Tech Writing Success Newsletter: October 7-11
Curt Robbins
Senior technical writer / contractor. Clients: FedEx, Microsoft, Northrop Grumman, PNC Bank, USAA, Wells Fargo. SOPs, courseware, AI, process flows, white papers. Technical Writing Success podcast: tinyurl.com/yf7asswy
Welcome to the Tech Writing Success Newsletter (a companion to the LinkedIn group Daily Technical Writing Success) for October 7-11.
This week's newsletter offers more guidance for increasing social media engagement, talks about the importance of mentoring in technical writing, dives into the science of hashtags, unpacks common mistakes that IT professionals should avoid, and touts the best AI tools for people who do what we do for a living. The week ended with the second episode of my new livestream podcast, Curt & John Talk Tech and AI on Friday.
Plus, I'm accepting new clients currently. If your organization needs accurate documentation and technical writing that goes above and beyond, reach out to me. I offer reasonable rates.
Weekly Digest
Every week, this digest brings you access to the five text articles and six podcast episodes that I publish. Podcast links are to Spotify, but it is also available on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and several other platforms.
Monday >> Why Social Media Engagement Trumps Follower Count
Tuesday >> Mentoring is Important in Technical Writing
Wednesday >> How to Use Social Media Hashtags
Thursday >> Technical Writers: Avoid These Mistakes
Friday >> Technical Writers: What AI Tools Do You Use?
In the Industry this Week
It was an eventful week in tech, but one populated mostly by disappointments and more job insecurity. Boeing announced layoffs and Tesla delivered a solidly meh media event featuring sluggish robots worthy of the Worst Bartender in the World award. Social media platform TikTok announced the layoff of hundreds of employees involved in content moderation, saying that it is replacing them with AI.
Amazon Bets on Prescriptions
On Wednesday, online retail giant Amazon announced that it will expand same-day prescription service to an additional 20 U.S. cities in 2025, making it available in nearly half of the country. The service is available through Amazon Pharmacy, a division that was launched in 2020.
According to CNBC, "Amazon in March introduced same-day pharmacy delivery in New York and Los Angeles, after launching the service in Indianapolis, Miami, Phoenix, Seattle, and Austin, Texas. Some of the cities that will be added in 2025 include Boston, Dallas, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and San Diego."
Boeing Continues Decline
Recently I've reported in this newsletter on the sad decline of Boeing, which has traditionally been one of the strongest American tech brands. On Friday, the aerospace company announced that it is laying off 17,000 employees, or 10 percent of its workforce. CEO Kelly Ortberg said in a memo, "Restoring our company requires tough decisions." The layoffs will include executives and management. Ouch.
领英推荐
Google AI Scientists Win Nobel Prizes
On Wednesday, three chemists were awarded the Nobel Prize or their work on proteins. Two of the scientists have been involved in Google's DeepMind AI project. According to The Verge, "DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and senior DeepMind research scientist John Jumper received the award for creating the open-source AlphaFold2 AI model to calculate the structure of human proteins."
It's not every day that AI is involved in winning multiple Nobel Prizes. However, on the previous day, two physicists won Nobel Prizes for their role in building what was dubbed the foundation of AI. One of them was Geoffrey Hinton, who is known as the "godfather of AI." Some critics have complained that the award was miscategorized, something with which Hinton agrees.
"If there was a Nobel Prize for computer science, our work would clearly be more appropriate for that, but there isn't one," Hinton told the New York Times.
Nuking the AI Gameboard
The intense power demands of artificial intelligence have motivated several tech giants to embrace nuclear power for future AI needs. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are now actively pursuing nuclear power—including the development of next-generation small modular reactors—to sustain their cloud server farms and AI services.
Stay tuned for more announcements from AI and tech companies that are predicted to boost the popularity of nuclear power for leading edge technology.
Tesla Tanks
On Thursday, Tesla held a heavily hyped "We, Robot" event in Los Angeles at which it showed off future robotaxi fleet vehicles and a small army of humanoid robots awkwardly serving guests drinks and handing out gift bags. It was appropriate that the event was held in Hollywood, because it felt propped up, like the facade of a fake building on the set of an old Western movie. Many media outlets described it as "underwhelming" and a "disappointment."
As a result, Tesla stock declined by nearly 10 percent on Friday, while competitors Uber and Lyft enjoyed surges to their valuations. Company representatives, perhaps high (it was California, after all), predicted that the robot model, called Optimus (currently at Gen 2 level), would be "the most important product ever developed" and that it will be coveted by all eight billion humans on Earth. Despite the anticipated $30,000 price tag.
Tech Writing Pro Tip: Seek Engagement
Perhaps my favorite article this week was Monday's "Why Social Media Engagement Trumps Follower Count." It's easy for IT professionals and content creators to become fixated on increasing their followers and to forget the importance of engagement.
If you take away only one thing from the article, it is that you're better off with a smaller following that features greater engagement than a larger following with lower engagement. It's that simple. Regardless of the size of your audience, focus like a laser on giving them what they want and encouraging them to interact, including comments and shares.
Comment of the Week
This week's comment is actually a post from my podcast cohost John Bailey in Las Vegas. Our new weekly podcast, Curt & John Talk Tech and AI, is captured via an audio livestream, allowing anyone to participate and become part of the action.
For those not available on Thursday at 1:00 pm ET/10:00 am PT for the capture session, we publish them as a podcast on all major platforms every Friday.
Coming Next Week
Next week will feature more educational articles and podcast episodes for IT professionals and technical writers.
Thank you for subscribing to the Tech Writing Success Newsletter and sharing this information with your followers and colleagues. Together, we can build a technical writing community that is educational, fun, and that boosts our companies and careers.
— Curt Robbins, Senior Technical Writer