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After reading your comment, I visited your page and glanced around. Am I right in interpreting your specialty is coming up with how to turn a better phrase (wri
by yourapostasy 5y ago
After reading your comment, I visited your page and glanced around. Am I right in interpreting your specialty is coming up with how to turn a better phrase (writing)?
If so, then that's a very underappreciated domain at this time (much to our detriment, but that's for a different discussion). Not just in tech, but everywhere. The entire field has been aggressively monetized to near extinction; whatever writing doesn't directly impact revenue/profits, gets dumped onto line workers. And the results show.
The quality of writing and lucid ideas found in advertisements and landing pages is markedly higher than from say, in a somewhat-technical presentation to managers-of-managers. I've sat through more than a few quite underwhelming presentations that violated some of the most basic principles of presenting ("don't mumble hoping the slide will carry the presentation", "don't read the slide word-for-word", etc.).
There is a dearth of assistance for coaches to help improve those kinds of "writing". And a huge number of aspiring, gung-ho FAANG employees who are wondering why management won't listen to them. There's a gap to be filled here, and people with the disposable income to pay for outcomes.
Leverage your non-technical sphere as a strength (I liked your pull request journey, it is true that coders don't normally perceive and accommodate skill stratifications in our docs, a byproduct of the monetization of writing that killed too many technical writing/librarian positions in our industry). Perhaps look into positioning the writing assistance you offer to technical staff as a way to communicate to non-technical managers, where you help translate the technical concepts that have to be broken down to you due to your non-technical background, into ideas the managers readily grasp. It would help if you retained a lot of the corporate-speak that Rands in Repose sometimes writes about that you doubtless saw in your Aflac stint, and knew when to judiciously use it.
Maybe investigate some offer like helping coders write emails to managers. If that gains traction, offer small-medium-large presentation improvement coaching, based upon the length of the presentation (15, 30, 60 minutes). Where shorter lengths increase in cost. Then if that gains traction, offer coaching linked to an annual performance goal of "improve communicating with managers".