Kate Mueller: [00:00:04] Welcome to The Not-Boring Tech Writer, a podcast sponsored by KnowledgeOwl. Together, we hear from other writers to explore writing concepts and strategies, deepen our tech writing skills, get inspired, and connect with our distinctly not-boring tech writing community. If you’re passionate about documentation, you belong here, no matter your job title or experience level. Welcome!

Kate Mueller: [00:00:29] Hello my lovely, not-boring tech writers. I am so excited today to welcome to the podcast, someone who I connected with at Write the Docs Portland, I believe, who is an absolutely astonishing lady. She works in customer education and has for a long time and is still very positive on tech writers, which we love. So, adjacent skill area and also doesn’t hate us, major bonuses all around, and has managed tech writers at various points. So I am very excited to welcome to the pod today, Katie Cox. Katie, welcome. Thank you for being here.

Katie Cox: [00:01:02] Yeah. Thank you, Kate. I am so excited to be here with you.

Kate Mueller: [00:01:06] Me too. We’ve only been talking about this for like a year and a half at this point. So for those of you who are like, “Gosh, why didn’t they get back to me about my guest request?” let me tell you, sometimes it just takes a little while. It doesn’t mean we’re not still thinking about it. It’s just the vagaries of scheduling and weirdness. And yes, life’s complicated. So, Katie, for folks who do not know you, can you kind of give me the very high-level overview of how you have gotten to where you are right now. So you’re in customer education, but how did that path begin? Where is your customer education villain origin story?

Katie Cox: [00:01:43] Yes, it’s a very windy path.

Kate Mueller: [00:01:46] I love a good windy path.

Katie Cox: [00:01:48] I actually did my undergrad in kinesiology so could not be further from where I am now. When they see that on my CV, I always get a question in an interview of what happened here?

Kate Mueller: [00:02:02] Where did the flip happen there?

Katie Cox: [00:02:03] Yeah. And it basically happened immediately upon graduation. I worked at various jobs, and it wasn’t until my later 20s where I was like, you know what? I probably should figure out what I actually want to do as my career. And I’d always loved learning. I’d always loved reading and writing. And so I went back and did a little bit of schooling, and I got a job as a content editor at, call them an e-learning agency. That was my first introduction to the world of instructional design and learning design and really loved it. I stayed at that company for a few years and then ended up going back and doing my Master’s in education technology. And that’s when I actually got my first real job in customer education. I started at a software company called ACL Analytics, which then moved to Galvanize, which now I believe is even called Diligent.

Kate Mueller: [00:03:11] The perpetual rename of SaaS companies. Yes.

Katie Cox: [00:03:15] But it was a great first place to start. They had a pretty advanced customer education program. I had an amazing manager and mentor who just really showed me the ropes, and I basically have never looked back since then. I’ve just found a space that I really love. And yeah, that’s kind of what’s led me here today.

Kate Mueller: [00:03:42] I love it, I think a lot of the guests on the show are like, yeah, I started out doing this totally different thing and then ended up either I took a job or somebody suggested a job. They just sent me a job posting, or someone I knew suggested this thing, or I decided to go back to school for this thing, just kind of randomly, because I was very burnt out on what I was doing. I think it’s really common for people to have super non-linear career paths, at least in our industries it’s super common, maybe less common in others, where you really do have to progress in a very linear fashion through various levels. But yeah, I mean, my own path is similarly non-linear. I think there’s huge advantages to having a non-linear path because you have a much wider range of life experience and work experience that you bring into the work that you’re doing. And I’m guessing customer education, similar to technical writing, like you do need to be able to be very empathetic and think about the learner on the other side of what you’re doing, right? So having that extra varied experience only seems like a bonus rather than a hindrance here. And so when we use the phrase “customer education,” what does that actually mean?

Katie Cox: [00:04:56] Honestly, it depends who you ask.

Kate Mueller: [00:04:59] Oh, goody. Oh, good. This is like tech writing where people think it means like 80 different things and they use it interchangeably and then you discover they actually don’t want a tech writer at all. They want a marketing writer or something.

Katie Cox: [00:05:10] Yeah. Oh gosh. How do I unpack this question? One, I think there’s a lot of disagreement on the actual term “customer education.” I’ve heard there’s a big push to actually go more towards “product education,” because it’s not just the customer who ends up using the resources that we produce. A lot of the content I create helps to train our internal employees and our partners. But when I think of customer education, I look at it as encompassing technical writing and learning design. Funnily enough that’s not how it is at my current company, not according to the org chart. I do work very closely with the technical, I actually just hopped off a call with one of the technical writers on our team before joining this podcast. So yeah. And I also work within our docs repo to build the content that I create. But I guess if I’m looking at what I’m doing right now, it comes down to: I am building content, the majority of it, which is living in our customer Academy that is helping our users onboard, learn the product, take off as much from our customer-facing teams having to have a lot of the same onboarding conversations over and over again, and supported by our documentation as well as part of that journey. So I really see my role right now as I don’t teach absolutely everything you have to know about the product, I give you the guidance and the understanding of the concepts and the strategy about why you’re doing something that you’re doing, or why we’re teaching you to do this certain thing within our product, and then leaning on our docs for pointing towards them for the nitty gritty and the more full picture if people really want to dive deeper.

Kate Mueller: [00:07:14] So it feels like it’s a bit of an interplay in terms of kind of, I like to think of this as proactive support. So instead of waiting for somebody to ask to have an onboarding thing or whatever, you’ve created prepackaged content that allows them to self-serve to do that. So before they ever make the ask, they’re able to do that. And so I’m guessing that there’s a certain amount of back and forth with your support team to figure out where there are content gaps that they’d like to see you plug in a proactive way. But also, I’m guessing some interplay with the folks managing your documentation because I know as somebody who does documentation but has also done some learning content, there’s just some places in the documentation where I’m like, “Man, it would be amazing if we had a video to talk about X, or we had a course that could actually walk people through this” because if I try to do this entirely in the docs, what that’s asking of the person interacting with it is a significant ask. And it’ll take me thousands of words to say this thing that probably could be really nicely explained with some visuals in like a two-minute video.

Katie Cox: [00:08:25] 100%. Yeah. And I also see, I guess if we’re looking at the difference between tech writing and learning design, I feel like people are seeking out the content that I create for the Academy to learn. And they know that they’re going to be spending a certain amount of time within that topic and going through that content where I see docs as a lot of times people come there with one certain question or they’re struggling and bumping into a problem and they want to go and find the answer within the document.

Kate Mueller: [00:09:02] It’s a different set of expectations, right? Like we have a different understanding of what those genres of content entail. Like, an academy versus a product knowledge base, right? And we bring those expectations to bear when we interact with that. So if somebody expects me to work through 45 minutes of something in a product knowledge base, I think I’d be pretty grumpy about it. But if I’m signing up to learn about something, and I really want to be effectively onboarded into a product, 45 minutes is not a huge commitment. So yeah, I like that distinction in terms of like you’re scratching in some cases, somewhat overlapping itches, but in very different ways. And therefore the content design itself is different, but also the expectations that a learner versus a reader is bringing into that are very different. And you can ask things of people that you can’t ask of them in product documentation, for example, and they’re willing to go there. They’re not going to be grumpy about it. They’re not going to be like, “Ugh!”

Katie Cox: [00:10:05] Hopefully.

Kate Mueller: [00:10:06] Hopefully. So does that mean that you’re doing multimedia content at that point? Are you doing some video, some text-based stuff, some other things? Like walk me through that a little bit.

Katie Cox: [00:10:19] Yeah, that’s a great question. So, like I said, I do work out of our docs repo. We just actually moved to a platform called Astro. And then how that transforms into a course is each page within that repo, I embed that in one of the pages within our learning management system. But then within that repo I’m also embedding interactive content. So I will do videos. I would do product walkthroughs. I use this tool called Arcade, which I can just go through and click around in our product, and then after the fact, I can record audio enhancing some of the descriptions and like why I’m clicking this and what this matters and just adds a lot more context. But it also shows the visuals of our platform and how we’re intending people to use it. And one hack I really like about that is it records screen by screen. And so if there’s updates that I need to make, it’s not just updating from scratch the whole video. So yeah, it’s so nice. So I’d say those are the two things, the two mediums that I probably rely on most, as well as diagrams and images where it makes sense. And that’s another thing that I love about working with our docs or our technical writers is like, I can repurpose their screenshots where it makes sense and just, I can even repurpose their text where it makes sense. And I’m not having to, it’s like one area where that content is being maintained. It’s not, “Oh, this thing has changed in the product and we need to go and replace it in four different places.” We’re working from that one source of truth.

Kate Mueller: [00:12:05] Yeah, it’s great in that sense when you can kind of repurpose really well-done content that somebody else has already done and then incorporate it into what you’re doing. I mean, that certainly makes it faster. It also means sometimes that you can rely on people who are smarter or more knowledgeable than you are about a nuance that you probably would not have surfaced in your content had it not been in their content to begin with.

Katie Cox: [00:12:29] One thing I also really love about working so closely with our technical writers is I don’t release a course without having them review the content for me because they know their area and their topics so well. They catch things. They help. They bring…I always think about the learner and they think about the user. And those are the same people, but that perspective adds so much to the content. And I’m so appreciative for having their eyes on everything that I produce because of that.

Kate Mueller: [00:13:09] It’s nice, I sometimes think about this as different reviewers bring a different lens when they do a review. And so having somebody who’s doing learning content is centering the idea of how do we present this in a way that is the most effective for somebody to learn the concepts or the steps or whatever it is that we’re trying to cover. So you’re kind of explicitly thinking about almost like pedagogy or learning delivery, like what media or methods most align to help somebody get here. Whereas what a tech writer’s often bringing is a really deep use case understanding of the different ways somebody might use something, which is not necessarily well aligned with, “Let me think about the best way to teach someone this,” but is very much a, “I understand this inside and out, and so I can evaluate this learning content to see if it’s actually accurate and checking all of the boxes that it feels like it should check.” And I’m sure you have some people who can kind of wear both hats, but I do find it helpful to have folks who I know are going to bring a particular perspective or a particular lens as they review that content. And then I can feel confident that like, okay, I’ve nailed everything I needed to nail in this section, right? So you’re using a learning management system. Do you do something like exams or quizzes or any kind of knowledge checks that people have to pass in order to pass the course?

Katie Cox: [00:14:39] Yes. I usually try and have a few learning checks along the way as people progress through the course, or alternatively, I’ll build in some kind of an activity. And usually those are things like, I don’t know if that person has actually gone and done that activity, but I always want to provide that opportunity because I feel so strongly that people learn by doing. Yes, I would love it if they take my course and they walk away and know how to do everything.

Kate Mueller: [00:15:11] The practical application is huge.

Katie Cox: [00:15:16] You need the practical application. And so I always want to make sure that that is a part of any content that I produce. So whether that hands-on comes from, hey, try and do this thing within your sandbox environment. Or if I do have questions, I never want them to be like, “Hey, what part of the product does this?” I want to give a scenario that says, hey, this is this problem. How would you solve it within the context of what you’re learning to do within this course in the platform? So just, yeah, that scenario-based and that application is always top of mind for me.

Kate Mueller: [00:15:59] Yeah, which makes sense because it’s within the context of trying to educate somebody about a product. And this is not, like, I’m trying to understand the history of philosophical thought from 1500 to 1900, where it’s all conceptual ideas. I’m using this product for a reason, maybe for many reasons, and I would like to get the most out of using that product. I would like to be successful with it. You want people to be successful with it so that the company stays in business. Everybody wants success here in some way, shape or form. And so you come into that education through a practical lens. So it makes sense to do practical application because that’s actually what you’re hoping people do outside of the course. You’re hoping they go change how they’re using the product or start using a new feature or what have you as a result of having gone through the education. So in your current role, are you sort of the only person doing Academy stuff? Do you have any coworkers or are you part of a team? What does that look like?

Katie Cox: [00:17:03] I’m a team of one.

Kate Mueller: [00:17:04] A team of one. Okay! You’re like a lone writer. You’re a lone learning designer.

Katie Cox: [00:17:10] So when I actually started at this company, I was working on the same team as our technical writers. I was working in the product org. They decided about six or seven months ago, they wanted to move me to our product marketing team. So that’s where I’ve been sitting for the last half a year or so, maybe even more. Totally lost track of time.

Kate Mueller: [00:17:35] Time is a social construct anyway.

Katie Cox: [00:17:38] So yeah, so now I am a team. I mean, I say I’m a team of one. I do sit within our product marketing team, but I am the only person who is building out our content for our Academy. I do as much as possible try and rope in people where I can if they are so willing and have time. So as one example, I’m working right now. We have an email developer who is building a course on understanding email code. Customer.io is a marketing automation platform. And so I’ve been, I mean, I have a bunch of resources that I give to people who or that I’ve created to help people with the content creation process. And then I’ve also roped in one of our tech writers in the past to help with another area of the product. She really wanted to kind of build out her learning design skills. And so where I can, I love to bring in as many people as possible, with me being the kind of final judge and approver of what actually goes out into the world. That sounds terrible.

Kate Mueller: [00:18:48] No, it’s that you’re trying to keep it consistent. So somebody has to kind of like own the product that is the Academy’s content, right? And so you end up being the person who’s actually kind of owning the voice, the tone, the perspective that the Academy has. And so you’re kind of filtering it through that in the same way that I sucker some of my support people into doing documentation, but it generally doesn’t get published until I’ve reviewed it, mostly because they’re all decent enough writers. They’ve been doing support long enough. The writing is not ever the question. It’s more like, oh, there’s like a nuance and a subtlety to the tone, or how we set some of this stuff up that it’s not maybe not explicitly documented because I have not been great about that piece, or it’s just like there’s some piece of it that I’ve never been able to effectively articulate. I just have a feeling about it so I need to come in and just tweak a couple words here so that that feeling gets maintained, which is, I don’t think of that as judgy. It’s more like I’m just trying to maintain consistency between and across segments of the stuff I’m working on or other people are working on.

Katie Cox: [00:20:00] Said it better than I could.

Kate Mueller: [00:20:04] You didn’t seem happy with it. I was like, let me stall and also maybe address this because I feel like this is a thing that as writers we do, right? If you’re owning a thing, you do have a vested interest in maintaining the quality of that thing, but you also generally desperately want other people to contribute. And so you’re trying to strike that balance. Yeah. Yeah.

Katie Cox: [00:20:25] Because it’s my baby.

Kate Mueller: [00:20:26] Yeah. It’s my baby. But also, I know I don’t have time to do all of those things for my baby. And so if somebody else wants to, like, babysit that particular thing and take care of it, that would be awesome. But I need to make sure that you didn’t just feed my baby poison also.

Katie Cox: [00:20:42] Yes. Exactly.

Kate Mueller: [00:20:43] This metaphor is getting a little gruesome, but yeah. Please don’t poison my baby. Yeah. No. Maybe we’ll just stop there. Although that is an interesting question. So I would like to unpack this a little bit more, because I think this is a thing that has strong overlap on the tech writing side, which is: I would like to solicit contributions from people. I have probably created some materials to help them do that. And then you’re kind of negotiating that, like, how rogue do you let people go? And then what does that review process look like? So maybe let’s start maybe at the earlier part of that, because you mentioned that you’ve created some content to kind of help support people who want to do that. What does that look like?

Katie Cox: [00:21:25] Yeah, I’m a big believer when it comes to building out learning content and backwards design. So really starting out with: what are the objectives that I want people to be able to achieve after they’ve gone through this course? And as part of the content that I give people who are creating stuff for the first time, I’ve laid out a template for: What are the goals of this course? What are the objectives that you want people to be able to achieve after completing it? Who is the course for? Who is your audience? Very important.

Kate Mueller: [00:21:56] Makes a big difference.

Katie Cox: [00:21:58] Makes a big difference in what you’re going to be delivering. Just take the understanding email code that I have our email developer working on. We’re going for marketers who are not coders, but understanding that code is going to help them build better emails as opposed to an actual email dev who would probably look at this course and be like.

Kate Mueller: [00:22:21] I don’t need this. I know all this stuff already.

Katie Cox: [00:22:23] Exactly.

Kate Mueller: [00:22:24] This could have been an email. I just needed a reference page that gave me these merge codes or whatever tips that I needed to use. I didn’t need you to actually explain to me how to use them. Yeah.

Katie Cox: [00:22:39] And then I always have a course scenario that is realistic. So we have a couple fake companies that we use in our Academy courses because I’m a big believer that in addition to the practical, having a story can anchor somebody to the content. So even if it’s more and all of our scenarios are quite general, so that people can hopefully apply some aspect of them to the work that they’re doing. And that is probably the piece that a lot of people, when they’re creating content for, they don’t necessarily think of, “Oh, I need to have this fake company with this scenario of what somebody is trying to achieve.” But even just having that, I feel like it creates a better course because you have this running thread going through all of your content and people can see, “Oh, this is why I’m learning this, because this is where I am in this part of the journey,” just as an example.

Kate Mueller: [00:23:38] I can say like I’ve done a couple of SaaS learning paths or certifications, and the ones that I’ve enjoyed the most have tended to be the ones that have each sort of module, you’re in the same company. And then the situation deepens the further into it you get. And while some of those things aren’t necessarily directly applicable to the thing that I am doing at that time, I can see parallels between, “Okay, so these pieces of this, although I’m not doing this exact thing, this solves the same kind of problem that I need to solve. Just the details of my problem are different.” And so you can take that story scenario, and it allows you to kind of put yourself in that person’s place. But also as you learn those skills, you naturally start thinking about, “Okay, these are these other places that I could apply this, here’s how I could use it in my company, in my situation.” Yeah. And there’s power to stories like that. I mean, like humans are drawn to it, right?

Katie Cox: [00:24:41] Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It makes it more engaging. And it’s one of the easiest ways to make content more engaging again, because a lot of the work I do is, I do have videos and product walkthroughs, but I also have a lot of text just because of the nature of being a team of one and the continuous amount of product updates I need to be able to keep that content current and up to date and be able to do it quickly. So yeah, it’s a really powerful way to get that engagement. It is a fine line. I never want to have the really cheesy storylines through a course. So it’s making sure that it’s a balance.

Kate Mueller: [00:25:22] I’m immediately thinking. So I’m loosely building out what we’re calling Owlcademy here at KnowledgeOwl. But I don’t have a lot of time to put toward it. And because we do everything owl-themed, I will admit that sometimes I do double down on the cheesy owl things, whether that’s just naming conventions. Or if I have to come up with example content, it often involves things like “leaving the nest” or flying whatever. And I’m like, oh, I maybe go too hard on the cheesy, but it’s also that you’ve picked a theme, you’re running with that theme, whatever that is, whatever that business is doing, whatever that employee that you’re shadowing is doing, that’s the story that you’ve committed to for the duration of that thing.

Katie Cox: [00:26:07] And that’s what I mean. It’s a fine balance. I have an affinity for cheese. So I feel like I have to self-censor myself.

Kate Mueller: [00:26:15] You have to do it once with the cheese and then read through it critically and be like, that’s a little too much. That’s a little too much. I’m leaving that one. That’s an Easter egg. Someone will find it and appreciate it. Yeah.

Katie Cox: [00:26:27] Exactly. Yes.

Kate Mueller: [00:26:29] Okay. Yeah, I like that balance. And so some of that guidance you’re giving people is to like, hey, what is the story you’re going to construct here, right?

Katie Cox: [00:26:38] Yeah. And make sure that you know what that story is. And you can tie it through all of the content and the learning objectives that you’re going to be teaching. And then I also have a page of guidelines for how I write and some do’s and don’ts and things that I also give to people.

Kate Mueller: [00:26:56] I love the meta-ness of this because you’ve basically created, you’ve used your learning design skills to create a course to teach other people learning design so that they can create courses that you can then incorporate back into the Academy. It’s great.

Katie Cox: [00:27:10] Exactly. Yes.

Kate Mueller: [00:27:11] And then what does that process look like? How involved are you as people are doing that? Or do they just kind of like give you a finished product and you interact with it? What does that process look like? Or does it vary based on the person?

Katie Cox: [00:27:26] I would say it varies based on the person. Sometimes there’s a few more meetings involved to kind of help unblock people if they’re stuck on certain things, but generally it actually follows my own, or at least that’s the guidelines that I give, is it follows how I actually work with subject matter experts and get feedback. So within the template that I give, I also give an area for them to build out their course outline and the various sections within the course. And so once they’ve gone through and written up their objectives, written up the scenario, written up the content that they’re actually going to be including in the course, I get them to give it to me and I’ll take a pass through and give any feedback that I have. And then from there, they’ll go and build out a first draft. Once they’ve completed that, I’ll take another look, which is sometimes I say it follows the workflow that I have with my SMEs. Sometimes I skip that step and I just go straight into building it out within our own Academy and building out the media files and everything like that. But when it’s, yeah, people who need a little bit more support, I like to have an eye on that first pass of content before they go to build out anything that’s more time-consuming and time-intensive to produce, because I want to make sure that they’re going in the right direction.

Kate Mueller: [00:28:50] Yeah. I mean, it’s much easier to edit a script than it is to rerecord, for example.

Katie Cox: [00:28:58] And I’ve learned that lesson the hard way myself in my early years of doing this work. So to spare others from that.

Kate Mueller: [00:29:09] It’s so much easier to move on the page than it is to move once you’re into a production or post-production editing. And I do have, Katie, kind of a random question. So we’ve mentioned customer education, we’ve mentioned learning design. I’ve also heard this called instructional design. What is the label you prefer to use for what you do?

Katie Cox: [00:29:30] The one I am most comfortable with is actually “instructional designer,” but I find that that does not mean a lot.

Kate Mueller: [00:29:41] To many people.

Katie Cox: [00:29:42] To anybody who’s not in our world. So a lot of times if I’m explaining to someone what I do, I’ll fall back on “learning design.” It just feels, I don’t know, a little bit more applicable. My own mom, who was a teacher, doesn’t understand. And I’m like, I’m doing something similar to what you actually did. Like I’m teaching, but it just does not compute.

Kate Mueller: [00:30:11] Yeah, yeah. For whatever reason, it’s funny. Like I feel I am somewhat familiar with instructional design. It’s an area I’ve thought about kind of getting additional education in, in part because one of my mentors got a Master’s in instructional design and is kind of like a curriculum design advisor. And so it has seemed like a very positive thing to her. But the number of times I’ve mentioned that to someone in passing and they just give me this blank look, it’s right up there with when you tell people you’re a technical writer, they’re like, “I have no idea what that means.” Like, I mean, I’m guessing, let’s see, you’re designing something. It’s like they’re like, oh, you write. What do you write when you’re a technical writer? I’m like, oh God, I just don’t even want to answer this question anymore. I feel like I have to explain what it means every time.

Katie Cox: [00:30:56] Every time. Yeah.

Kate Mueller: [00:30:57] Okay. So instructional designer would be your preferred term if people actually understood it.

Katie Cox: [00:31:03] If people actually understood it. I do. My current title is Product Education Manager. I do quite like that and I feel like.

Kate Mueller: [00:31:14] It feels very descriptive. You can kind of wrap your head around what that means without needing to really understand what it means. Product education makes sense. The idea that you are managing product education makes sense. It’s a reasonably clear role title anyway.

Katie Cox: [00:31:32] Yeah, I just feel it misses the heart in some ways of what that actual work entails.

Kate Mueller: [00:31:44] It feels a little bit more like it’s centering product rather than it’s centering the educational and design elements of that. But it’s also probably a thing most people in business understand a lot more readily, and also meaningful for folks who are potentially looking for resources in this, because I think instructional design is one of those things that’s kind of easier to find specialty materials on than something like product education might be. It has a longer and maybe this is me talking out of my ass, but it feels like it’s existed as a field of study for a lot longer.

Katie Cox: [00:32:18] It has. And there are some resources specifically around software education and the space that I work within. But funnily enough, it is usually called around like customer education or customer education strategy. And then you can find very specific methodologies and frameworks for customer education. And that’s what I mentioned earlier, is there’s that tension between customer education and product education, and it feels like we were customer education, and then there’s this push to calling it product education, because we’re not just educating customers, but some of the texts obviously use the, I don’t want to say the old.

Kate Mueller: [00:33:06] In the SaaS world, anything that’s two years old, right? Although, I mean, the one thing I will say I appreciate about that is the acknowledgment that the materials you’re creating are being used by a wide range of people. Like I think about this. So at KnowledgeOwl I’m the author and owner of the Support Knowledge Base. That Support Knowledge Base is of course referenced by our customers. It’s also referenced by new trials and prospects. It’s referenced by our entire support team. It is now we have a Claude Code connector to it, so that my teammates can ask questions of it via Claude Code. It also is sort of marketing materials because sometimes that’s how people find us. Our developers reference it when they’re like, “What did we think the expected behavior was? Here, I’ll go check the docs.” So there’s so many layers in which a lot of those materials do get referenced. And I do, even if I don’t necessarily love the phrase “product education,” I do like that it is at least trying to acknowledge the fact that it’s not just a single group of people who’s using it, but actually a really wide range because as you said, you have internal teammates who are referencing that, whether that’s on your team or cross team in the organization, you probably have people who aren’t even customers yet who might be referencing some of those materials. So there’s depth to the audience beyond just “create some stuff for our customers.” And clearly you’ve also created some content to facilitate contributions of learning content by other people. So there’s some stuff that’s very explicitly not for customer eyes. There’s so much overlap between these fields. It’s kind of wild.

Katie Cox: [00:34:56] There really is.

Kate Mueller: [00:34:57] The focal emphasis is just slightly different. And actually, that might be a lovely note for us to take a break on because I think it’s going to lead me really nicely into what I want to ask you next. So let’s pause here and we will come back.

Kate Mueller: [00:35:10] This episode is sponsored by KnowledgeOwl, your team’s next knowledge base solution. You don’t have to be a technical wizard to use KnowledgeOwl. Our intuitive, robust features empower teammates of all feathers to spend more time on content and less time on administration. Learn more and sign up for a free 30-day trial at knowledgeowl.com.

Kate Mueller: [00:35:33] And we are back. So, Katie, here’s what I would really love to pick your brain about, which is I think I know a bunch of tech writers who are either out of work or have kind of hit a point where they maybe have kind of plateaued in the industry and are thinking about, okay, what could I do that is like tech writing, but isn’t being a technical writer? And it feels like we’ve touched on a lot of ways that these two fields overlap, that there are probably a lot of skill sets that would transfer really nicely. But then I’m guessing there’s some stuff that we don’t know a lot about whether that’s tooling, whether that’s some of the kind of more curriculum design aspects of it, as you said, like tying that narrative in, some of those pieces. So I guess I’m curious, since you do know a bit about the tech writing side of things as well as doing instructional design. If somebody wanted to try to make that pivot, what are the areas that they would need to focus on beefing up skills on or learning more about?

Katie Cox: [00:36:37] It’s a great question. I do know a couple people that come to mind right away who have made that jump. And as someone who used to be a hiring manager, I would 100% hire a technical writer because there’s so much overlap. And like, yes, there are differences, but I think we’re more alike than we are different. For me, the biggest thing is can somebody take a really complex piece of information or some really complex step and break it down in a way that is easy for somebody to understand? For me, I see that as the biggest part of my job.

Kate Mueller: [00:37:22] And that’s the core of being a technical writer.

Katie Cox: [00:37:25] Exactly. And that is the number one thing that I see new people coming into this role who don’t have that background, that is the thing that they struggle with most, especially as the content gets more and more technical, is how do you take something and be concise and really break it down and not be super verbose because maybe you don’t fully understand it yourself. I’ve seen that happen.

Kate Mueller: [00:37:51] So you’re talking around it because you’re not quite sure.

Katie Cox: [00:37:53] Exactly, because you’re not quite sure of what you’re actually trying to teach and what you’re trying to say. So that’s my number one thing just there. That skill is huge. And if you already have that skill, then you’re set up for success. I think the biggest difference I see for me is when it comes to tech writing, you’re producing content on a page-by-page basis. And yes, there are, you’re linking out to other pages, but there’s no continual thread running through or you’re not expecting someone to go to your docs site and read from page one to.

Kate Mueller: [00:38:38] Read from page one to page 50 in a row sequentially.

Katie Cox: [00:38:42] Yes, exactly. So I think that is a skill to build is creating that thread, creating that storyline and having it run through your content. It comes down to a writing skill, but it’s just in a little bit of a different way.

Kate Mueller: [00:39:01] You’re thinking about it in a different way. The unit of information is much larger there. You’re not thinking about necessarily a particular page or even a particular feature. You’re thinking about what skills am I trying to teach someone, and therefore, what information do I need to cover? And recognizing that you have a learner’s attention, that they’ve brought those different expectations, and so therefore, you’re thinking more in like a long form content rather than page by page content.

Katie Cox: [00:39:30] Yes. And thinking as even though you have that attention from the learner at the start, you still have to keep that attention. And so making sure that how and not saying that that isn’t involved in technical writing, but I think a lot of people are going to a page and they’re looking at just one area maybe of what they need and they find an answer and then they get out, whereas you want to keep them in the content, in your course. And so being aware of some of those learning methodologies and how adults learn self-directed is always best. You never want to put any gates on the content that you’re producing. And all learning management systems will give you the ability to add those gates. Which is my biggest gripe.

Kate Mueller: [00:40:19] Resist, resist.

Katie Cox: [00:40:21] Yes. I don’t use Articulate Storyline to build any of my content, but oh my goodness, it’s yeah, it’s like everywhere is like, can’t progress until you’ve clicked every single interactive element on this page, and that is the quickest way to turn somebody off.

Kate Mueller: [00:40:41] Because what if I actually got that point and I didn’t feel I needed to go through the eight interactions to see everything.

Katie Cox: [00:40:48] Exactly. Or you already know that, or you already understand that, and you’re just wasting my time for clicks. Clicks is not engagement. That’s a whole other topic. And I could go on forever on just that.

Kate Mueller: [00:41:01] That sounds like a TED Talk title.

Katie Cox: [00:41:03] Yeah. But there are so many resources out there for adult learning design. I’m a big fan of Julie Dirksen. She has a couple books on motivation, but also just on instructional design. I also really love, I cannot remember the author, but the title is The Accidental Instructional Designer. I think that was one of the first books that I read on instructional design and I love it. I recommend it to anyone who has told me that they have any interest in instructional design. It’s short, but it’s so thoughtful. It just presents everything in such a nice and fun way. It’s almost like a learning designer wrote it.

Kate Mueller: [00:41:53] Imagine that.

Katie Cox: [00:41:53] I know. So I definitely would recommend learning or leaning in to some of those resources. Like I said, there’s so many things out there.

Kate Mueller: [00:42:05] Is it a field that people should feel that they need to go get formal education in, or is self-taught to some extent something you could get by with?

Katie Cox: [00:42:14] I think you could get away with self-taught. I mentioned I did my Master’s in education technology. I have learned so much more from my time on the job than I learned from my Master’s. I think my Master’s got me in the door and helped me, whether it was getting the first interview or getting that first job. But I don’t think that you need it. One, yes, I build self-directed content, so I believe that you can learn from self-directed content, it would be pretty weird if I didn’t. But I also think if you can get into a place and I just think of the first opportunity that I had and the manager that I had, I’m so grateful for the three years that I got to work and learn from her. I learned far more on the job and from her and the feedback that she gave me than I ever learned doing my Master’s. And so when I was hiring, I tried to keep that in the back of my mind, my own experiences. It can help and I’m not against it. And I love taking courses and I love getting educated, so I’m all for it.

Kate Mueller: [00:43:30] Learning new stuff.

Katie Cox: [00:43:31] But I would not say you need to do it to be able to transition into the role. I think experience and if you have a good mentor and teacher, you’ll be more than fine.

Kate Mueller: [00:43:46] So it seems like a big piece of it is just trying to get familiar with some of the things that are specific to instructional design, and that there are resources and things out there for it. But thinking about that, some of the kinds of varying things to keep engagement going over the course of a module also like how you’re structuring that to begin with. I think a lot of tech writers do think about at a smaller scale level, the idea of somebody’s going to come to this page in the docs, what do I want them to be able to do when they leave? What problem are they? So there is some concept of a learning objective there, but you kind of need to amp it up when you’re thinking about it from an instructional design standpoint. So it is maybe centering some of those elements more than what you would be doing as a technical writer. And are there particular tools or are there particular processes that it’s really helpful to learn more about? I mean, I will say you mentioned Articulate Storyline. I feel like I’ve seen that a whole bunch of places. It looks like a juggernaut piece of software to use to construct stuff. And it sounds like it’s not necessarily a requirement to use to create good materials.

Katie Cox: [00:45:06] I am not a fan of SCORM files, especially in the world of product and customer education. There are so many updates that need to happen that if I never touch another SCORM file in my life, I will be so happy. That said, there’s a time and a place and I can understand. Like I can see more. I don’t know if you’re doing internal management training. Okay. Yes. But for the work that I do, I would avoid it at all costs. I think if you’re comfortable with a video editor of whatever choice, that’s a bonus. And there’s so many tools out there. I say just pick one. If you go to a company and they’re like, “Oh, we use this instead,” there’s going to be overlap. You’re going to pick it up fast. Or subscriptions are not always that expensive. Maybe you can get the tool that you’re comfortable with using. So I think having some kind of video editor tool under your belt is going to be helpful. And then there’s a lot of products out there, like I was mentioning earlier. Arcade is the one that I use for product walkthroughs. But honestly, for me, it’s more how you’re structuring that information that’s important than the actual tool itself. I don’t think anybody is going to pick up Arcade and be like, I can’t figure out how to use this.

Katie Cox: [00:46:40] You’re going to figure out how to use it. I wouldn’t let that hold you back. It’s more the learning design behind the use of the tool. And that’s why I struggle sometimes with tools like Articulate Storyline because there’s so many things built into them that I think just go against good learning design and good design, but they sometimes make people think like, oh, I can make something that looks really nice and polished. And yes, you can build that in a tool like Articulate Rise in particular, you can build modules very quickly. Whether or not that’s going to be good learning design and someone is going to get what they need out of it is a whole other story. So I focus more on the methodology and the concept than the actual tools. But that said, I think a strong video editor in your back pocket is going to help. That said, I started my first job, never used a video editor in my life, and I picked it up on the job. So I would say, don’t let the things you don’t know and the technical things or the tooling, don’t let that hold you back. Especially technical writers.

Kate Mueller: [00:47:52] Generally we’ve already had to learn a bunch of random tooling. Yeah, we’ve demonstrated we can. Yeah. And I’m just gonna throw a little callback here to an earlier episode. I do not remember what number it was, but it was the episode I did with Vladimir Izmalkov, because we talked a bit in there about how once you have learned a particular class of tool, it becomes so much easier when you are in applying for things and interviews to say, well, I’m not familiar with X, but I have used this thing and it’s similar. It does these similar things, so I don’t think it’s going to be a problem for me to pick this up really quickly and run with it, but it’s not necessarily the specific of the tool. It’s more like, have you used a tool like this before.

Katie Cox: [00:48:41] Yes. The same goes for learning management systems. And depending on what role. I do all of our learning management system admin, because like I said, I’m a team of one. In the past, I’ve worked roles where I didn’t have to worry about that. But yeah, once you’ve learned one LMS, you’ve learned them all and you can learn them pretty quickly.

Kate Mueller: [00:49:01] I’m guessing also there are some of us as tech writers who have done things that kind of blur a little bit into learning content. As somebody applying for instructional designer roles, like in the tech writing space, one of the big things we often provide is a portfolio. Is that a similar thing in instructional design where like, hey, people are going to expect that I can showcase some of the work I’ve done, that’s like learning design or learning materials?

Katie Cox: [00:49:29] Before joining my current organization, making the application rounds, I don’t think I saw any job application where it didn’t ask for a portfolio. So it’s definitely expected. And again, I was very scrappy when I first started out. It was, I remember for one of the previous, this feels like a lifetime ago. I remember sending a bunch of links to YouTube on videos that I’d worked on. So I didn’t actually have my own structured or live portfolio. But now I feel like it’s an expectation. It’s asked for right within the job application, send a portfolio. It doesn’t have to be extensive. If someone sent me their portfolio and they had a couple projects on it, that would be more than enough for me to get a sense of the work that they’ve done. And I don’t think it all, if there’s relevant work within your technical writing life that you’ve done that could transfer over, again, I would not censor yourself, include that stuff. It’s relevant. And the hiring manager who knows their stuff is going to recognize that. But definitely, yeah, especially within the last I’d say five years, I’ve seen much more of a push for a need for a portfolio.

Kate Mueller: [00:51:00] Which makes sense because it’s one of the only ways to really evaluate what someone has done. If you can’t see it, you’re just kind of taking their word for it. And if you can see it, you can get a, I mean, in the tech writing world, portfolios are hugely helpful because there are sort of different flavors of tech writing, and you can tell by looking at somebody’s portfolio if their particular flavor kind of jives with what you’re looking for in the role.

Katie Cox: [00:51:25] Yeah. Also, I will apologize in advance. There’s always going to be some kind of take-home assignment for whatever role you’re hiring for. A couple of things that I have really appreciated, though, that I’ve noticed a trend towards is being given as part of that assignment you’re talking through a piece of work that you’ve previously done. On the flip side of that, I’ve also been asked to give a presentation on a two-year roadmap for customer education, which I am ashamed to admit that I did because I’d been laid off and I was just feeling like floundering. And to this day, I just think back on that and I’m like…so never do that. The biggest red flag if somebody’s coming to you and just being like, tell us our roadmap. So, but yeah, there will be some sort of an assignment. Also, what I’ve appreciated that I’ve seen is people saying, hey, it doesn’t have to be a module on our company, but give us some kind of learning content on any software. And those are the kinds of assignments that I appreciate so much more because it just doesn’t feel like you’re being taken advantage of.

Kate Mueller: [00:52:44] Yeah. At that point, you’re just showcasing what you can do. You can pick a piece of software that you know really well. So this isn’t like a hoop you have to jump through learning their product, but it’s also you’re not getting free unpaid labor from me. Just go lift this and use it. So you kind of outlined the general process you follow when you’re kind of planning content before you build it out, because you’ve created content to help other people do that. I feel like perhaps one of the differences between the two roles is typically in technical writing, we are not thinking about that prolonged engagement and keeping people in the content and doing whatever. So there is less pressure to find the right medium to do something in. We’re less focused on the interaction and more focused on just kind of getting the information out there. And so I feel like maybe one of those differences is aligning yourself to think about how I keep people engaged? Is this the best format or the best medium to do this in?

Kate Mueller: [00:53:55] There is a question in here, I promise. It’s just taking me a while to get there. I am laying the entire frickin table, setting everything up here before I actually present you with the food. But so where for you in that process are you making decisions about that? Like, is that something very early on for you? Is it something that just sort of happens organically as you start building more out? I’m very curious about this because it’s a thing that I have struggled with myself when I’ve done more learning content. Because I’m a writer, I typically start writing the whole thing, and then I look at it and go, well, that’s a massive page. That’s not going to work. How do I split this into pieces that are going to complete unto themselves, but also build on each other? And what is the best format for me to do those pieces? And I’m sure there is not like a single pat answer for you to give me here, but I’m kind of curious what that process looks like for you.

Katie Cox: [00:54:50] Yeah. So I also default to writing first, but within the plan I will structure or save a space for activity. So depending on whatever the objective of the page that I’m currently working on is, if it is practical and like within the platform, then I will have an activity that people can do in the platform to be able to do the thing that I’m teaching. If it’s more conceptual, I’ll have some kind of an activity at the end of the page that’s maybe more reflection or think on this or apply this to your environment or your organization and how this thing applies to you. I don’t always build those out right away, but I definitely chunk them.

Kate Mueller: [00:55:43] Have a placeholder for them to come back to once you’re at that point.

Katie Cox: [00:55:47] And then in terms of the actual content making up each of the pages, I will always write it first. That’s just my preferred method. In the past, I’ve tried to be like, oh, I’ll have a video here and I’ll have this there, but I need to write it out first. That’s just my process. And then if there’s a section that I’m struggling with to write, that’s usually a trigger for me, is there another way that I should be presenting this? Or if something is more visual or could use a diagram or something, some kind of interactive thing to explain the concept, then I’ll fall back on video for that. But again, a lot of the time it’s either just, does this need a visual or am I struggling to explain this with writing? And do I need, a picture’s worth a thousand words? Da da da da. So do I need a way to better produce content that’s going to be valuable for the learner? But again, my process is writing first, and I do have a fairly structured way of how each page, I try not to be formulaic all the time, but it does help with the creation process to be like, okay, I’m going to have that scenario first, and then I teach the actual concepts on the page. And then if it’s something in the product, I’m going to show the product with a product walkthrough, and then I’m going to have some kind of activity that they can complete that takes them from scenario to concept to seeing it in action and then giving them the opportunity to do it themselves.

Kate Mueller: [00:57:33] Yeah, I’d imagine you don’t want something that’s slavishly formulaic, but also there is something to folks feeling like there’s a predictable structure and they know where they’re at in that structure. I mean, we use that kind of signposting in documentation all the time. It’s why we’ve got different heading levels. It’s why you often have a template where you’re doing, okay, there’s an overview section here, and then we’re going to do this stuff and prerequisites or before you begin, and then maybe we’ve got some advanced stuff near the bottom that 80% of people don’t need, and the 20% who do, half of them will get confused by, but the other half will run with it. And so there is something to be said for just sort of having that general templatized structure for folks to just kind of orient themselves within the content, to know where they’re at, like, okay, I’ve worked through these things. I bet there’s an activity coming. There it is. But yeah, okay. That’s interesting. Some use it. Yeah. Also a thing that happens often in tech writing.

Katie Cox: [00:58:35] I can imagine, I can imagine.

Kate Mueller: [00:58:38] Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned a couple of resources earlier, Julie Dirksen as well as The Accidental Instructional Designer. Are there any others that kind of slipped your mind during that period that you would suggest folks check out if they’re interested in kind of getting into the instructional design space?

Katie Cox: [00:58:56] Yeah. I’m looking at my bookshelf here. Cammy Bean. I see it on my shelf. That is the author of The Accidental Instructional Designer. If someone really wants to get in the Customer Academy world, there are a couple books specifically on customer education. I have one. It’s called the Customer Education Playbook. Disclosure: it was written by, I think the CEO or Chief Product Officer of a learning management system, Thought Industries. And then there was another. So take that. There is some good stuff in there though. I will say. And then I also like Badass–

Kate Mueller: [00:59:46] Making Users Awesome.

Katie Cox: [00:59:48] I feel like a lot of tech writers are probably like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

Kate Mueller: [00:59:54] So my previous job was at a little software company and I did support and training and product management and at one of our company retreats, all nine of us or whatever, we read that book before the retreat and discussed some of the ideas in it. So that one is what I’m familiar with.

Katie Cox: [01:00:17] You’re familiar with. Nice. And then there’s also, I know there’s similar to Write the Docs, there is a Customer Education Slack community, which was such a helpful resource, especially when I’ve been looking for work in the past. One of the Slack channels is just on job postings.

Kate Mueller: [01:00:38] Very like Write the Docs. Is it just called the Customer Education Slack or what is it called?

Katie Cox: [01:00:43] Customer Education Org. It is customered.slack.com.

Kate Mueller: [01:00:53] Which we will put in the show notes, folks, so don’t feel like you have to go write that down. I’m just writing it down, but we will make sure we link to all of these fantastic resources from Katie in the show notes. So you don’t have to go find them. We will do that for you. And Katie, changing gears a little bit, this does not have to have anything to do with anything we have discussed at all today. What is a great piece of advice that you have been given at any point in your life on any topic?

Katie Cox: [01:01:23] What comes to mind, and I can actually relate it to technical writing.

Kate Mueller: [01:01:27] Oh, I love a good long relation. Go for it, justify it however you will, Katie.

Katie Cox: [01:01:34] Funnily enough, it came from a manager who I didn’t really like, but he did give me a really good piece of advice and it was: Don’t personalize it. I take that in my work world, but I take it outside of my work world and why I relate it so much to customer education and technical writing is: feedback is such a gift. Like it’s just, it really is such a gift. I don’t think I would have had the success that I’ve had in my career if I didn’t have that first manager who was such a mentor, who just went in on my work, but in the best way possible. I learned so much from the feedback that she gave me. And I think it applies to technical writing as well. Like if somebody is going through your work and giving you that constructive feedback, it is not a personal thing. And really, at the end of the day, if you can not personalize that and just see it as the gift that it is, you’re going to grow so much from that. So that would definitely be my biggest piece of advice is don’t personalize it.

Kate Mueller: [01:02:51] It’s also like there are some times, I mean, I worked in support for a long time and sometimes people are outraged and it literally has nothing to do with you. It’s not you. It’s maybe not even your product. Like I can think of at least one situation where someone went off on me and I discovered that their company had just gone through massive layoffs. And like, pretty clearly I felt that that person was now doing like the work of five people and had all the complex feelings of being the one person on the team who survived the layoff. And, so, I mean, yes, they were very disgruntled about something, but it wasn’t really the thing in the product that they were disgruntled about. They were disgruntled about all this other stuff. And it was not necessarily feedback I needed to take as constructive feedback, but it was definitely a case where I had to not personalize what was being directed at me, because it was really not about me in any way, shape, or form. Not a thing that our product could fix. Not a thing our company could fix. Just like somebody. The world was on fire for that person. And yeah, and sometimes it comes out in ways that nobody expects or even wants. I think they were embarrassed about it after the fact. It just happens sometimes. And I think just generally it’s very good to not personalize that stuff. But I think feedback is trickier because it can feel more personal.

Katie Cox: [01:04:24] It can feel personal. Oh my goodness. And I remember some of the times in this first job where I had this manager who I look back now and I appreciated her feedback so much and I appreciated it at the time too. But I also remember the feeling of looking at this content that I was like, “Oh, this was amazing. I’m such hot shit.” And then you just see it comments everywhere, things scratched out and you’re just like, what?

Kate Mueller: [01:04:55] I thought this was great.

Katie Cox: [01:04:58] I thought this was good. So I totally understand that initial gut reaction of hrmpf, but if you can control that and take in what the person is saying, there’s a real opportunity to learn and grow from that.

Kate Mueller: [01:05:16] Yes. And sometimes you have to separate the feedback from the person who gave it to you, also. That there is that, I have worked with people who did give me very constructive feedback, but we had personality clashes. And so I had to pretend that that feedback had come from a different teammate before I could actually absorb what the feedback was giving me because it was kind of tainted because of who had given it to me, but that did not make it less valid. It just made it emotionally harder for me to accept that feedback, right? So in that case, I had to depersonalize who it came from before I could do anything with it.

Katie Cox: [01:06:00] When I say don’t personalize it, there’s always emotions like that. And those are all–

Kate Mueller: [01:06:07] Yeah, they’re valid. Feel them and then let them go and then see what you can do with the thing. It’s ironic that you got this piece of advice from a manager you didn’t overly like, also.

Katie Cox: [01:06:18] Shout out to him.

Kate Mueller: [01:06:16] Strong work, mystery dude, strong work, at least in this particular case, you did a good thing, good piece of advice. And then lastly, Katie, because I have enjoyed this conversation so much, if we have folks who are listening to this who are like, “Katie seems awesome, I would love to reach out to her or follow what she’s doing. Or could I go check out some of the content she’s made? Because I’m now very curious about how she structures it.” What would be the ways that you would want them to get in touch with you or to follow you?

Katie Cox: [01:06:52] Yeah, I do have a portfolio. It’s called katieslearnings.com. There is a form to contact me. I’ve only ever got spam so far. So you could be the first person to send me a message through the first legit feedback. Yes, yes. And then I’m on LinkedIn. I don’t really post, but if you want to message me, I’m more than open to chatting and having conversations. So just DM me on LinkedIn as well.

Kate Mueller: [01:07:23] I can attest to this because this is how we initially started setting up this interview. So I can say Katie will respond to LinkedIn messages as long as they’re not spammy. I’m guessing you don’t like spam.

Katie Cox: [01:07:36] I don’t respond to the spammy ones. I respond to the real people with valid questions.

Kate Mueller: [01:07:43] And I don’t think we have spammy listeners. We’re so niche that I don’t think it happens.

Katie Cox: [01:07:49] I’m fully joking. By the way, I accept all messages from real humans. Let’s just say that.

Kate Mueller: [01:07:57] Just not the AI bots. Please, please, no, don’t point your bot at Katie’s DMs or mine for that matter. Please don’t point your bot at mine. Well, Katie, thank you so much. This has been an absolute delight. I feel like I’ve walked away with a bunch of really interesting resources and I enjoyed myself. So thank you so much for sharing your time and your knowledge.

Katie Cox: [01:08:19] Thank you. Really appreciate the opportunity, Kate.

Kate Mueller: [01:08:28] The Not-Boring Tech Writer is co-produced by our podcast Head of Operations, Chad Timblin, and me. Post-production is handled by the lovely humans at Astronomic Audio with editing by Dillon, transcription by Madi, and general post-production support by Been and Alex. Our theme song is by Brightside Studio. Our artwork is by Bill Netherlands. You can order The Not-Boring Tech Writer t-shirts, stickers, mugs, and other merch from the Merch tab on thenotboringtechwriter.com. You can check out KnowledgeOwl’s products at knowledgeowl.com. And if you want to work with me on docs, knowledge management coaching, or revamping an existing knowledge base, go to knowledgewithsass.com. Until next time, I’m Kate Mueller, and you are the not-boring tech writer.