tasks.
• Must possess excellent grammatical and spelling skills.
• Must have strong computer skills, effective facilitator and administrative skills, and be effective in verbal and written communications with excellent literacy skills.
• High interpersonal communication skills.
• Professional attitude toward work assignments, toward customer relationships, and toward company/department Lean goals and vision.
• Must be able and willing to accept responsibility and perform with minimal supervision.
• Be a proactive team player who thinks ahead, plans, and suggests solutions.
• Have positive attitude toward change and inevitable mid-project course corrections.
• Must be able to organize, plan, prepare, and coordinate documents for large-scaled and moderately complex programs with limited supervision within the Publication and Training Solutions department.
• Performs as a specialist in specific areas.

Desirable:

• Fluent in Commercial and Government standards for various publication or training products such as Component Maintenance Manuals, Illustrated Parts Lists, and Operator Guides.
• Literacy in structured authoring (SGML, XML) environment (bookplan structure; ATA task numbering; typical DTDs/schema, elements and attributes).
• Experience producing electronic technical data.
• Simplified Technical English (ASD/AECMA version) experience.
• Familiarity with MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe FrameMaker.
• Familiarity with writing, illustrating and graphic specifications.
• Understanding of Lean principles.

Basic Qualifications

• US Citizenship
• Ability to obtain a DoD Security Clearance
• High School Diploma or equivalent; identified skills and experience

At Rockwell Collins, we believe a solid work-life balance creates a healthy lifestyle and inspires creativity and innovation. We value our people and invest in their development, growth and success at our company by providing development opportunities through Rockwell Collins University, networking, mentoring, and tuition reimbursement.
And that’s just for starters.
Some of our competitive benefits package includes:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Three weeks of vacation for newly hired employees
• Company-paid winter holiday shutdown for most locations
• Generous 401(k) plan that matches 62.5 percent of the first 8 percent of eligible compensation you contribute (or 5 percent if you save 8 percent)
• An Incentive Pay Plan based upon company performance
• Tuition reimbursement
• And more

Interested yet? Apply now and embark on your next worthwhile adventure!

4 days ago

Documentation Specialist/Technical Writer - but Not for Me...

Documentation Specialist/Technical Writer

Customer Success Lincoln, Nebraska Remote, United States

---

Description

Are you looking for an opportunity to accelerate your career and work with a team of friendly, creative people?  Upland Software offers a collaborative work environment full of smart, positive, and passionate people who are respected for their unique talents and empowered to do their jobs well.  As a member of this close-knit team, you are encouraged to take good ideas and run with them, pursuing the best outcome for our customers while having fun along the way.  If these things are important to you and you're driven by delighting customers, we want to talk with you!
 Opportunity Summary:
We’re looking for a Lead Documentation Specialist/Technical Writer to join the AccuRoute team in Lincoln, NE, Cincinnati OH, Chelmsford MA, Montreal QB, or remotely. The successful candidate will possess a minimum of 5 years of technical writing experience and the ability to build relationships and work effectively at all levels of an organization. We have a very open and friendly environment where everyone has the opportunity to contribute their ideas, help improve existing processes and accelerate their careers. This team member will be responsible for the creation, distribution and delivery of product related documentation and knowledge for Upland’s AccuRoute products via our online help, product Communities and other mediums.
 Primary Responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain product user manuals, quick start guides, and online help.
• Learn new product features and create documentation that helps users to understand and implement these features.
• Engage with product team members including product marketing to develop new strategies for addressing and advancing documentation and knowledge needs
• Architect and maintain a scalable documentation structure that fully utilizes the documentation tools available.
• Keep track of documentation through the entire development process while adhering to strict timelines.
• Create and maintain product release notes.

Requirements:

• Minimum 5 years’ experience in writing software-based product documentation and procedures.
• Understanding and knowledge of Madcap Flare and Adobe Framemaker/RoboHelp.
• Understanding of single-source authoring systems.
• Working knowledge of CSS, HTML and XML.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Manual of Style and technical writing standards.
• Familiarity with Chicago Manual of Style and technical writing standards.
• Education: 4 year degree, BA or BS Degree or a combination of education plus equivalent work experience preferably with a credentials in writing (Communications, English, Media etc.)
• Expert knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar. 
• Communicate clearly and concisely both verbally and in writing.
• Ability to work independently and cooperatively as a team.
• Demonstrates strong interest to learn and the initiative to self-teach.
• Excellent flexibility and change management skills.
• Ability to own our documentation efforts.

 Desired Skills: (Optional)

Knowledge and skill with media tools (video, audio and outlets for various media). 
About Upland
Upland Software (Nasdaq: UPLD) is an enterprise cloud software company that provides award-winning solutions in Project and IT Management, Workflow Automation and Digital Engagement. Our goal is 100% customer success, achieved through a unified operating platform that delivers the performance, scalability and support that over 2,500 Upland customers worldwide demand every day. Learn more at uplandsoftware.com.
We offer a casual and collaborative work environment, a generous benefits package and significant growth opportunities. Upland is publicly traded software company based in Austin, TX with offices in the US, Canada and the UK.
Upland Software is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identify, national origin, disability, veteran status or other legally protected status.

Swagger? Uh. Do You mean "Jack Swagger" in the WWE?

Sadly, I don't have the qualifications for items 1 - 3 in the Requirements section, even though <snark mode set to on), I could certainly edit this job description to clean up the wording. 

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Technical Writer (Remote)
TalentNet 2 reviews - Minneapolis, MN
Contract
This role can be done remotely.
Description:
We are looking for a freelance/contractor
Technical Writer to produce high-quality documentation that contributes to the overall success of our products.

Responsibilities

• Work with internal teams to obtain an in-depth understanding of the product and the documentation requirements
• Analyze existing and potential content, focusing on reuse and single-sourcing opportunities
• Produce high-quality documentation that meets applicable standards and is appropriate for its intended audience
• Write easy-to-understand user interface text, online help, developer guides and end user manuals
• Create tutorials to help end-users use a variety of applications
• Review, manage and edit release notes for new product features with each release cycle

Requirements

1. Proven working experience writing API documentation
2. Experience writing simple shell scripts for REST API
3. Examples Working knowledge of JSON and XML
4. Ability to deliver high quality documentation paying attention to detail
5. Ability to quickly grasp complex technical concepts and make them easily understandable in text and pictures
6. Ability to work with minimal guidance
7. Excellent written and verbal English
8. Basic familiarity with the SDLC and software development
9. Experience with Swagger a plus.

Job Type: Contract

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This job will be filed with "Awesome jobs that I won't apply for, " on this blog.

3 Years' Experience

I pray for anyone that is going to work at this place for a number of reasons. There are just so many things wrong and, to be blunt, shitty, about this ad.

To start, the tools they use are all over the map. The job ad mentions:

• WordPress
• RoboHelp
• Dreamweaver
• Confluence
• Sharepoint

Then the ad lowers the 'boom' on the reader and states "experience with MS Word and other help-authoring tools" is also what they are seeking.

You might think I'm kidding?

No, I'm not.

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• Experience with WordPress, RoboHelp, Dreamweaver, Confluence, and Sharepoint

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They also want someone who can edit videos, work with HTML, XML, and CSS on top of all of that.

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• Experience with image capture and basic video editing software
• Strong computer skills and an understanding of computer principles
• Experience with HTML, XML and CSS
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Experience with MS Word and other help-authoring tools.
  Editor's Note: the period exists in the job ad but was formatted as bold for clarity

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The choice is simple: add a period at the end of each phrase in the bulleted list or remove the period in the last item.

The following screen capture shows the absurd HTML source code for the screen capture below. I pasted it into Notepad - and you might notice when I took the screen capture, I hadn't saved the .txt file. My initial thought was "Why the hell would I want to save this garbage code?" until it occurred to me I can use it as a teaching hour for Alex, who is earning his Management Information Systems degree . . . and may need to troubleshoot this type of code in the future.

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To be fair or at least less condescending than I was above, I don't consider this company to be at fault for the formatting issues that I see in the following screen capture. I do fault the company for not giving a shit about how they don't seem to care that their target audience - a professional technical writer - could react to seeing their job ad. The ad was posted a day ago. Is there not anyone in the company that verifies that their job ads look correct? I am not being mean when I say this, but even Alex would know there is something not right about the way the job ad looks. He may not be able to pinpoint the place in the HTML code to fix it, but he would look at it and say, "That's wrong."

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On top of all I mentioned above, there are two more things I found insulting The first is their second bullet point:

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3 years’ Technical Writing experience in a professional software development environment

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Is there such a lack of basic punctuation exist at this company that they allow "years'" to be published?!? 
The second is this phrase:

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Please note: Assessment testing may be required for this position.

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After all of the atrocities and writing errors, you're going to test me if I apply for this position?!? It would be very appropriate to be given the HTML source code for this ad and to say, "Fix this code." Any "assessment testing" that is trying to gauge a candidate's basic writing skills is an insult.

I am happy where I work and have no inclination to move to Denver, CO, to work for this company. Why would anyone want to work in such a disjointed situation?!?