Today, June 14, is the International Blogger Day. Or, is it? Turns out there is no official blogger day, but it seems that in 2004 some people did choose this day to celebrate their passion for blogging! And, for the lack of a better date, we decided to join them, because, you know what? Blogging alongside podcasts, conferences and the like, is a big part of modern technical communication.
For some people, blogging is not just a hobby, but something they make a living from. In case of technical writers, blogging is rather a side hustle than something serious, but the amount of value techcomm bloggers bring is crazy.
Getting started on a new career path can stress you out and get your head spinning with information. But, don’t worry, there are dozens of techcomm-related blogs full of vital information and valuable insights waiting for you on the Internet. We would like to thank everyone who is blogging about help authoring today – you are helping the community a lot and leaving behind great heritage for the new generations of technical writers.
Here’s our list of technical communicators who can be also called bloggers:
This technical writer doesn’t need an introduction. Ugur has been multitasking for a while in the techcomm community: he has been consistently updating his blog, doing public speaking, answering questions on technical writing on Quora, has put up several online courses and even has a techcomm YouTube channel. Ugur Akinci is many things and a blogger is one of them. His content is always on point and we highly recommend you check it out!
Here comes another big name in technical communication – Tom Johnson. His blog on technical writing trends and innovations is huge in the community of technical writers and it has been for a long time. Many bloggers are trying themselves in different roles and Tom Johnson is no exception: he has been into podcasts since forever which feels like a nice addition to the blog.
A techcomm specialists with 40 years of experience in help authoring. Larry Kunz is also teaching product management in the Technical Communication certificate program at Duke University. Larry is one of the tech writers who witnessed the evolution of technical communication and he speaks about that on his blog, too. Younger technical writers sure have a lot to learn from this expert. Larry Kunz writes about style guides, gives professional advice to fellow writers, and, at times, his blog gets quite personal – he gives his perspective on many things that are happening worldwide.
Rhonda started her ‘cyber consulting’ in 2001 with a quarterly newsletter. By 2008 her audience grew to the point where the newsletter didn’t suffice anymore, so she started a blog. Rhonda’s blog is quite technical and very practice-oriented – she posts tips and how-to’s, writes about style, gives book recommendations and many, many more.
Aerospace is one of the major industries that employ technical writers. If you always wanted to reach for the stars (literally!), but were too afraid to try because you majored in journalism or literature and felt like the Jon Snow of NASA (knew nothing about aerospace), you should definitely visit Bart Leahy’s blog.
He can give real advice on how to get hired by NASA! Plus, Bart posts things like lists of space terms and acronyms, space-related book recommendations, inspirational articles on staying motivated, tackles freelancing on multiple occasions, etc. It is safe to say that even if you are not really into aerospace technical writing, you still might find his blog very useful.
TechWhirl is a big portal for technical writers on content management and technical communications. And, it has its own blog with a plethora of authors there. Let’s name some of the bloggers:
- Al Martine
- Jill Martine
- Erika Konrad
These people cover the biggest topics on techcomm regularly and we are grateful for such a nice resource of free knowledge!
Conclusion
We are living in a beautiful era with so much information easily available. But, we desperately need people who would gather it and structure it for us, rework it and explain how to apply it. That’s what techcomm bloggers do and more. They introduce new concepts and ideas, share their own findings and lifehacks, make us laugh at times (judging by the blogs, most of them have a fine sense of humor!) and serve as the ultimate source of knowledge.
Bloggers of the technical writing world, thank you!
Good luck with your technical writing!
ClickHelp Team
Author, host and deliver documentation across platforms and devices
