Buzzword Summary

• Telecom Standard practice instructions, provisioning, configuration, and troubleshooting; lab work including hardware turnups and testing. Topics include: call flow, routing, digit analysis, translations, softswitch functionality, SS7, GR303, TR08, Central Office in-a-box.

• Enterprise and Consumer Software User guide design and production from start to finish for Relational Database Management System (RDBMS for thin client or thick client), word processor, spreadsheet, project management, artificial intelligence.

• Consumer Electronics User guide design and production from start to finish for products as diverse as MIDI instruments, automatic swimming pool cleaners, and external disk drives.

• Production Publishing Camera-ready page production, PDF creation and tweaking, HTML conversion to text, release disk production (burning/labeling), and product shipping.

• Web Site design, creation and maintenance includes HTML scripting, graphics preparation, and Javascript implementation, sound and video embedding.

• Internal Technical Reference Installation and maintenance of client-server configurations, relational database functionality, system administration and API reference guides, technical configuration recommendations and explanations.

• User Instructions for online and printed product guides, reference materials (both detailed and abbreviated) for end users and technical support.

• Context-sensitive Help and Web-based Help for casual to expert users.

• End-user Training for live classrooms, interactive disk-based lessons and web-based tutorials.

• Management of small writing departments, contractor supervision, third-party vendor liaison, product builds and release coordination. Years of experience in scheduling projects realistically and meeting deadlines.

Documentation and Publishing

• Designed, researched, wrote, produced, and revised product documentation. Created quick reference, installation, new user and expert user guides.

• Designed, researched, wrote and produced consumer appliance documentation. Created graphics and camera-ready pages for printer, HTML and PDF files for web and disk-based publishing.

• Performed effective research and developer interviews for consumer and internal documents.

• Designed screens, pages, chapters, books and documentation suites during the development process. Created templates and standards for maintaining these documents.

• Created and maintained useful Indexes and Tables of Contents.

• Acquired live screen shots and created instructive illustrations for books.

• Reduced complex processes to simple procedures by breaking up long procedures and isolating complexities in sidebars.

• Created internal reference materials for engineers, system admins and tech support.

• Designed, built and maintained corporate web pages. Webmastering also a hobby.

Help and Training

• Designed and coded of HTML-based and Windows-based help systems.

• Created interface guidelines, coded and maintained interface (including menus and error messages), acted as keeper of standards for startup product.

• Designed, coded, taught and maintained end-user product training for stand-up, disk-based and web-based implementations.

• Managed all aspects of design, layout, and production of multi-volume product manual sets, including delivery of camera-ready pages to printer.

Management

• Managed small writing staff. Supervised publication of 4,000+ pages. Delivered camera-ready books to printer and shipped full product to clients worldwide.

• Acted as a Documentation department of one. Designed, wrote and published entire suite of documentation and training for new product.

• Managed product builds including editing, distribution and tracking of all reference manual text; liaison with contract writers and typesetting department.

• Managed documentation builds for beta testing and general release. Supervised contract writers. Acted as 3rd-party vendor liaison.

TOOLS

• Operating Systems Windows, Mac OS, Unix, Linux.

• Web Publishing Dreamweaver, Microsoft FrontPage, raw HTML, Javascript, WebWorks Publisher, FrameMaker, PageMaker.

• Desktop Publishing and Word Processing Framemaker, Adobe Acrobat, Quark, Pagemaker / Microsoft Word, WordStar, Word Perfect.

• Graphics Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Flash, Paint Shop Pro, Visio, GIF Animator, Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, OmniPage Pro (OCR). 

• Online Help RoboHelp, Winhelp, Macromedia Authorware, Microsoft Help Workshop, Doc-To-Help, raw HTML. 

• Database Tools SQL, Microsoft Access, Sybase, Oracle, FoxPro. 

• Spreadsheets Excel, Lotus 1-2-3 and clones.

• Sound and Video Editing Steinberg Clean! and WaveLab; Quicktime Pro, Debabelizer, Adobe Premiere.

Exposure to dozens of other programs.

CHRONOLOGICAL

• 2017-present Retired

• 2004-2017 Senior Technical Writer for Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Daly City, CA.
  Product: Call Center software that manages telephone, email, and internet chat communications with customers, utilizing a RDBMS (Framework, Interactive Workflow Design).

• 2001-2003 Senior Technical Writer for Gluon Networks, Petaluma, CA.
  Product: GUI software used to install, configure, provision, monitor, and troubleshoot a "CO in-a-box" class 5 switch (CLX 6414).

• 2000-2001 Senior Technical Writer for Alcatel USA, Petaluma, CA.
  Product: GUI software used to configure and provision a digital loop carrier (Litespan).

• 1997-2000 Senior Technical Writer for ABT Corporation, Petaluma, CA.
  Product: Windows- and Web-based Project Management RDBMS suite.

• 1993-1997 Senior Technical Writer for Oacis Healthcare Systems, Greenbrae, CA.
  Product: Windows-, DOS- and Unix-based hospital management software and RDBMS.

• 1991-1993 Documentation Manager/Senior Technical Writer for GeoQuest, Corte Madera, CA. Product: Unix-based Relational Database.

• 1987-1991 Free-lance Technical Writer, San Francisco Bay Area, CA.
  Products: Word processor/page layout, spreadsheet, database, accounting, artificial intelligence, MIDI sequencer, on-line database service, removable and optical disk drives. Reference manuals, user guides, online help, new product demos and marketing brochures.

• 1982-1987 Technical Writer for MicroPro International, San Rafael, CA.
  Products: Word processor (WordStar), spreadsheet, database, presentation. Reference manuals, user guides, online help, tutorials.

TECHNICAL WRITING SAMPLES

• Product Architecture Primer
• Web Configuration Sidebar
• Programmer's Functional Reference (APIs)
• Quick References: ABT Publisher, ABT Repository, Installation, Update CD

Web Sites/ HTML Samples

• Rod Serling Memorial Foundation Webmaster, for nonprofit organization

Stephen Schlich - Writer
516 Prospect Street - Petaluma, CA 94952
707-769-1424 - steve@schlich.com

Books, Tutors, Online Help, Web Pages
Crafted for Experts and Beginners