SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello listeners. If you are curious about technical communications, then this podcast is for you. On each episode, I will interview a guest who will share the unique journey. This is Inside TechCom with Sahara Matavana. Let's get started. I'm honored to welcome today's guest, Timothy Ponce. Hi, Timothy.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Hey, how are you doing? I'm doing great.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

I'm doing great. Thank you. Thank you for asking. It's good to have you on my show. I'm so excited to be talking to you because you bring such an interesting perspective to technical communications.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Yeah, and it's really great to be here, to be a part of a podcast that really is looking at, you know, how do you move into technical communication? Because the more I've been involved with technical communication, the more I realize that I am not an aberration in the sense that I wasn't just woke up one day and just knew that was what my career was going to be, but that everyone has their own sort of unique path as they make their way into this field. So I'm so excited that you're doing a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yes. And I think you would bring a great perspective and a rich dimension to this conversation. And you had a very interesting path to technical communication. So I'm excited to know more about it. So tell us a little about yourself first.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Well, like you said, my name is Dr. Timothy Ponce. My job title is Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of Internships in the Department of English at the University of Texas, Arlington. And so my actual content area of my PhD is 16th and 17th century British literature with a secondary focus in writing program administration and technical and professional writing. And so my actual faculty line at the university is to teach technical writing and professional design. And so I also have a small little technical writing firm on the side, kind of in the summer nine-month contract. So like most teachers, we're always looking for a summer side hustle to supplement our pay. And so it's called Cornerstone Editing. And so I've done a lot of typesetting, copy editing, and things like that. I've done a couple coffee table books, a couple long form books, some magazine work as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Wow, wow, wow. That is that is quite the introduction. But again, you know, when we started this, we said this is going to be a rich conversation because you are not just an academic, but you're also a practitioner on the side or over the summer. So this brings such a fascinating perspective to our discussion because you're going to be talking about what you're teaching the next generation while you're also practicing this at a very interesting intersection.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

And I think it actually makes me, in some ways, it increases my students' confidence in me and in the course itself, because I can talk to them not just about the theory that a lot of times you'll get in a university setting, because I can speak to that, but more of okay, when I was working on this book and I had this client, these are the issues we ran into, and this sort of careful client, you know, telecommunicator relationship, the sort of real, tangible examples. And then even hold up this book and say, here's the final product that finally made it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Right, right. Like real life examples that are firsthand that you experienced, which is fantastic. So in your introduction, your title and your major and what you're doing, it was a lot for me to process. So I want you to break it down and tell us a little bit about each, because I think it is important for our listeners to know what you've graduated in and what you're doing and how they intersect or how how they diverge. I want to know more about that, please.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Absolutely. So my baccalaureate degree, my undergraduate degree is in English, and it's from Sam Houston State University. But with that training, I moved into the corporate worlds. Um, and so I worked for Starbucks Coffee Company for a while. I managed a store, I did obviously it was in a store manager position. There's a lot of profit and loss reporting and a lot of um sort of market analysis reporting and writing. And I also did some corporate education for them. And so I enjoyed doing that. And I I realized that I was, well, I didn't realize at the time, but I was doing a lot of technical writing simply in that position. So I tell myself, no matter what job you have, you're a part-time techno communicator, no matter where you end up.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

I like how you put that. Yes, I would agree.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

It's true. I mean, I always and then I because usually when I teach introduction technical writing, that's one of the first conversations I have where I say, okay, let's say you're a lab tech, or let's say you're an engineer, or let's say you're a teacher, or let's say, and I always show them how everyone is doing some sort of techno communication. Maybe we can talk more about that in a second. So I left Starbucks Coffee Company. I loved the company, but uh I was having to travel quite a bit, and I just needed a better work-life balance. I I take care of my disabled mother. And so I moved over to Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and I did teller operations and compliance and a lot of teller training and a lot of report writing, a lot of email writing, again, being a part-time technocommunicator in that tailor operations role. But I realized that I was always doing some sort of training or educational, corporate educational role everywhere I ended up. So I decided, I should probably just go do that for a living because that's what I really like. And so I went back to Sam Houston and I took a master's degree in English, and I taught at Sam Houston for three years, and I enjoyed that, and I taught developmental writing, I taught freshman composition, and then I ended up moving to uh Denton, Texas, and I started a doctoral program at University of North Texas, and I just continued on with my area of focus, which had been literature, right? English studies, specifically British literature of like Shakespeare and his contemporaries had been my focus. So when you start a doctorate, it's usually not best to jump into a completely different content area, because then all of the research that you've done leading up to that would be kind of not usable in the dissertation or leading up to the dissertation. So I just continued to do that. But as I was taking coursework in that content area, at University of North Texas, there is a completely independent technical communication department. So they are in their, they're one of the very few that are completely separated in their own department. And I became friends with some of the faculty over there, and they encouraged me to take a course or two. They had a certificate in teaching technical communication at the graduate level, and I just knew that was something I enjoyed was that sort of writing, professional writing, and I knew it would increase my marketability as an academic. And I knew that I didn't want to be in a research-intensive position at a university. I wanted to be in a teaching-intense position. So I thought this is a great way to diversify my certifications and my degrees to make me more attractive to a larger range of universities. So when I started taking the course, I it was so interesting to me because as I was sitting in these courses and being mentored by these different professors, I thought, my goodness, I should have done a PhD in techno communication because I'm like, this is what I love. I was like, I mean, I enjoy Shakespeare and I teach Shakespearean classes every once in a while when there's a need for them. But I just kept thinking, this is what gets me excited about empathetically discovering and pairing with users to find out what their needs are to help them complete a task or make some sort of choice, right? And I'm just like, this is just that sort of puzzle and that discovery of that's associated with techno communication is just something I fell in love with. So but I was already in the dissertation writing phase when I had discovered that. So there was my wife would have killed me if I said, I want to do a different doctorate. Um and so there was no way. I went ahead and finished it up and then jumped onto the job market and started doing techno communication on the side personally, because as I left North Texas, I ended up in an adjunct position, as most English people do. And so I just knew I needed to supplement my income. So um opened up a small little business on the side and started doing some of that work and again just increasing my knowledge and sort of the praxis of it. And what I have found is that as I've taught and I've developed new courses at UTA at University of Texas Arlington, is that being a practitioner has given me a very different perspective on how I teach my courses than some of the people I've come to who have never actually taken a role as a techno communicator or operated in that position and are teaching about it. Not to say that there's not value in what they're doing, but I really feel like some of the reason we've been so successful in the internship program at UTA and in some of my students who've gone into the market and have joined up with STC and some of these other larger organizations is really because my end goal is always about delivering this usable document or communication experience. Because I mean, document may not be correct. I mean, we live in a digital world now, right? So website, mobile app, whatever it is. Yes, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:03

So we talk about content here.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah, content, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Right, content creation. Okay, again, fascinating. I also come from an English literature background, but it's interesting to see how you've made your path into technical writing. And like many practitioners of technical communications, you've not had a straight path into technical communications, right? You've kind of, I mean, you've you've been entrepreneurial. You've you've hustled on the side. And kind of what struck me was that you find technical writing in every profession. I think I haven't heard that anywhere before. So that's a very that's a really cool perspective to have that you do technical communications in every field and you give examples of that.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Well, that's one of the reasons I'm a very big proponent of moving our introductory technical writing class to the core curriculum because I've made this case and some people have pushed very hard against it, but I'm starting to gain a lot of traction with other people alongside me who are also wonderful researchers in the field, like Dr. Estee Beck and Dr. Amy Hodges at UTA. And just saying that this is really a vital skill set that we need to impart to students, because like I said, everyone ends up needing this knowledge and these tools. And it's not just about particular genres, because usually some of my colleagues who don't have any background in technical communication associate techcom with particular genres, a report, a memo, an email. And they think, well, we could just teach those genre conventions and then they'll be prepared. But there's a whole different way of really thinking about the purpose of communication and the end results and the desired outcomes and the process to leading up to achieving those desired outcomes that are associated with the field of techno communication. So that's why I'm really a huge proponent of let's get this into the core curriculum to give students the option to pursue that.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

And I like that idea because one of the things that I have been thinking about is over over the years, the field has grown, right? The demand for the field has grown. But I think my experience tells me is that the awareness about it hasn't. Do you see that disconnect? Correct. And I think bringing technical communications to the forefront of education, you're kind of trying to shed light on that, that we we need to take a different look, a different perspective on that.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

And I think you're really right. And so, for instance, I'm preparing all this coursework and this material content for the spring semester. And one of the things I'm trying to do in my courses is really connect some of my technical writing concepts to other rhetoric courses that my students have taken. And we just have a very rhetoric-heavy department at UTA. It's just the faculty we have. And so what I would tell them is, for instance, we have something like audience, you know, somebody's talked a lot about in rhetorical studies. Um, Aristotle talks about audience. And then I say, but what I'm going to call that concept, and it's unique and distinct, is user, right? Or user. Because audience implies almost this passive consumer of knowledge. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

I think that's a very important discussion. Yes. I think I was getting there in my head, and I'm glad you, you know, we came to that same conclusion.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Yeah. And because I mean my students to say, when you think about it, I've done this in classes before, where I say, you know, when I say the word audience, what do you think? And I say something like, well, like a movie theater, right? And so that's people sitting in the dark, watching, all watching, one edited, prepared, produced, cannot be changed with, cannot be interacted. It's not necessarily desired to move someone to action, though it could. That's not its primary objective. I guess unless it was like a documentary or something. But even then, it's just, you know, versus a user who is, it's live, it's being interacted with, it's being used to complete a task, make a decision, right? And that's a very different concept, which implies we need different tools, right, to accomplish what we need for our user.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

I think that's a very important discovery as part of this conversation, where you are trying to distinguish between a user and an audience. I think over time I have come to realize that we are not just doing user audience analysis, but we're doing user analysis because of this very distinction. I just wasn't able to, I think, put it into a clear, tangible perspective for myself. Users you're engaging with, there is interaction, there's a user journey. It's not just an audience journey, but we don't talk about an audience journey. You talk about because there is that live interaction. It's not a passive engagement, especially in these days when you, as you said, all the smart devices that we have. So you're constantly engaging with them and they want to participate in the feedback. They want to participate in the design of and the evolution of the product.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Correct. And that is so absolutely needed. And that's usually when I talk about the discovery phase of kind of like our technical writing steps or technical communication steps. I always talk about that need to empathetically discover. And that means partnering with users. It's not like simply letting them sit on the sidelines or assuming what they need. And so there's this empathetic, almost this emotional connection that needs to happen as well, where we're trying to understand like their frustration with something or their maybe desire to complete this task. What is their motivation for completing the task? And there could be a very large emotional component to that. But it's just so funny to me that it's so difficult sometimes for people to see the difference between those two things. To me, it's like strikingly different. You know, an even thinking difference between audiences typically is what I associate with entertainment versus users I associate with this like very calculated interaction. Um, so I just got done teaching a technical design course, uh like an introduction to document design. And one of the things I kept telling them is I'm like, we don't add visual elements to entertain or make something people or make things beautiful. I hope it's beautiful. I hope you have a beautiful product at the end. I'm like, but our goal is to deliver usability. And all of these visual elements are not for entertainment, but to provide structure for the information or the idea that we're trying to convey. Right. And if it doesn't reach that end, it's not doing its job. Right. And so I'm like, are you peppering your document with pictures because you want to make it look pretty, or is it actually enhancing our knowledge or our usability?

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Okay, so that is a good, I think, pivot for me. You've talked about teaching intro to techcom to making it part of the core curriculum. So far, the students that have gone through this particular course, in your opinion, have they kind of come to understand what technical communications is and then decided to make that a career path for themselves? Can you share a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Absolutely. So it's actually, I love teaching the introductory class because that's actually where most of my recruiting takes place for our minor, is in my classroom. Because it takes a while to unpack. Like you said, a lot of people don't understand what technical communication is. So I get to spend four and a half months with the same set of people just unpacking what this idea is and how it applies. And what's so funny is I always walk away out of a class of 22 students because we meet in a computer lab. Um, so I can only have so many students at one time. I always walk away with about three or four people picking up the minor or majoring in English, minor, and technical writing. And what's so funny is that UTA, the only degree that requires technical communication is nursing. And so my courses are about 80% nursing students.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

I've never heard that. I want to touch upon that in my follow-up question. But go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Because I've actually designed my technical communication course around medical writing. But anyway, I'll tell you more about that here in a second. Okay. So what's interesting is they love this idea of technical communication because a lot of them, especially my nurses, but even non-nurses, they end up being frustrated walking out of their 1301, 1302 courses because they're writing a lot of these long form essays, 10 plus pages. And as you and I know, as far as content and I would say as far as the way that that our current society digests information and consumes it, that is way too long. No one is going to read your 10-page, 7,000-word, whatever, or I just I just published an article two years ago. It was 10,000 words because that's what this academic journal wanted. I'm like, and I kept trying to add section breaks in it, and like because I'm a technical writer, right? And it was on Shakespeare because I was just publishing part of my dissertation, and the journal kept kicking the section breaks back out. And they kept saying, Well, if you're not doing enough work with your language, it's not written well enough. Like my my topic sentences. And I'm like, I kind of agree with that, but you have a very different consumer than you did 30 years ago. Right? They need that structure. And so a lot of my students, too, they come out of these 1301, 1302 courses being taught to write these genres that really don't exist outside of academia. And when they come to technical writing and I'll give them their first assignment, I'll say, well, how long does this need to be? How many words? I say as few words as we need so that it conveys the point, yet no one gets injured, or you get sued because you left something out. And they're just shocked by that and they don't know what to do with it. It's so freeing. And uh, you know, it's because it's so usable, right? And it's so so uh accessible. And so I think as they kind of go through and see how practical this is going to be, and I talk about, you know, if you don't chart it, it didn't happen. That's why I always tell my nurses, right? And so then talking about how do we write effective chart notes? How do we you know give patient instructions where we need to give instructions in a clear way because your patient might be in pain and be on medication at the same time. So if your instructions aren't clear to begin with, you already have two barriers if you're gonna be good. We don't need bad instructions on top of the fact that we have these other barriers we're having to deal with. So as they kind of see this practicality and the telecommunication reflects more of what they see in their own world and what they're seeing online and what they see in their magazines and what they're seeing on these blog posts, it's like the writing they live with. It's like the communication they live with, and so they become invested in it. And so I pick up all of these students who want to study it. And one of the wonderful things too is that the way that the nursing degree is set up at UTA, and we have one of the best nursing degrees in the country, and a lot of students really try to get, I mean, it is cutthroat trying to get into that nursing program. But what ends up happening is they have a very small window for minors. It's like they can only take three additional classes outside of nursing. And so our minor actually works for them. It's one of the few ones that do because introduction to technical writing is already required in their other coursework. So then they take two advanced courses in an internship in technical writing and they've completed their minor. And so I have a lot of nurses who love the content, it actually fits into their degree plan without them having to take extra hours. Because if you take hours outside your degree plan, you can't get financial aid for that. And so I'm I'm producing all these nurses who are actually technical writers on the side, and I tell them like, if you ever decide you can't do nursing anymore because of emotional burnout or whatever, I'm like, you have a solid fallback. Or some of them end up just saying, you know, I did my clinical rounds, I cannot do this, um, but I'm too far in. And so they end up coming to me and say, How do I brand myself as a technical communicator? I'm like, let's do it. All right.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Wow, I think this was an interesting, I think, dimension to our conversation. I didn't expect to discover this as to how I'm always looking for opportunities to share with our audience on how you can get into technical communications. But here's somebody who is planning to become a nurse, for example, right? I mean, that's and then they discover this and they can probably straddle both. And they can maybe become a nurse, and then somewhere down the road, because they've had this training. I I think I want to come back to this important point that technical writing, it is a skill set. It is not that anybody can do it. And I think that's a notion people carry that I write, and therefore I can be a technical writer. Yes, you can write, but it requires some training on your end. And I think making content accessible, making it usable, these are all the words that I just took. You know, I was taking those notes as you were speaking about it, being an empathetic writer, trying to remove barriers, that requires and removing the verbosity of the content that you're creating. Yes, all that requires. A retraining or relearning in your approach to writing?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

So one of the fun things I do is I have my nurses write an explanation or summary of a case to an attending physician, and then write the exact same thing to an admin person at the hospital who has no medical training but works in a hospital, and then write the same thing to their spouse of the person who suffered the injury, who has no medical training whatsoever and no background. And so the word choice changes, the level of empathy, all of that changes into making accessible for that particular user. And what are they using it for? You know, their spouse is concerned about are they healthy? Are they okay? The attending physician needs to make decisions about what medications to order, what tests to order. And what's interesting too is that as I've talked to a lot of my nurses, I keep telling them, you know, a lot of these pharmaceutical companies, a lot of labs are looking for technical communicators to bring on who understand enough of what their researchers are doing to write white papers, to write grant applications, to do that. And so they they need that background. They must have it, like you were saying, but they also need that training and that skill set. And so it's funny too because my my wife works for the Math Association of America, and they always have the hardest time finding anyone who has both a like writing background, but then also like some sort of science background. And she keeps saying she's like, We're looking for someone to do X job, but we just can't find anyone that really fits this. And so I always tell my students, you know, sometimes you think there are certain classical fits for majors, like English and history, or all these certain very particular combinations. But I always tell them sometimes having an arts major and a sciences minor or something like that, or sciences major and an arts minor, it really works out well for you in the sense that it equips you with these different skill sets. Right. Um, that then you can the market how you want to.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

I definitely see an advantage with that. And then it kind of also makes you a little more of a well-rounded person. You bring a good person, a good healthy balance. Absolutely. In my opinion, that is what I would be looking for. I think the key, the operative word here is empathy. We need to develop that empathy for our user. Absolutely. And that comes when you are exposed to both sides, the science and the arts.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Absolutely. And you know, it's funny is the I'm looking at like my engineers, for instance. And my engineers are so when I bring up in empathy to them, they're like, I don't know what you're talking about. And so, but what they do get, um, and they do understand, and again, this is understanding my user who's sitting right in front of me. I talk to them, I say, okay, let's just say you are competing for a position at an engineering firm with another student who just graduated from an equally accredited engineering degree. They minored in math, you minored in technical communication. In this economy where we're looking for what your ad extra is, you already get lots of math in engineering courses. You had enough to pass your certification exam. The ad extra of having technical communication, that skill set, that ability to do something extra and different, which is empathizing, understanding how to write those reports. Because you might write a report for a city council about a project you're doing, which none of them are engineers. So you need to think about how you're gonna do that correctly and empathizing with someone who doesn't want to, they're an elected official, so you can't make them feel stupid, right? Because ultimately you want them to cut your check at the end of the day. But at the same time, you need to be honest with them and show that you're a professional. And so they then understand that because they've had a pitch, they've had to do a lot of pitches in their courses. And so they're like, oh, this makes sense. This is about blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yes, absolutely. You know, versus when I'm I have a clay major right now. So her major is in clay and sculpting, and she's a technical writing minor. And so she is now moving into her internship, it was actually in social media marketing for her technical writing minor. And she I just met with her because she's finishing up this week, and she said, you know, she goes, I really feel like my art classes prepared me to be a better technical writing marketer because in the art classes we focus on how to help people feel something or experience something in our art, in our medium. She goes, in technical writing, I'm just working with a different medium, right? And then through my social media marketing, I'm helping somebody feel something or experience it in that three seconds they flip through on Instagram or whatever it is. Um I said, very true. I was like, you're very prepared. So it's funny to see all these intersections that end up. Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Oh my God, this is I'm really loving this conversation because my objective in inviting you to the show has been you are working, or rather, you're interacting with the next generation of communicators. I'm not just saying technical communicators, communicators, right? We are all communicating in our day-to-day lives. And how do we connect with our next generation of technical communicators? Because I'm invested in the field, I want my field to grow and I see a lot of potential, and I want the next generation to discover that as well. But what you have revealed to me is that technical communications is happening in different fields. So that has been my discovery as part of this conversation. But at the same time, for anybody in the audience, well, my listeners who again, when you listen, you interact, right? You're not and hopefully what they will learn from this discussion is that you could be a clay sculptor, you could be a nursing professional, but technical communications could be your glue to another career in the future. Could be a step rather, not just the glue, but the step if you so decide. And communication.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

That's the other thing some of my students think is they try to downplay some of their other things.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

That's very important.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

You can highlight that past experience and it becomes this asset. So what I would encourage people if they're listening and are thinking about making a jump or career changes, don't think that your past job experience is a liability to you making some sort of change. It's actually the asset that can help fuel you into your specific type of communication that you can do that other people can't. So again, just be encouraged in that. If you're listening to this, be encouraged.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

I I I want to say a big thank you to you, Timothy, for saying this out loud because like most of my episodes, I have discovered that people, you know, most of my guests have kind of transitioned into this field. And they're the way they've benefited is not by downplaying it, but by owning it. Yeah. And you make a very, very important point that you don't have to start off as a technical communicator, but whatever career you have been in, you can always transition into technical communications and own your past in a beautiful way. It definitely is a stepping stone. It brings value. You can always bridge the two. And technical communications actually is one of those interesting fields that allows you to do that, that empowers you, that enables you to take your past and connect it and beautifully grow in this new field altogether.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Absolutely. I think, and that's one of the reasons, again, that I love it so much is that it's really for everybody. It's not just this niche. Well, it's niche in the sense that there are unique skill sets that you have, but it's not confined or isolated. It touches and connects all of these different fields together. And really, TechCom is for everyone. And so, really getting my students to see that and enjoy it. You know, I've had people who were choir directors who came back and they're doing the technical writing certificate at UTA and they're saying, you know, I really want to do a career change. I just don't want to teach middle school choir anymore. I get that. I taught high school for a while. I understand how hard that can be. And so them being able to take a 12-hour certificate, you know, a four four-course sequence, to then be able to get that credentialing, to get enough knowledge, to develop that portfolio, to jump into that first tech composition. And then showing them really in the internship phase, which is that last step of the certificate, how do we then own, like we were saying, own our previous work experience and demonstrate how it enriches us as a job candidate?

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Well said. And I think very, very important points that our listeners can take away from this discussion is you can be coming from any field. I mean, the fact that you mentioned choir directors, I happen to know a good colleague of mine. She was a band teacher, and she has done fantastically well as a technical writer. So this discussion has been an amazing discovery to me, because I'm like, wow. I came into this conversation thinking that okay, I'm gonna ask you some typical questions, but I did not, I did not, this was anything but typical for me. I wanted you to bring your perspective to this discussion because every bit that you have shared with me has been an eye-opener, more eye-opening than I have been lucky to see. And I've been in this profession for some time. Kind of moving forward, one of the questions that I wanted to ask was what advice would you have for a young technical communicator or a career changer? And I think as part of our discussion, we've already addressed that. So that was going to be one of my typical questions, just so you know. I think we've covered a good amount of content, and I think there's so much. I'm thinking about what am I going to put in my show notes? And I have a lot of ideas, just just you know, as I'm kind of mulling over this. But is there anything else that you think you've left out and you would like to share?

SPEAKER_01 31:53

What's so funny, and this is again like just a fun little personal anecdote from me, is that, you know, I really struggled to read and write growing up. And so I ended up repeating first grade. And part of it was that they they diagnosed me with dyslexia or dysgraphia. And so I really struggle to read. And so, and even now, it's difficult for me. I don't read quickly. I usually have to use some sort of adaptive assistance, like having my computer read content to me is much faster. But it's so funny because I loved stories and I loved communicating and I loved talking and I loved standing up in front of people and teaching. And I mean, crowd of 500, 10,000, doesn't matter. I don't feel like whatever. And so that's cool. And so what's funny is a lot of the things that seemed like were standing in my way, like with dysgraphia and struggling to read, struggling to write, I would say that if there seems like there are things that are in the way, if you really want to pursue it, pursue it. You know, and a lot of times we think we tell ourselves we can't do something, but we're really our own worst enemy. And we get into our minds believing, well, I'm not going to be able to make this work, or I'm not going to be able to find a job if I study English with a focus in technical communication, because everyone hears, well, English majors don't get jobs, or you're dyslexic, so you're not, you should do something that's like not text-based. But what I tell you is just be encouraged that, you know, I end up getting a PhD in English, and sometimes I get embarrassed because there'll be typos or something like that in some of my emails I didn't catch, you know, and I always think, oh my gosh, I'm such a fraud, I'm such a, you know, I don't deserve to be here, and that sort of imposter syndrome. But what I would tell you is if you want to break into it, keep trying, keep going forward. Nothing will ever be perfect. And give yourself grace, but keep improving, keep taking that next step, keep finding ways to, like I said, when I discovered text to speech, gosh, years ago, I felt like the whole world opened up to me. And so I think that I would just tell people to be encouraged that there are things that seem to be in the way. They may not be as large, they may be more of a molehill than a mountain, but they feel like a mountain to you. And I empathize with that. Um, but find people who can mentor you and help you climb that. And then when you look back, you're gonna realize it wasn't as large of an obstacle as you say.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Thank you so much for sharing that, for being so vulnerable and kind of really trying to connect with anybody out there who's listening, that you can make this happen. And I think I want to reiterate what you said to give yourself grace, to challenge yourself at the same time, and to find a mentor. I think that is something I I learned very late in life. And again, I can either regret and live with that regret or be thankful that I found a mentor as part of my journey. And I think it's very, very important to find that mentor who can lift you and guide you. And that mountain that you see may just be a molehill. So leaning in and leaning on others is perfectly okay, and you should do that. There is nothing wrong in it.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Absolutely. And I think we have to, in some ways, you have to learn to lean in on others. Because, you know, it's funny, is I was talking to one of my people who are great and ready to graduate, um, and he was working with the uh local STC chapter as a being mentored, and I said, you know, one of the things that's really strong about you is that you understand what you don't know, and you're willing to lean in and ask and find help. When said. And I was like, because there's no way you can know everything.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

There's just no way. You know, there's someone have this specialty over here, and someone will have this experience over here. Right. And it's knowing how to find those resources that really is and leaning on them. And because they're gonna end up leaning on you because you know something they don't.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Exactly. Absolutely, no doubt about that. So you build your community, and to do that, you have to connect with your tribe. And that that is, I think, in everything that you've said, you have to reach out to your community. And if you don't, it is your loss, all said and done. So, what you're trying to say is why live with that loss when there is a support community out there ready to tap into. So don't so don't hesitate to reach out. Oh my god, this has been one of the most fascinating conversations, and I really mean it because I have learned so much about what happens in academia. I I'm a practitioner and I don't know how the academics are thinking or what is going on there. So, this is my bridge to understand the academics a little better. And hopefully, on my part, it's a community that I don't know about. So, I'm going to lean in more to my academics because you bring such a fascinating perspective on how we can grow our technical communications. And there is a little bit of technical communications in every field out there. So these are some great learnings that I have had personally from this conversation, Tim. Thank you for your time. And I have thoroughly enjoyed having this conversation with you. One last question before we go. Are there any resources that you would like to recommend? Any books, any blogs that have inspired you that you would like to recommend?

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Yeah, so I definitely would say that I would recommend like finding out where your local STC, Society for Techno Communication chapter is, um, and getting involved. Because a lot of people I've talked to in the past when they hear STC, they think of STC National. And so kind of this sort of large parent organization. But there are small groups of techno communicators in your area who are getting together, who are banding together to share knowledge, share resources, share skill sets. And they're, like you said, developing that community to where you know where to reach out when you don't know how to complete a task or you just need some help or some direction. So that'd be the first thing I would say is get involved in that community. Absolutely. The second thing I would say is if you have the opportunity, really look into doing just a little bit of coursework or prep in technical communication. Because while everyone is a part-time techno communicator, to do it well, you do need a little bit of training, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Oh yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Some people do it well and some people don't. Everyone's doing it, but it doesn't mean you're doing it well. And so what I would say is look into Society for Techno Communication training that that's out there, or some link, there's some pretty good LinkedIn learning courses. They're not tons on this, and I've even thought about actually um creating my own LinkedIn learning courses to post to that. I know it's I know it's a dream right now. Or reach out to some of your local universities and see if they do offer a post-baccalaureate certificate program where it's not tons of hours, you're not giving a whole nother degree. But what I would I would tell you is I would really look to see if it is an actual certificate versus a continuing ed course. A lot of times continuing ed, um they're very short, it's very narrow, you're not getting a lot of full, really rich content because they're filling a very different role. Um, but look in the actual departments with the university and see like some of them do just master's level, some people do um post back where it's an undergraduate level. Um, like we do it actually, it's a postback, but we actually allow people also who don't have a bachelor's degree to take that certificate as well. So it's it's one of those things where if you can get that coursework and it's gonna be different every every school, um, but see if you can it can nab one of those, and that will help you develop that portfolio as you kind of good nuggets.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Very, very, very important. As you said, everybody can do technical writing, but can you do it well? And I think that is going to be your differentiator. If you think we are good to go, on that note, I would like to say thank you one more time, and this has been a great conversation.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

It's my pleasure. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

Thank you, thank you so very much. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please share on your social media to help me reach a wider audience. Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite app, including Apple, Google, or Spotify. Follow us on Twitter at inside techcom or visit us at www.inside techcom.show for the latest updates. Catch you on another episode.