A technical writer’s journey through Silicon Valley history
I didn’t always realize it at the time, but over the years I’ve documented, designed, or helped market several early or ground-breaking technologies. Some products stuck, some morphed, and some went by the wayside. But they all played a role in Silicon Valley history.
Click the “See portfolio” links!
-
Keyboard Magazine Books
Before I knew what tech writing was, I wrote books on programming electronic instruments for this publisher in Cupertino.
Synths & MIDI -
NeXT Cube
I documented many aspects of this classic throughout its short lifespan. It was a beauty, but at $10k a pop was doomed to fail.
Computer as Art form -
NeXTSTEP Operating System
The NeXT OS, however, lived on to become the Mac OS of today. One of my projects was documenting what would eventually become the Mac's Finder.
Origins of OSX -
NeXT Style Guide
Long before "user focus" became a buzz-word, we were handed a charter to write manuals "like 2 guys talking."
Conversational style -
Group Computing magazine
Here we started teaching businesses how to use the Internet. A friend from NeXT started this magazine and brought me in as a ghostwriter for industry experts.
Early Groupware -
NetObjects Fusion
The founders of this company coined the term "web site." They were also awarded the first patent for a web site builder, which I helped to market and document.
First website builder -
UP.Browser
Here I documented one of the first phones where you could also read your email and check your stocks. Imagine that!
Before the iPhone -
Telocity DSL
Wrote some pretty priceless marketing copy for this early DSL provider, explaining and selling "high-velocity internet" to the masses.
Introducing DSL -
Openwave
Prototyped Admin consoles and phone UIs for major phone carriers, so they could start managing customers' mobile devices.
Phone carriers go mobile -
NoteTaker online notebooks
Documented one of the first platforms for real-time, collaborative editing. Google Docs won the market, but even today it can't match the richness of a NoteTaker notebook.
Before Google Docs -
Postini spam & virus blocking
Helped document and market what is today the email security backbone of Google's corporate cloud offerings.
Enterprise spam control -
Pathworks web-based Help Desk
An early SAAS offering that let companies host a web-based help desk. It bundled social media with an online knowledge base. Wrote docs, flash-based product tours, and built a support portal.
Companies switch to SAAS -
Google Apps and beyond…
Got on board early documenting Google's answer to using Outlook & Exchange in the workplace. And I've been doing this in one way or another ever since.
Corporate Cloud