Training on Technical Writing in Portugal
Training others is both an obligation and a privilege. Let me explain.
When I was hired as technical writer in 1997, I rushed to order five books from IEEE Press and learned the profession by reading them. The book by Joan G. Nagle went on to serve as introduction to new team members which, like myself, were new to the discipline.
I continued my education by joining professional societies and attending conferences, where I learned from elder colleagues worldwide that shared their knowledge freely on newsletters, mailing lists, conference halls, exposition floors, and twitter. Being grateful for all the help I got, it's my obligation to help others, especially junior colleagues. Pay it forward, they say. Those kind colleagues would not have it any other way.
When the opportunity presented itself, it was natural to volunteer as trainer for the first Sumer School in Porto. Then, it was a privilege to conspire with a bunch of bright colleagues to foster the establishment of the Postgraduate Diploma on Technical Communication sponsored by APCOMTEC at ISCAP, the Polytechnic University of Porto.
The real privilege, however, has been the realization that the Post Graduate Course has been succeeding in improving the lives of students, sometimes in a dramatic way.
While training has never been my main job, it was often an important one:
- I developed and delivered a dozen professional training courses between 1986 and 1997, often teaching difficult or obscure subject matters.
- I learned to apply the systematic principles of Ruth Colvin Clark to develop 18 days of top-level training for Altitude Software between 2004 and 2014.
- I learned active learning from Rosário Durão in 2015 which became instrumental for designing evening and weekend classes at ISCAP.
I am now delivering 48 hours of class in the Postgraduate Diploma on Technical Communication during the academic year 2023/2024. You can enroll in individual modules for about €11 per hour in class.
Currently, I can integrate parts of these courses in customized consulting offers, with price and conditions to be negotiated. Contact me for details: px@acm.org — LinkedIn — +351 91 784 2996
Nurturing References of REST APIs
This course retells some Internet history to explain the rationale for REST APIs, before delving into the craft of writing useful API references.
References are a vital part of the developer documentation of large and complex systems because they support effective collaboration between experts to capture detail.
Instructor-led, live online course, 16 hours in class, offered at Polytechnic University of Porto since 2024. More information...
Domain Modules
This course teaches a contextual approach to describe a high-level view of how and why people engage with a system, as described in my 2023 article.
Learning “who and why” is an enabler for better conversations, for better decisions, and for documentation that addresses the needs of people.
Instructor-led, live online course, 12 hours in class, offered at Polytechnic University of Porto since 2023. More information...
Structured Writing
The course teaches the practice of precision modularity as advocated by Robert Horn, complemented with proposal storyboarding as practiced by the defense/aerospace industry.
These classic methods offer practical ways for technical writers to deal with complexity by thinking systematically and to quickly deliver immediately useful results.
Instructor-led, live online course, 20 to 24 hours in class, offered at Polytechnic University of Porto since 2020. More information...
Inspire with Comics
This workshop teaches the art of understanding the impact of product features in the daily lives of people, and then capturing those stories in simple yet insightful cartoons or comic strips.
Comics are an informal way to convey deep insight, to start storytelling around a product or issue, and to navigate large documentation sets.
Instructor-led workshop, 3-4 hours on premises, offered at the APCOMTEC Summer School since 2019. More information...
Contact me for details: px@acm.org — LinkedIn — +351 91 784 2996