Curriculum Vitae Topics

Current Requirement
Applicable Skills
Career Achievements
Summary of Career To-Date
Education
Personal Details

Current Requirement

Securing employment on any IT project where arcane information needs to be unraveled, documented in an easy-to-understand manner, and made available. Readers are my customers – their needs must be met or exceeded!

Technical writing and web design are complementary – it’s all about presenting information in a useful, friendly manner.

Applicable Skills

Expert knowledge of writing, publishing, and online help systems (Word, Adobe Acrobat)
Expert knowledge of XML and XSLT, especially how they relate to document creation and management
Strong knowledge of information design and publishing aesthetics
Rapid learner of concepts and systems. I love it!
Expert English grammar skills
Expert web site implementation skills
Expert knowledge of PHP
Intermediate knowledge of ASP.NET and SQL 2005
Intermediate knowledge of Python, JavaScript, MySQL

Career Achievements

Eight years in technical writing, consistently generating high quality software documentation
Developed documentation generation component of BPM (Business Process Management)product that produces feature-rich web and print output on demand. Quote from top Sales agent:

"Every XSOL sales presentation we do I always look forward to pressing that documentation button because every single time we get that 'wow' reaction. The output and extensive HELP facility is a great differentiator for XSOL and you can be proud of the contribution you have made to the products."

Solely developed and maintained online help and training material for complex BPM (Business Process Management) products for 6 years and never missed a deadline!
Taught myself HTML, PHP, and website implementation best practices while working fulltime
Developed own feature-rich documentation system - PubDoc (using XML, XSLT, and PHP) - that generates large or small web and print documents from an XML single-source (DocBook)

Summary of Career To-Date

Online help for web application (contract)

Contracted to Right Hemisphere (http://www.righthemisphere.com/) for Electronic Arts project (http://www.ea.com/)
Wrote online help for global web application
December 2006 – February 2007

XSOL logo Technical Writer and Web designer for XSOL Limited (full time)

Strong understanding of business process management and documentation
Developed and maintained single source online help and print for three integrated BPM products
Developed documentation generation component of BPM (Business Process Management) product that produces feature-rich web and print output on demand
Implemented corporate web site
Wrote and implemented training material for all BPM products
Only technical writer and web designer for 6 years
September 2000 – November 2006

Web designer (contract)

http://www.onesure.co.nz/
External website and internal sales lead and CRM web application developer
http://www.grapevine.org.nz/
http://www.mmmoney.co.nz/
http://www.seishinkan.info/
April 2005 – present

Technical Writer (contract)

http://www.emco.is/ (Iceland), wrote online help for 24 networking software applications, written between April 2003 and May 2005
http://www.zervex.com/ (USA), wrote online help for web hosting application, written May 2003, update April 2005
http://www.cpanel.net/ (USA), wrote online help for web hosting application, written Spetember 2002, updated twice in 2003
http://www.whitecloudsystems.com/ (New Zealand), wrote online help for project management software, September 2003

Intrahealth logo Technical Writer for Intrahealth (full time)

Managed small team (2 writers)
Wrote, maintained, and published successive iterations of a 400 page reference manual for a medical practice management system (Profile)
January 1999 - September 2000

Technical Writer and Trainer for Siebel CRM system (contract)

Wrote reference and training manuals for 3 different user groups using Siebel CRM system
Planned training for 80 staff in 3 successive role-outs of Siebel CRM system (Inform)
Subcontracted as sole company representative
June - September 2000

Technical Writer and Trainer for web-based claims system

Wrote reference manuals for 2 systems (APS [Affiliated Providers System], web-claiming and contract creation modules)
Wrote context-sensitive online help for web-claiming system
Wrote technical documentation for both systems (database structure, maintenance)
Trained 18 staff in 2 systems
Subcontracted as part of team of 8
February - April 2000

Sole Technical Writer and Trainer for multi-million dollar project (contract)

Wrote reference manuals for 2 systems for multi-million dollar medical claims processing system (CPS [Claims Processing System], Case Manager)
Wrote technical documentation for both systems (database structure, maintenance)
Trained 20 staff in 2 systems
Subcontracted as part of team of 10
September - November 1999

Education

Master of Arts (Honors) in English Literature - Auckland University
Diploma in Technical Writing - Auckland University of Technology (AUT)

Personal Details

"Knowledge junkie"

Have run a martial arts dojo for 6 years and studied for 12 years - http://www.seishinkan.info/
Meditator

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