How to Make Technical Content Worth Reading

Ben: Welcome back to another episode of Content Amplified. Today, I’m joined by Rachel. Rachel, welcome to the show.

Ben: Well, I’m excited to have you here, Rachel. This is going to be a fun episode. Before we dive into the subject though, we’d love to get to know you. Tell us a little bit about yourself, what you love about content and marketing, things like that.

Rachel Bishop: So I admittedly kind of fell into marketing by accident. My mother wanted me to be a nurse. And I realized really soon after entering college that I faint at the sight of blood. So I ended up having to do a slight pivot. And I kind of just followed my passion and majored in English. So I got my degree in English, technical writing to be specific. I got my master’s degree in communication and I kind of fell into marketing because I realized that that was a decent way to stay out of a cardboard box with an English degree. And I guess as my luck would have it, I actually ended up liking marketing. So that’s kind of how I ended up here.

Ben: I love it. I love it. And I love the, again, the difference in backgrounds for marketers is so cool. It’s a good way to use your English degree and all sorts of really fun stuff. I love that so much. Well, that’s true. It’s true. Like I’ve worked with great philosophy majors and all sorts of crazy cool stuff and it’s fun. Like it makes marketing exciting and it’s a cool group of people to be a part of for sure.

Rachel Bishop: Absolutely, we are a versatile bunch, if nothing else.

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How to Make Technical Content Accessible?

Ben: Well, Rachel, for today, we’re going to talk about how to make your content accessible while still feeling tailor-made. Like, I think that’s a really interesting balance that a lot of people struggle with. So when you’re looking at it, especially on the technical side of content, what should we be thinking about to create technical content that’s also somewhat accessible?

Rachel Bishop: That’s a really great question and it dives into the, I guess, like the basic aspect of a lot of technical writing. Because let’s be honest, it’s pretty dry. A lot of us, we buy something new, we see the manual, we trash the manual, and then we figure out things on our own. But unfortunately, we kind of live in a space where people are going to, you know, Google what they need to know. And you do have to have some sort of technical smarts about you to be able to write the articles that people go online to actually find. So I guess I kind of look at it in two different ways. To write technical content, you have to understand two main things. The topic you’re writing about, because if you don’t understand your topic, you’re probably not going to be able to explain it very well to others, as well as your audience, because if you don’t understand your audience, you have no idea who you’re writing for and you’re kind of just taking a shot in the dark.

But once you understand your topic, you can explain it to others. And then once you know your audience, you’ll know how to explain it to others. And that is what good technical content looks like.

How to Learn Technical Subjects Enough to Write About Them

Ben: I love that. I love what you just said there about what it really looks like and the different sides of the equation. Let’s say you have a technical subject though that you don’t know how to write about. Any tips or ideas about how to actually understand it well enough that you can explain it or finding resources that can?

Rachel Bishop: Absolutely, and this is one of the first things I do with any type of writing role that I’ve ever taken on. I have to know who my people are. Like day one of any job that requires me to do any type of technical writing or technical content, I have to find my people. And my people are the subject matter experts who can explain things to me like I’m a five-year-old. Because if I can have someone break it down to me in such simple terms that even I, a complete newbie, can understand it, it’s easier for me to be able to pass along that knowledge so others can understand it based on where they are in their learning journey. So it may not even be something that’s really regurgitated. I may even need to write about it in a more technical way, but I can’t really do that until I understand it myself. And so that is exactly why it’s so important to find your people as soon as you can.

How to Make Technical Content Worth Reading

Ben: I love that I love that. So when you’re taking this content and you’ve got highly technical content and you’ve done a good job, you found a way to tell the you know the topic, the subject, explain it. You know who you’re talking to, you know how to explain it. What are some of the different formats to really make it compelling and interesting? Like highly technical content is often really difficult to write. Any ideas on that, on how to make it somewhat fascinating or at least interesting enough to read and it’s not purely built for the Google machine, but actually helping someone consumes it and learn something from it?

Rachel Bishop: yeah, my go to has always been humor. I mean, and I totally get that there’s a time and a place for humor, but let’s kind of be honest, like people who are Googling, you know, how to learn about a specific technical topic, they, there’s just so much dry content out there. Like I’m not really trying to name names, but if you go on Microsoft’s website, it’s just, I mean, technical documentation doesn’t have to be super dry. And especially where, you know, if you are writing for, you know, content online, you do have a little bit of wiggle room to be able to infuse your brand voice or, you know, a little bit of humor. It doesn’t have to be as strict as it would be if you were writing a technical document like a manual. So there’s a really good balance that you can strike between humor and storytelling and then, you know, getting your point across. And another thing to think about is using casual language. You know, I know that in college we’re all kind of taught, you know, don’t use contractions. You have to, don’t use second person. And it’s really weird because once you graduate from college and then you get your first job writing this type of content, you realize that all of that was kind of garbage advice and you have to unlearn it. It’s really weird. So you end up writing content that does use second person because you want it to seem like you are focusing on your audience. Like you want to address them as you, not, you know, anything else. So, you know, using a casual type of voice is a really good way to help your content kind of seem like it’s geared specifically toward your audience.

Making Content Concise

Ben: I love that. I love that. A couple of things come to mind. It’s so funny when you talked about the college experience and how it really messed this up because a lot of times in school growing up, it’s like, okay, you need to write about this subject, but you need to be able to write it in a thousand words or five pages or something like that. But when it comes to reality, at least in marketing, the objective is how do I shorten the content to the smallest amount possible?

Using Humor in Technical Content

Ben: Right. And it’s a skill I wish teachers would teach more because it really is, you know, how do I make it concise and things like that? Another thing that really stood out to me, you talked about the humor for the highly technical stuff. An example to me is, you know, shout out to Delta and some of these other airlines. When you get on the airplane, their pamphlets given are boring. Right. The safety pamphlets in the front seat pocket.

Ben: But the videos over time have become way more entertaining, like something I actually watch and I’m curious, okay, what are they gonna do? What randomness is gonna be happening? All that kind of stuff. I think it’s a great example of taking a subject that typically people would ignore, because they’ve seen it or heard it so many times if they’re a frequent traveler, and turn it into entertainment and humor and casual opportunities to talk about that. So I think that’s a lot of really valuable stuff. Now, do you typically run your humor by your subject matter experts? Like I know I would be paranoid that I would say something offensive or wrong. Like how do you typically make sure everything’s okay?

Rachel Bishop: yeah, like, and some of it is also common sense. Like when I worked at a cybersecurity company, if we were focusing on like a threat that was happening in real time, like log4j for example, that wasn’t exactly the right time for humor because there were real-world consequences that were happening in real time. And that is not the place for humor, but in other scenarios you can make a little, one-off joke about, you know, whatever that kind of just exemplifies your brand voice, but I always make sure that I check with subject matter experts. I’m also one of those people who has to have their work reviewed by at least one additional human before I will let it go live. So just making sure, because the way that I interpret something may not be the same way that someone else interprets something. So having those gut checks is definitely important.

AI's Role in Technical Content Writing

Ben: Love it. Now, kind of transitioning a little bit, we were kind of chatting a tiny bit about this before we came on the podcast. But really, when you’re looking at creating and crafting this content, how much does generative AI play a role in highly technical content? Where does it help? Where does it hurt? What’s the balance? I know that people would often lean towards Gen AI a little extra, just because it’s highly technical, it’s a shortcut. You get around talking to your people and all that kind of stuff. How do you look at that to make sure it’s a benefit and not detracts away from the experience for the reader?

Rachel Bishop: That’s a really good question. And I think that it’s something that we’re probably going to see a lot more of because I guess unfortunately and fortunately AI is getting smarter. So the way that I’ve always used AI in my writing is I kind of just use it in the very beginning writing stages where I’m just trying to learn the very, very basics of whatever I’m trying to learn. So like I’ll use AI to like determine like explain to me like I’m five years old, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now that usually gives me a starting point to at least know what to Google because I don’t really believe in taking AI at its word, sorry AI bots, but you have to fact-check AI. It’s just the way it is because the way that AI works, it’s just kind of regurgitating what it’s seeing on the internet, which also may or may not be true. So you kind of need…

Ben: Yeah, humans never lie. We’re never inaccurate at all. Never. That’s not true. Everything you read on Reddit is 100% accurate and true. So yeah, 100%.

Rachel Bishop: I wish.

Rachel Bishop: Well, seeing the things that I’ve seen on Reddit, that could be either good or extremely bad and even a little hurtful. So.

Ben: Yes, very true. Very true.

Rachel Bishop: But yeah, I do think that AI can be used even if it’s just like figuring out how you want to structure content. It can help you figure out like an outline before you get started writing. I’ve used it for that. The one thing that I’m careful not to use AI for though is anything that is time sensitive. Like if you are researching a threat that is unraveling in real time, like something that’s being exploited in the wild, AI is not gonna really be your best friend because there is a bit of a date. Like it’s only as good as the last update that it received. So you do have to be careful there.

How to Know What to Write About

Ben: I love it. I love it. So when you’re writing this highly technical content, how are you figuring out what to write? It sounds like one of your pillars is like really up-to-date content, but how are you also like determining the right kinds of material that people would actually want to read?

Rachel Bishop: The best way I think to do that is really just to go to your audience. Like if you have power users who you trust or people who you know are reading your blog. I mean, just straight up ask them what types of content would you like to see? What types of content really resonate well? What types of content make your job easier? Like we see this a lot at PDQ where we will just ask our partners that we trust, like what type of content would make your job easier to be able to serve your customer? That’s always really helpful. But then also the other thing, being able to just look at… So let me just backtrack. Earlier this year at PDQ, we did this huge project where we just tried to figure out the types of personas that are usually on our blog. And we did a lot of research. We did a lot of analytic deep diving and things like that. And we were kind of able to figure out a basic persona, like you have your junior system administrator, you have a senior system administrator, and we were able to bucket the types of content that we do based on which persona would find it interesting. Like your junior sysadmin may not really be super interested in things that go into budgeting or management or anything like that, while your senior sysadmin probably already knows how to deal or how to work with PuTTY, for example. Like it’s all a balance in figuring out who your audience is. And I mean, if you do have the luxury of having those power users that you really trust, ask them what types of content they would benefit from.

Ben: I love that. And I’m so proud of myself. I actually know what PuTTY is to a degree. Like from a former life that one summer I was a programmer, like I actually know it, which is kind of fun.

Rachel Bishop: Well, no shame in, I mean, I had to Google it last week. That was another thing where I did ask AI, hey, what is PuTTY and what am I getting myself into writing this piece of content?

Ben: Yep, yep, 100%. And that’s some of the fun of being a marketer is, you know, the ability to expand what we learn and how we grow and all that kind of stuff. I will like one extra tip, like this is my favorite with generative AI, going back to that subject. I love to throw in an article or whatever I’m doing and say, what did I miss? Like what part of this content…

Rachel Bishop: Who?

Ben: Did I miss like, is there a gaping hole? You know, I even actually consulted with a group of people that do expert witness work for lawyers and they were like, cool. Like they threw in their arguments and we taught them how to actually say, what is the opposition going to do? Like, how are they going to poke holes in our argument? And it would actually give some pretty decent results. So that’s just another fun tip about a way to use generative AI. That’s not creating content for you, but helps you understand holistically what have I maybe missed or what are my biases maybe excluding out of this article.

Rachel Bishop: is so cool. I’m definitely going to use it in that way too. Like it can really just help you think, you know?

Ben: Yep, yep, exactly. I love it. Isn’t there like a book, The Second Brain, where it’s like your phone or something like that? I’m wondering if people are going to really lean on AI to say, okay, pick this apart, do this, do that. I think there’s some opportunities, so I love it. Well, Rachel has promised these episodes go by so fast and I learned so much. I loved the conversation. It was absolutely awesome. But Rachel, if anyone wants to reach out and connect with you online, where and how can they find you?

Rachel Bishop: Yeah, I’m on LinkedIn and you can also check out my website at rachel-bishop.com. Would love to connect with you and thank you so much for having me today, Ben. I really appreciate it.

Ben: I love it, I love it. And we’ll link to everything in the show notes so people can find you nice and easy. Rachel, again, thanks so much for the time today. Really appreciate it.

Rachel Bishop: Thank you so much.

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