Welcome!

This page describes documentation and work I have participated in.

For writing samples, I am always happy to create one on short notice to better suit your needs. Contact me for details.

Change-Agent History

I can trace innovation and change all the way back to childhood.
Here’s a rundown in chronological order:

Middle school:
Founding member of BASIC computer language club.

High School:
First cohort of trained Peer Counseling group.
Anti-Apartheid activist.

US Air Force:
Classified combat equipment prototype test and evaluation.
Homestead AFB OPFOR – first to achieve Base takeover multiple times.
Created First “flawless” training syllabi in unit history.

Paramedic Rescue Team Trainer:
Created first database of STAR Team response and equipment use tracking.
Invented pre-set rescue rigging in 1993 (currently being sold commercially).
Founding member of company’s Critical Incident Stress Debriefing Team.
First UCSF Trauma Stress study participant in a mass casualty event.

Sport Concept Product Design:
Invented folding wingsail and full-body pad system.
Sparked Ilan Kroo to commission NASA WorldWind 3d globe data viewer.

Direct Action Activist:
Technical consultant and Communications to regain control of Cultural Center in Victoria State AU, leading to landmark sovereignty agreement.
WTO videographer with footage in ‘the movie’.

Experimental Aircraft:
Carbon Blended Wing Body Homebuilt Kit – web and construction support.

Wilderness Reclamation:
Created the only comprehensive sat map of Clearwater Wilderness, Idaho.

Disaster response:
Original member Standby Taskforce (SBTF) crisis mapping team.
Invented digital sovereignty solution addressing issues with disaster-logistics, accountable governance, and equitable commerce.
Co-Founder Open Crisis.
Early Member Humanitarian Open Streetmap Team (HOT).
First Crisis Mapping team attending Harvard Humanitarian Initiative camp.
First crisis map SMS coordinator for Kenya Election Monitoring.
Recipient of Presidential Volunteer Service Award for crisis mapping.

IBM:
Editing support on early training material for IBM Watson.
Transition DataPower documentation from Paper to Web-based publishing.
Volunteer for first microchip recycling project making solar cells.

Amazon Blink:
Led transition to continuous update Support documentation.
Created first JIRA dashboards to synchronize writers and Dev.
First LLM use to obtain and refine feedback from 12m units in the field.
Provided concept to use first frame of video for homescreen update.
Invented “life changing” modification to camera opening tool.
Aided conversion of Blink product line to ‘talking cameras’ for blind users.
Helped design implementation of captioned input for Deaf users.
Co-Founded Blink Accessibility Guild.
Winner Amazon A11y hackathon for strength augmentation garment.
Helped create internal Developer app for accessibility awareness.
First group of “Certified Inclusive Ambassadors” in Amazon.

More recent:
Invented revolutionary hockey protection.
Leading Web3 tooling design for disaster logistics and mutual support.
Consultant on landmark Web3 gamified earthquake prediction project.
Thought Leadership on digital sovereignty in disaster and recovery.

Technical Writing

Blink, an Amazon company, was my most recent documentation work. I was fortunate to have been able to impact multiple areas through information architecture, change management, illustration, usability improvements, inclusive culture, and User Experience writing.

I researched, chose, and set up Blink’s customer support resource that is still in use today. I assisted the vendor, Helpjuice, to configure their product in ways that led to direct benefits for Blink and new business for them.

The resource grew from supporting 250k units in the field, to more than 12m when I left. It was reliable, easy to operate, and provided five languages through auto translation that we doublechecked with native speakers. This was a paradigm busting transformation that eliminated $6000/month translation costs and more than halved overall expenses.

I transitioned the customer support knowledge base to a continuous-update modality, improving relevance to the end user and flexibility to the product team, which was key to managing rapid growth. I also incorporated feedback mechanisms that produced a steady stream of customer data and worked with Business Intelligence to derive meaning from it.

The legacy of Blink, as an engineering startup, somewhat neglected customer-centric design. To improve usability, I co-founded an Accessibility Guild that had representation across the company. We fostered awareness through regular meetings and training. The result was a sustainable shift as Guild members shared perspective with their departments and leadership.

To generate energy and help company motivation, I helped organize an annual hackathon, with very positive results. One project in particular resulted in the entire Blink product line becoming ‘talking cameras’ through early iOS scene recognition technology. I did participate in the project and evangelized it through Amazon corporate channels, resulting in public recognition at external accessibility conferences.

In support of Blink’s camera accessibility, I conducted user experience research with Deaf, blind, and physically impaired customers. This led to direct product enhancements and prototype designs that were called “life changing” by users. These experiences were outside of my role as a writer but incredibly satisfying as an outlet for my imagination and dedication to user experience.

Within Customer Service operations, I experienced friction obtaining timely updates from a four person ‘new product management’ (NPM) team. They were geared towards preparing support agents and had difficulty anticipating our needs as writers. Features were released without our awareness and others cancelled, resulting in lost time and wasted effort.

As a solution, I created JIRA dashboards that kept the writing team synchronized with the development schedule and created notifications of gateway events. JIRA triggers kept our two-person writing team in the loop and always ready to pivot when company priorities changed, while not impacting Dev with repetitive requests for clarification and updates.

Towards the end of my tenure in 2023, I pioneered the use of AI to discern useful feedback, and to surface consistent issues that ‘closed the loop’ for the Product Management team. I found this to be an invigorating experience overall and a great way to express my lifelong dedication to reducing human suffering.

Some more samples:

Blink is an Amazon company, so I joined company-wide Slack communities for indigenous, neurodiverse, User Experience, and writers groups. This informal exchange was an opportunity for me to engage globally, and provide impactful UX writing support that was incorporated into other product areas at scale.

At IBM DataPower, the work was much more formal, using DITA XML and a very strict version control pattern. Initially, we were bound by processes meant for physical document publishing. This included a quarterly gathering of revisions that often became outdated before going live.

I contributed advocacy and research of customer activity to support moving to a web-based publishing paradigm that allowed realtime updates. The benefit to customer was significant and it reduced the reworking of outdated content entirely. Change management went from maintaining a catalog of supplements, to having relevant information about shipped product at all times. The reduction of effort led directly to improved quality.

I enjoyed working closely with DevOps and found ways to make their lives easier by reducing support contacts through documentation improvements.

The writing was extremely dry by necessity, but I expanded by acting as a Lab Advocate for Daimler-Benz GMbH and Citroën.

I did manage to get some illustrations in, too: