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Chris Ulmer

'94 BSTC
Senior Technical Writer
Vidiom Systems
Lafayette, Colorado

 

Question: Tell us about your job: Where do you work? What is your job title? How long have you had this position?

Chris: I work with a unique collection of software engineers, technical writers, and trainers who provide innovative software solutions, clear and concise documentation, and comprehensive training modules to the interactive television industry. Our company is called Vidiom Systems and currently we employ 14 people. My official title is Senior Technical Writer, but because we are fairly small, I also do a lot of project management and just started training as well. I have been at Vidiom Systems for almost three years.

Question: What are your key duties at work? What is a typical day like?

Chris: I am the project manager and lead writer for a 2700+-page documentation set that shows interactive television application programmers how to write applications in C using my client's software APIs. Because my client is in California and Illinois, my typical day includes a lot of email exchanges with software engineers and project managers regarding various projects and a lot of phone conversations with the writer assigned to me.

Documenting APIs that sit on top of a real-time operating system is arguably the hardest type of technical writing. The pace is very fast and sometimes frustrating because I am working with technology that has never been done before and, therefore, there are no books or examples to work from. There is cutting edge technology and then there is us-bleeding edge technology.

Question: Does your job involve travel?

Chris: Yes, I travel to California as needed, usually once or twice a year. I may travel more now that I have broken into training.

Question: What do you like most about your job?

Chris: I love the fact that I get to work with technology that few people have ever seen before. I love that most weeks are like finals' week and that my office sometimes resembles a mad scientist's lab. I like the fact that I crank out more pages in four months than most technical writers produce in a year! I also enjoy the fact that I work for a consulting company that believes in the 40-hour workweek and a casual work environment. We work hard and still have time to enjoy all of the things that make us who we are.

Question: What is the least favorite part of the job?

Chris: My client's company politics and working through their poor decisions. Sometimes they do things to get a product out the door and do not consider the inconvenience to their customer. As a writer, I am exposed to a wide range of products and do my best to alert my client of potential conflicts. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, but it is never boring!

Question: How did you become interested in Technical Communications?

Chris: I started at MSOE as an Architectural Engineering major. I wanted to build big, beautiful buildings and leave a permanent mark on society. After two years, I could have cared less about building a tree house let alone leaving a permanent mark on society. At the time, I was working in the General Studies department and started talking with professor Friauf who was the head of the Technical Communication department. He convinced me not to leave MSOE and to give the Technical Communications program a try. To this day it is still one of the best decisions I ever made.

Question: Do you consider yourself to be a Technical Communicator? How do you feel your job is suited for a TC? Do people with other backgrounds also perform your type of job?

Chris: Yes, I am a Technical Communicator. I extract the ideas, thoughts, and inclinations of over-worked software engineers to create clear and concise manuals that application developers can use to create interactive television applications.

A good technical communicator can absorb technical details, re-shape those details, and present them in a way that fits the needs of their audience. It does not matter what industry you work in, and this practice applies to writers, trainers, and technical sales specialists.