Jack of All Trades

T06 Improve Your Tech Writing Skills: Lessons from Redmond Magazine's Editor-in-Chief

August 12th, 2014

11:15am - 12:30pm

Jeffrey Schwartz

Editor

Redmond Magazine

If you're a highly skilled IT pro, the best way to stand out in the tech community is to share your knowledge. Speaking at industry conferences such as TechMentor is one option. Writing also offers numerous avenues for sharing what you know or persuading an audience to adopt a proposal. Doing this effectively is a great way to advance your career. Another way honing your writing can be put to good use: publishing your ideas and expertise. There are many paths to accomplish this. Blogging is one but if you want to establish yourself as a credible authority, you must have something interesting to say and it must be well-written. Yet another option is writing in-depth white papers or articles focusing on technical issues or how to tackle a specific problem, whether it's managing people or how to configure or debug a system.

Whether you want to write short blogs or descriptive tutorials, this session will explore how to develop and research an idea and will offer tips for how to pull together quality editorial pieces. A focus on quality writing is critical. Poorly written material will distance you from your audience and in the case of proposals it will alienate key stakeholders, decision makers and management.

This session will cover:

  • How writing and publishing can help you enhance your career
  • Tips on how to write a persuasive internal proposal
  • Common mistakes writers often make and the fallout of those errors
  • Resources to improve your writing
  • How to pitch your work so it reaches the broadest or most appropriate audience
  • Ways to make your material more interesting
  • An inside look at how Redmond magazine develops articles and recruits bloggers

If you plan to attend this session and wish to share something you've already written, please feel free to submit it in advance and we can evaluate your work.