Inside Tech Comm with Zohra Mutabanna
Inside Tech Comm explores how technology, content, and the changing workplace are reshaping technical communication—and the people behind it. Through candid conversations with practitioners and thinkers, the show looks beyond tools and trends to examine how the work is evolving, how people are navigating that change, and what it means for the future of the profession.
Inside Tech Comm with Zohra Mutabanna
S8E5 You are the Product: Storytelling Your Tech Comm Career
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Technical writers do work that can influence products, customers, and business outcomes. Yet we can still find ourselves described as the people who make things look good or “do the documentation.”
In this episode, I talk with Nibu Thomas about changing that narrative.
Nibu’s own career has moved through several S-curves—from manufacturing and quality-focused work to documentation leadership, marketing, and go-to-market support. We use that journey to explore what happens when you stop defining your career by the deliverables you produce and start thinking about the value you create.
A big part of that shift is storytelling. How do you tell the story of your career? How do you make your value visible on a resume when a hiring manager may be scanning hundreds of them? And how do you build a professional network before you actually need something from it?
We also talk about what AI changes for technical writers. As tools become better at generating and updating documentation, Nibu argues that writers need to move closer to customers and business outcomes—and think beyond producing more content.
Some highlights from our conversation:
- Finding the common thread across career transitions
- Moving beyond tools and deliverables when describing your work
- Using storytelling to communicate your professional value
- Building relationships outside your immediate professional circle
- Approaching networking with kindness rather than reciprocity
- Making your resume stand out when hiring managers have little time
- Connecting technical communication work to revenue and cost savings
- Moving closer to customers and product outcomes
- Rethinking the technical writer’s value as AI takes on more content work
- Treating yourself as the product you need to position
If you've ever struggled to explain what you bring to the table beyond “I write documentation,” this conversation offers another way to think about your career.
Use discount code ITC26 to save $200 on registration for LavaCon 2026.
Season Kickoff And Sponsor Deal
ZohraHello friends and welcome to season eight of Inside Techcom with Zahra Mutabana. This season features a collection of conversations that explore the ideas, challenges, and opportunities shaping technical communication today. From AI and content strategy to leadership, product thinking, and the future of our profession. Each episode offers a fresh perspective from people doing the work. Let's get started. Season eight is proudly sponsored by LavaCon. Use discount code ITC26 to save $200 on registration for this year's conference. I'll share more about LavaCon later in this episode.
A Career Of S Curves
ZohraHello, listeners. Welcome to another episode of Insight Techcom with Jahramut Amana. Today I have Nibhu Thomas joining us from Bangalore, a place that is very dear to my heart. Naboo, I'm so happy to have you here. And we've had some chat so far about what Bangalore is like. Now we we will dive a little deeper into your background and you know how we can apply that to the newcomers entering our field and you know just generally talk about how the field is evolving. So Nabu Thomas, welcome to my show and over to you. Please just share a little bit about yourself.
SPEAKER_01Thanks so much, Zora. So it was uh it's a delightful to be a part of your show. I was listening to a few episodes and I really like the way that you interact with guests. I think you've got a knack for uh you know asking the right questions in order to get good answers, right? And to make good content. So that's definitely a great attribute that I look for in tech writers as well. So I've had a long career, more than 30 years. Uh, I stopped counting some time back, but I started in manufacturing and uh then eventually got into the call center and then moved into writing. So my last assignment was with Watfix, where I headed. Uh I started their team of writers and I headed it before uh yeah, for about seven years. That's where I am right now. I mean, now I have moved on to a very different role. So I've had a couple of S-curves in my career. S-curves are curves where you do things which are entirely different from what you have been doing. So initially I was in manufacturing. I worked with machines, I worked with my hands, and I was very good with it. I love that work because it was very tactile, right? You used to touch and feel stuff. You're working with metal, you see fire and all of that. And the stuff that you make it gives you a lot of delight when you can hold it, right? So that gives you a very different kind of a pleasure as opposed to something that is virtual, right? So customer satisfaction or even when it comes to content, you don't really touch things. You see how people read your stuff if you're lucky and how they react to it. But you know, manufacturing was something that I really liked. Of course, I shifted because you know, the IT bug bit and the money bug bit, right? Then uh moved into writing. Yeah, that that's a long story in itself. And right now I'm again doing something very, very different, which is something related to marketing and go-to-market. So, yeah, that's where I am right now.
ZohraNibu, you mentioned, you know, you've kind of had this amazing journey this far. What is the common thread that has connected these experiences?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so when it comes to common thread, I don't know if there is something common because when I look at all the folks that I have worked with, either they're doing what they've always been doing or they're doing something very, very different. Okay. So the skills that I required initially were more got to do with adherence, right? Quality standard. For example, we used to machine stuff which was in microns. So that's not something that you can even see with your naked eye, right? You have to use measuring instruments to check if it is within a certain dimension. So it was got to do with accuracy, you want to do to quality. Quality again, again, it's got to do with repeatability, right? You are able to maintain a particular dimension, but are you able to continue to maintain that? So when you look at what are there any commonalities, I would say that it is because I have come from such a background that I'm able to see things a little differently here, right? So when I've been working with uh many vendors as well, and there was this data scientist who used to call me and you know talk to me about his problems, and really like the conversations because I was able to bring him a very different perspective. So he he would actually, I was surprised, why is he calling me? I'm in documentation, and he's actually a really good uh with AI and all of that. But then I realized, okay, these varied experiences actually help you look at things from multiple angles. You're not always looking at things from a certain angle, but you're looking at it from multiple things. Like, for example, I have been exposed to a lot of Japanese quality concepts. So when I come across a problem, the Japanese what they do is in manufacturing, they have this concept of uh pokay, which is uh you know, mistake proofing. If you are making a mistake, they would want to see that it never happens again. So to explain that concept, it's something like you know, initially there were a lot of railway accidents because the rails used to go through the roads, right? So somebody thought, okay, uh, let's put a gate in there. And now, and you know that how in India they lift the gate and you know, still go, and still there were accidents. So, how did they actually solve it is by creating these overbridges so that there is no way that an accident can take place and the train goes on its way and the people go over it, right? You're not stopping in the traffic, but you're totally eliminating that problem. So that tendency uh or that the nature of finding the cause and then trying to find a permanent solution for certain issues really stuck with me. So when I even in tech writing, if they come out, uh I mean, when I was documenting certain solutions, that is something that you know I used to always think about. Why did they create the product like this so that this would not have become a problem in the first place, right? So that the thought process, I think that has been able to that has carried through. I agree with you. I couldn't have probably put it any better.
Quality Thinking And Mistake Proofing
ZohraYeah, and I think you kind of you are a prime example, right, of that path that you've taken. What are you doing currently?
SPEAKER_01I've been a tech writer for what 20 years at least. And I think the biggest issue that I've found is that we have never really talked about our work with the larger audience, with the larger set of people outside. And that is probably why even today, if you tell people that I'm a technical writer or I'm in a documentation, they'll ask, What do you do? That was something that actually that I worked on during the COVID years. This is a network that I built in the last five, six years, not more than that. I was on LinkedIn from a very long time, but uh during the COVID years, I had a lot of time. I I didn't have to travel so many hours every day one day. It was during that time that I realized, okay, how do you tell your story better? Right? So if you look at my LinkedIn this thing also, I've kind of said that I'm a storyteller. Now, storytelling is an art. That's something that I observed from my grandfather when I was a child. He was really good with telling stories. Even if I knew the story, I would still want him to tell it again, right? Because though though they had personal experience, so he used to work with the Swedish people in Munar, which is a hill station in Kerala, and he had his own car and all at that time itself, and he had a gun. I mean, the way he told the stories itself was with all his grandchildren you know gathered around him. And in our home in Kerala, there are these heads of uh these different games that he's actually shot. At that time, it was possible, even then, they had to take permissions at in certain times, right? So he was one of the few people who had the licensed, you know, weapons and all, and he used to tell us about his hunting journeys, and we used to point at each one of the heads, and we used to know okay, there's a story behind each of those, and the way he narrated it, he would tell a few things that he did not tell the previous time as well, right? So that was the reason why we would want him to tell it again, again, again. So he would get tired, but he would tell it in such a fascinating way, and it was in Malayalam, and those are not the only stories that he told, right? So, I mean, anytime we are bored, we just go sit next to him and tell me a story, right? And he used to just oblige. So, storytelling is an art. Like I said, us technical writers haven't really shared our story to the world, right? So that's a big area that I feel we should be working on. And the reason is I haven't really found why, because I have been able to do it easily. It's not just your story, it's a story of your profession, your organization, your culture. There is no boundaries to the kind of stories that you can tell. But this narrative is something that uh our folks need to work on. And what I realize is now because of AI, supposedly a lot of people are you know losing their jobs, and now they're trying to build their networks. Every week I get at least one or two people reaching out to mostly seniors, right? Saying, Hey Hinibu, are you aware of any you know positions where I could fit? And there aren't as many positions. How many positions do you see where they need 10 plus years of work experience? There aren't too many. And then they are now they are trying to say, okay, how do I build my network? I wouldn't say it's too late. It's I mean, you should have started a long time ago, right? So the last few profiles that I've had have all been through networks, right? Many of these were not even advertised. Many of the positions get closed, are not even advertised, they are closed in their personal networks, right? Many people don't know about these things. So you have to build this network much earlier. Now, they say you connect to only people that you know. Now, I have a problem with that because the people that you know is very, very limited, right? And this is an insight that I got when I was trying to build my network. I found that the people who were not connected to me actually interacted a lot with my content. They liked, left comments, and then I actively pursued them. Say, hey, thanks for interacting with me, with my content. I would like you to be a part of my network. So that is how I built a network that actually supports me. So that's where I realized that you know the people who support you may be outside your network. So, how do you get them in? And then, of course, LinkedIn has a limit of you know 30,000 people that you can be connected to. After that, you'll have to tell them, okay, and I'm sorry, I've reached my max. Every time I do a cleanup, I'll make sure that I look at certain things before I connect to a person. So I don't publicize that, but we can discuss that. Anyway, so I say, okay, I will do these cleanups, and when I do these cleanups, I would be happy to connect with you. In the meantime, if you like the content that I'm sharing, you can follow. Right. So that's how I've kind of built my network. And
Storytelling And LinkedIn Networking
SPEAKER_01it has actually helped me what you ask me, what am I currently doing? So right now, what I'm doing is marketing. So I've uh I'm marketing for multiple organizations. I used to work for part-time, right? Part-time means it's more like an uh an assignment. So I was working with an NGO that works with uh underprivileged children, right? So I I helped him get the founder get uh a slot on Radio Mirchi through a contact of mine. Also, I was able to get the Better India uh magazine the publication to publish his story. So he works with uh these underprivileged children and he puts in his own money and he trains them over a period of a year, and at the end of the year and they are being absorbed as software engineers into uh large multinationals. Yeah, so a very noble exercise. That was uh I was helping him with his social media marketing and how do you actually position your service so that you get a bigger demand than you can fulfill, right? So if you have 30 children that you're working with, at the end of a year, you want to make sure that you're placing all of them. And if it has to be sustainable, you want them to pay for the next batch because you can't go on paying for everybody. So I kind of helped him with that. I'm also working with you know Xenius, the with Sagar. And they are a video AI tool. I was helping them with there are other tools, by the way, uh, that do what they do. So, how do you position your such a tool that is not the first in the market? How do you position it so that it seems different? Even if it is it the others have a two-year lead on you know whatever it is that you're doing. How can you still the narrative has to be different? So while I the others say that okay, we we convert videos into you know professional videos. I said you change it so that we say that we are a video first platform. So we help you create video documentation from scratch. We want communication to be effective, which means people have to remember it. And we know that text content is only 10% effective. Only 10% of what you read, you're able to remember. At the same time, it's 60 plus percentage when it comes to videos. So everybody wants knows that videos is more effective. But why are we not creating videos? It's simply because of the time, the effort, the cost, right? So that is a problem that we have solved. We can help you create videos in minutes. And we are trying to use the same process that you use. Like if you have created a video, you would have a script, right? You would do your recording and then you would convert the script into text. If you don't have a great voice, you will get the AI to you know narrate the voice and then bring it all together. And it takes hours, depending on what is the complexity. But what if we could all do all of that in minutes, right? So, how do you position it so that it is doesn't seem like an also ran? It seems very different, especially to somebody who's hearing about such a tool for the first time. Yeah, I'm helping them with them. And initially, I used to reach out to my network and you know, people who are part of their ICP and try to pitch this particular product, saying, Okay, hey, try this particular product. I do a customer person. Oh, yeah. Okay. ICP. That is maybe it is a product marketer or it could be a documentation tech writer, or it could be customer education, LD, even IT has bought that particular solution. So, how do you tell these stories? How do you tell a story about your product so that it lands well? Now, even in my previous organization, we used to do webinars. They used to ask me to come up with a topic. There were several topics that I spoke about that attracted a huge number of people just just because of the way that it was framed. Before AI, how do you create intelligent content? That was what the topic of one of the presentations that I gave. Then we were looking to hire some writers. So they said, okay, let's have a physical event. And the topic that I spoke about was well, how many tech writers do you need to change a light bulb? That is so that was the name of the topic that I spoke about. Lots of um sessions like that. I've given multiple sessions in STC. I talked about this journey and you know, where should we go from here as well. And last week I was on a panel discussion where you know they asked some really good questions. And one of them is, what is the most ridiculous thing that you have heard about AI? So while the other panelists said this is the usual one, they're saying AI will replace technical writers. I said, I don't think I can confidently say that anything is ridiculous. Because in the 1940s, the IBM chief said there's a total market size of five for PCs. And look at it now. So the way it is changing, it's not going to be really nothing is going to be really ridiculous. It might really happen. So I don't want to be in a place where I looked at it and I laughed at it and then it became reality.
Marketing, Go To Market, AI Reality
ZohraMy question to you, Nebu is with the large network that you have, there is this give and take, right? I always wonder, like I'm always reluctant. Oh, if I'm going to ask Nebu for something, I haven't done anything for him. So how do I approach him? Or you know, quote unquote ask favor, help, whatever it may be. So what do you recommend in such a scenario for someone who is trying to reach out to somebody else? What is it that you know? Because we can that's something that I've read and heard, and I think it's right. Or if anybody somebody just reaches out to me and like, hey, can you do this for me? I'm like, where were you all before this? Like, right? So it goes both ways. So what would you recommend there?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, see, there's a thumb rule for that. You uh I think it is kindness, right? So every request that I get, I get thousands of requests to connect, even though I've reached my max, it still allows me to, you know, receive these requests. And I reply to every one of them. I don't know how long I'll be able to do it, but so far I've been able to reply to them, explaining to them. You know, I put it in a very funny way, say I have good news and I have bad news, right? So good news is that we can continue to talk here because I have replied. You don't need to actually connect with me. So LinkedIn, maybe it's a loophole, I don't know. But you can continue to interact with me here. The bad news is I'm not able to connect with you, but it doesn't make a difference. And then I also give them a small tip about you know how do you connect. So see, we may not always have done something in order to deserve a favor back. But like they say in Hindi, pusne me. Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. So you start with that attitude, and when the other person is in need, remember that this is something that never happens, right? People always reach out, you know, they take the favor, but when it comes to reciprocity, that very rarely happens. They forget about these things, right? But that should not stop you from continuing to help people, from continuing to be kind. Because, like I don't know, it was Mother Teresa who said, right, if you do this, they will blame you, if you do that, then they will curse you. But continue to do good because it's not between you and them, it's between you and God. Right? So it's actually a very good uh a small passage that she has written. Uh maybe towards the end uh I will share a link. But that is how you handle this, I would say. You're never deserving of anybody's grace or uh kindness, but go ahead and ask for it. And with the attitude that when they ask, you do your best to help them. That's how you connect.
ZohraThat's such a beautiful way of framing it, I think. Again, that was part of your storytelling, I suppose. Yeah, uh kindness definitely, and not expecting anything in reciprocity, just you just do it. And I love your take on responding to every request that comes to you. It's tough, it's not easy keeping up with that communication. Yeah, I I think that's great. Being personable immediately breaks barriers.
SPEAKER_01And I think it just makes it easier for me to absolutely, please go for it. I found that yeah. So it says people are often unreasonable and self-centered, forgive them anyway. If you're kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives, be kind anyway. If you're successful, you
Asking For Help With Kindness
SPEAKER_01will win some false fans and some true friends, succeed anyway. If you're honest, people may cheat you, be honest anyway. What you spend years building someone could destroy overnight, build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous, be happy anyway. The good you do to people will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway. So it's a very nice, I don't know. Uh Mother Teresa.
LavaCon Highlights And Discount Code
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Communicate For Outcomes Not Content
ZohraYou describe yourself as somebody who helps people articulate ideas, not just create content. How do you distinguish between the two?
SPEAKER_01When it comes to communication, you have those. I mean, somebody is even have that formula, right? You have a messenger, I mean you have the giver of the message, and then you have the receiver, and you have the message that needs to, you know, go in the same spirit that it was sent out. When you look at communication today, it is breaking at multiple points. So it could break because you haven't expressed something properly. It could break because you may have been as articulate as possible, but the other person thought it was something else. There are multiple places in which it could fail. But what is it that you can do and understand? Understanding that these failures could happen. Now, when you approach a problem, understanding that there are these areas of failure, you'll be a lot more careful in how you express yourself. As opposed to, I just want to get my side of the story out. I don't care if it lands, I don't care if it's received, I don't care if it even is misunderstood. That's how most communication happens today. So can you convey something looking or foreseeing how it will land? If you can do that, I think your communication, that's as much as you can do. That is one. And the second thing is if you do that, I think it should meet its mark. Now, see, the intent of any communication is something should be done. Even when when I used to talk to my team, I used to say, see, your intent of creating documentation is for some end goal. So there is a saying that says the best meeting is the one that never happened. So documentation is also like that. So in my previous organizations, we had a metric that you used to track. Like, how much did you improve the product? You're very close to the product managers, engineers who actually build the product. As a result of you understanding the product and trying to describe it for your users, how did you contribute to improving the product? We used to actually track that as insights. Insights are basically improvements to the product or new ways to use the product, maybe, or new products itself. Your contribution is not just content. If you can get your end result without creating content by improving the product itself, that's a much better outcome. So I used to tell them, right? So don't always think that you have to create content. If you could give a design feedback to actually they improve the product, they are no longer seeing that error message because they improved that product. That's one less doc for you to write. So don't look at how much of content you're generating. That is not the intent. That is what every other writer does. How are you differentiating yourself from every other writer? When these people send their resumes to me, I also help them improve their resume. I help them wear the hat of a hiring manager. So one thing I tell them is that see, they are not trying to qualify you. They receive hundreds of resumes and they are not trying to qualify every resume, they are trying to disqualify as many resumes as possible so that they are left with the smallest chunk to choose from.
ZohraRight.
SPEAKER_01Right. So now you put yourself in that position, you have 15 seconds to catch their attention. What would you do differently? You have AI also. Go ahead, go use it. So I used to hire a lot of interns. And if interns, there are no experience constraints. If so, everybody and their dad will apply. And you get a ton of SMAs. So we had to become creative about that. So what I did is I changed the job description so that there was a test hidden in the JD itself. So there were some induced errors in the JD. And even if you put it through AI, AI will not find some of those because it's some of those are very colloquial. Right? At the end, I said, okay, did you go through the JD? You saw what is required?
ZohraJD's job description for our audience.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, job description. Yeah. Now, five errors in the job descriptions, and then that's your assignment. And then people used to say, reply back saying, There's the assignment. Right? So there itself, the number of applications reduced because they knew that this is not something I don't see anything. So I this is not something that I can do. It was not everybody and their dad who used to apply. So the point is, these are just some examples of how you can make your communication so that it is more outcome focused. You're not just dumping content on your user. That is not documentation. You're trying to solve a problem. And if you can solve a problem without creating content, that is the best solution.
ZohraYes. And it's a metric that's not tracked. At least not in my career. That's something that I've heard of. The point is that we end up doing that every day. We do have those conversations with designers, product managers, developers, where we are testing the product before writing the content actually, or asking the why. Why is it designed this way? Do we really need content? Because our goal is not to just write content, our goal is to solve a problem or improve an experience, the user experience and outcomes more importantly.
SPEAKER_01Why is it that you know some teams think that we do only formatting? We only put it into good words and we do only formatting. You know why? Because there are writers who do only that. And there are writers who do only that and that who may be doing more, but only that is being projected out. They ask for a draft, they you know put it into the tool and they publish it. That's not helping, which is where you have to show them that this is not your core strength. Right? You have to show them why they should value you as a team member. Now, my folks used to go and go attend bug bashes, identify bugs that even engineers were not able to identify simply by looking at things from the user's perspective. Right. And then they were being asked, hey, hey, are you coming to the bug bash? They used to be asked, come, we want you there because of the that kind of value that they are they have created, not because they wrote some document. And this is the value that I would say tech writers need to focus on. Your value should be on how did you improve the product, not on documentation. See, documentation is not a critical function, like I was saying in the webinar that we had as well. It is never one of the first functions to be established in an organization. Even Xenius, the organization that you're going to talk to Sagar, he writes the documentation himself. He's not going to hire a technical writer in the next three, four years, definitely. It's a product that is meant for technical writers, but it's not the function that comes up first. You would need people who contribute to the bottom line first, your marketing, your sales, where you can actually track how they are contributing every day to the bottom line. So if that is the criteria that determines your importance, you should look at okay, how can I contribute to the bottom line? And there are multiple ways. In my previous organization, it was a digital adoption platform. So it was basically it would show you tips. I don't know if you know about WatFix. So it used to show you small little help content. I didn't catch that. Whatfix is a digital adoption platform. So what it does is it sits on top of any SaaS application and handholds you to certain tasks. So let's say you're a new Salesforce user, and that instance of Salesforce have implemented WhatFix. You'll see a small panel that pops up as soon as you sign in, showing you five things that you need to do as your first-time user. So you're able to get started using a completely unknown tool very quickly. Now, I talk to several of my friends. I have uh classmates who've been in top positions like vice vice presidents, partners, senior partners, about the solution. And they went ahead and bought the solution. Me being in documentation, have been able to create deals resulting in hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of deals because I had that conversation. I'm not paid for that. I don't get any commission, but I did it. That is one. Second, we used to use a particular vendor for our publishing platform. Now he implemented a very clever way of using that application. We had multiple products eventually, but we used only one single project. And we were saving the company at least $30,000 every year, even after I left. As so long as they used, continue to use that tool, they will save so much even after I leave, simply because of the way that it was implemented. Every time you have a new product, you should actually buy a new project. But what we did is they have these versions. We simply used a different version of the documentation. And we had six or seven products and product lines, and they will simply use the versions. So with one project, we are able to manage that. So you're actually if you only save $30,000 in costs, that is directly adding to the bottom line. Right. Right? So there are multiple ways you have to start thinking about these things. Can you save costs? Can you add customers, even as a technical writer? And the answer is yes, because I've done it both. See, when they write into me saying that I lost my job and this, okay, I asked them to send me your profile. Their profile looks like any other profile with a similar kind of experience. Now they say they have 20 years of experience or 10 years of experience, but there is no difference, nothing stands out. How do you stand out in a crowd? That is where you're able to articulate you are the product. Now create documentation when you are the product. How well do you do it? Can you do it well? That's the question that peck writers need to ask themselves, and they can come up with really good answers. So I had one guy in my team who was applying for a job at uh another organization. This was a long time ago, and they had asked for Adobe Acrobat, Adobe FrameMaker, FrameMaker experience, and we were not using FrameMaker. So I told him, do one thing, and he was good with the tool. He used to learn every tool on his own. Right? So I told him, create your resume on FrameMaker. And then at the end, just mention this resume was created on FrameMaker. And that was one of the things that they're asked for. And he got the job. See, you have to be a little creative about your abilities. If you can write well, people need to know that you can write well. Because if you're going to write well and it's going to be published on your portal self, I mean uh on your help portal alone, and you're not going to do anything about it, nobody's going to know. It's going to be like the tree that fell in the forest. Nobody knows that the tree existed. Right. I've actually worked with one tool called Promptless, and that's amazing. I was trying to implement it, and we actually did a prototype. What it does is it looks at the code of your application, it looks at your documentation, it looks at your uh ticketing platform, Zendask or whatever, it looks at your uh software, your Jira boards, right? It looks at your PRDs, and then it creates content. And you cannot create better content than that because it has all the information. You would have missed out on certain features because product managers forget. Engineers forget that they have developed something, engineers forget that they have added a new button somewhere. This would catch all of that, update the documentation, and you just need to check and publish. And it's getting better. So that's why I said I'm not going to laugh. I mean, there is no ridiculous statement when it comes to AI, because I've seen these things happen. Yeah. So that is why I tell writers, move closer to the customer. AI will not interact with your customer. Of course, even that also they're doing to a certain extent. But where you have you can create relationships, those relationships cannot be created by AI, at least as far as I know. You need human-to-human interaction. So I tell them, you know, look for those roles. Those roles are never going to go away anytime soon.
ZohraRight.
SPEAKER_01So that is why I am doing what I'm doing now.
Measure Value In Dollars
ZohraAny other such tips that would be relevant today that somebody might be doing in their day-to-day lives but not thinking about how can they think creatively? Because sometimes you're just in the grind and not able to think creatively. And if you had to pull yourself out of that, do you have some words of wisdom there for some for people like us?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, see, at the end of the day, what will make something stand out is how different it is from what everybody else is sending in. So you have to understand yourself first. What are your strengths? Why are you different? What do you bring through the table? Why are you in this particular field? What makes you good at this particular art? And then try and articulate that. Now, when you articulate that, you have to look at converting that into value. So one exercise that we did, again, this is something that I noticed that it was being done by a content marketing team. So they had a dashboard that showed how many deals came in because somebody viewed a blog? How many deals were influenced because somebody looked at their content? Now we had 4,000 pages out there that are showing up on Google. I created another dashboard to do the same thing. How many of our customers looked at our support page and then said yes? That's an influence. How many of our customers' first interaction with Whatfix was a support page? We take credit for the deal. And this was running into millions of dollars. See, there is a lot that you're actually doing, but you have to find ways to measure it in terms of money. What stands out on a resume is money. How do you translate your great writing into money? What was the impact on the bottom line? That is what you'll have to start thinking about. And if you can draft your resume to show the value of your work in terms of money, nothing like that.
ZohraFor many of us that are working at these large companies, that you have given some good examples. How do we translate that on the resume? How do we show that? So thinking creatively is great. I think we could have these numbers mentioned, we could format our resume to kind of bring these to light. There are many ways you can think about it. But any thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a little more, I would say, in larger organizations. But see, what I look for is you are expected to do certain things. What did you do above and beyond that? Only somebody who has this at the back of their mind will even attempt to do those things. It may not be successful. We created, again in the previous company, we created some videos about explaining new features. And we said, okay, what if each feature was a superpower? So from that angle, we created the story saying, okay, this is your superpower and this is how you use it. It was like a cartoon and the branding team shot it down. But still, it got a lot of appreciation from everybody. Okay, look at the tech docs team, they are, you know, this is how they are thinking about it. So somebody who's thinking about these things now, I think any organization, any size organization, they will identify ways to stand out in a crowd. That's what I'm saying. How are you standing out in a crowd of 100 writers, 200 writers? How are you standing out? Uh so in AOL, that was where I got into the call center. And the reason I got into the call center again was they had a career path where I knew that I wanted to get into writing and technical writing because the pay was good. Creative, it wasn't so good. If the pay was better at creative, I would definitely go to creative writing. But anyway, so as a call center, there were like 500 plus agents. I wanted to get into the vision of the head of knowledge management. So, what did I do? I started creating newsletters as an agent. I where did I get my content from? I by talking to other agents, right? People who took calls along with me and uh my own experiences as well. I used to go on a day off just to listen how they are taking calls. And people used to laugh at me. Say, you get two days off on one day, you're coming and you sting and taking these and getting cursed with these customers or for that one day also, because it was horrible. People used to, you know, it was an ISP, right? And if it was not working, they used to just curse you and you don't have anything. I mean, I mean, it's not your fault that they're uh, and usually sometimes it is their computer issue, it's an old 95 computer, they're trying to get on the internet with that, nothing is happening, or they have some kind of a virus on their thing that is not allowing them to connect to the internet, it's not even your fault. So I used to go and listen to these calls by Jack on Saturdays on my days off, it was not always Saturdays, and create this content. And I used to write this content in a very humorous way. People used to read it, laugh, and there was a message. There were solutions that were never there in a knowledge base. The senior writers, uh uh senior uh consultants who were really techie were able to deliver on the call. It was not there in the knowledge base. I said, okay, you're at the end of you have an issue, you have nine solutions. Here's the tenth. Try this, this works most of the time. So when there was a position opened, uh, it was not very difficult to get in because they already knew about me. That's what I'm saying. So you if you have that intent in your mind, say that I have to stand out, what am I doing that nobody else is able to do? You start thinking along those lines, it will come. The answers will come, you will be able to stand out. But what larger organizations, it might be a little difficult. But if you do this, you will be able to stand out. Now, even in larger organizations that I've been, I have you know started these sessions where I invited external speakers to come and share their stories either virtually or in a setting in the cafeteria. Why should I take that headache? I mean, and that's not in my job description. But still, I every time I heard somebody speak well, and I I thought, okay, there is a larger message that my folks in my organization also need to hear. I would go approach that person, invite them over, and they would do this session as well. This is something that I did as a tech writer.
Culture Fit, Resilience, Try New Things
ZohraBut in the past, when I've applied to companies, there were some companies that I applied to and I realized this was the biggest mistake of my life. That wavelength did not match this company where where we cinched a $3 million deal on my resume, it looked great. But then I couldn't wait to get out of there, unfortunately, just because of the culture of the company. And this is a question that is more personal, I guess. And I'm trying to, if you've encountered this. So when I apply to a company, I'm also trying to look for a value match. Because I think at the end of the day, personally, that is important to me. Do you have anything to offer there?
SPEAKER_01Philosophical answer, right?
ZohraPhilosophical answer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I'd say those are the experiences that make you a better writer. What makes you tough? It is those tough situations. If everything is hunky-dory, you aren't getting tough. I think you should appreciate those tough situations, those miserable situations. I have I have had my share, believe it or not. I just used to drag my butt to work. Just the people were really difficult. But then I realized that you know, okay, what is God trying to teach me through this situation? Like, how do I be better than them? Right? How can I, because your natural tendency is to, you know, is to react and counter whatever is coming. And that brings out the worst in you. So how can I be better? And those are the best opportunities that I mean I'm always grateful for. That is the philosophical answer. No, I think. I think grateful those. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
ZohraUm unfortunately for some youngsters who are entering this field. I don't know if anybody wants to enter this field at this point, but if there are, I I went to a conference where there were it was very refreshing to see who people who want to get into technical writing. But technical writing that looks very different from what I started with.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I had uh folks in my team, youngsters, uh, who couldn't get along with each other, right? And every time I used to have these one-on-ones, it used to be a counseling section. So I used to tell them, and they used to, you know, say, I'm looking out. Fine. I used to say, but did you learn what you were supposed to learn over here, right? How did this uh situation make you a better person? Now you're not able to realize it, but many years down the line, you will look at these things and see how it made you a better person, right? So it's it's uh they will not see it at that particular point of time because they're young, you know, hot blood and they don't get along. But and all of this, you know, you you ask me the same question 20, 30 years back, I would also have the same kind of experience. Uh, I have fallen, I have risen up, fallen, risen up. And as a result of that, my outlook has changed, right? So somebody is falling, let them get up. So you encourage them, you give them a hand, let them stand up, and let them fall again, let them stand up again. But and help them to understand what this entire thing is about. Help them to appreciate those things. So when you start to appreciate that, then it changes for you. That I can tell you, right? So, because nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. So long as you don't give them that permission, they cannot impact you. It's difficult, I wouldn't say that it's easy, but you have to remember that you are doing your part to make it worse.
ZohraRight. I also want to kind of highlight as there are writers looking for opportunities, there are many of us who can mentor and share these stories. Like you said, we've risen up and now we have we can offer a helping hand. And I think that is so important for us to keep in mind that we've reached this journey because somebody did give us a helping hand and help. Just walk and walked with us. So, and that's what you're doing through this uh you know conversation as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, try different things. Like I told you, right? This is a third thing that I'm doing, completely different from the other two. It's simply because I'm willing to try new things. Unless you try things, you you will never know if you're good at it or not. There is a hesitation to try something new because of the comfort zone or whatever. But don't worry about you know what will be the outcome. Put one leg in front and take a step, right? And then the next and the next. And you will soon come to know how good you are or how bad you are. One thing is certain, you will come to know whether I should be doing it or not doing it.
ZohraYes.
SPEAKER_01Not doing it, also, you need to know what are some things that are not my cup of tea. How do you find stuff that you can be doing instead? Try different things. So, how did I get to know that my writing was good? People appreciated my writing. Is people appreciated my writing. I listened to what people appreciated me. And one of the things that appreciated me was, wow, how did you write this? And this is much before AI, right? There were so many examples that I can give you as well. One example that I'm really proud of is I used to help the HR team improve their job description. Like I said, you're expecting your candidates to jump out at you by looking at their SUV. How is your JD jumping out at them? I worked weekends and I actually gave them a couple of job descriptions, and there was one candidate who came in, did not get the job. Then while he was going out, he told the head of the department who then told me this. He said, I may not have got that job, but that JD I will never forget. It was written for me. So those are some experiences that you know tell you, okay, this is something that you are good at, and this is something that you can be that you do really well, much better than others can do. But the thing is, we have to find those things. And what are those things? You have you have to try different things. That's the only way that you will stumble across these things.
ZohraRight.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. You're the product.
ZohraAnything else you would like to add, Nabu?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think we should have a session two to cover the other half of your questions.
ZohraBut but I I think I don't think we touched upon any of those questions.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so yeah, there were some really good questions there. I mean, but it's fine. I think we are on time and uh we should allow them to digest what we just told them so far, and then maybe connect on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to help the community. Yeah.
ZohraI've had fun and I hope you had fun, Nabu. And maybe we should do a future session, revisit in a year's time and see where tech writing is. And if the if it's still around, then we'll talk more about how do we move on to the next journey in our life.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, Sarah. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me here.
ZohraYeah, I appreciate and I appreciate my listeners. And if you have stories like these that you would like to share, please reach out to me. Please follow Nebu on LinkedIn, he's available. He's got some great advice.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much, Zana.
ZohraThank you. Thank you so much, Nebu. Have a great Friday evening. And my salute to Bangalore. Thank you for listening to Insight Techcom. If there's a guest you would love to hear on the show, please let me know. And don't forget to follow and catch every episode on your favorite podcast app. See you next time.