I’m happy we had the chance to work together – and I agree, it worked out well – not least of all because you are a very quick learner and very easy to work with!
—Kim Lo, Senior Analyst, Underwriting Policy, ICBC
Testimonial – Quick learner, easy to work with
Testimonial – Depth in task-based documentation and structured authoring
Jason is a very experienced writer, with depth in task-based documentation and structured authoring. He is responsible, diligent, conscientious, and extremely easy to work with. I enjoyed working on his team very much and would welcome the chance to work with him again.
Jason was an important member of our team during a series of demanding and complicated releases of documentation related to regulatory changes to automobile insurance in BC. In the initial project, Product Reform, Jason joined the team responsible for converting reviewed Word documents into ICBC’s complicated DITA/XML toolset. To do this correctly (which Jason did) required mastery of information mapping and ICBC’s template structure.
For our second project, far less business preparation had been done, and the project itself suffered from a lack of business requirements and product definition. Jason took the bull by the horns and with intensive effort, managed to extract enough information from the SMEs to accomplish a successful release of a viable topic set.
Both projects required that “old” source co-exist with “go-live” source. Jason met the single-sourcing requirement using conditional profiles in DITA/XML.
—Lindsay Burrell, Procedures Analyst/Senior Technical Writer, ICBC
Testimonial – You did a fantastic job
You did a fantastic job communicating what the policy is, and distinguishing between “the program” and “facilities”. It’s not exactly straightforward, but you totally nailed it.
—Kate, Senior Legal Counsel, ICBC
What’s your purpose?
What’s your purpose?
– or –
What’s the difference between a purpose and an objective?
Sometimes these terms seem synonymous, and often the term purpose is used solely to mean both, but the distinction between them in a document or training plan is key. The purpose is about the document and the objective is about the audience. In other words, “purpose” is what the document sets out to teach and “objective” is what the reader will be able to do as a result of that teaching.
Purpose
Example:
“The purpose of this guide is to describe how to complete a customer claim.”
I once saw a purpose statement at the front of a guide that stated, “The purpose of this guide is to be a user manual.” The circular reasoning is obvious, and it’s easy to see how feature-focused this kind of planning is. The purpose is the story the document is telling; or put another way, it’s the point of this guide.
Objective
Example:
“As a result of reading this guide, the reader will be able to complete
a customer claim accurately to company standards.”
Writing an objective in technical writing is a thornier issue and unless you’re writing training materials, it’s something quite foreign. The reason for this is simply that the objective describes something about the consumer of the information. Often, technical writers are removed from their readers. Technical writers don’t have to stand up in front of a room of readers, but trainers do, so instructional designers (those who write training materials) are more familiar with writing objectives.
In a technical document, I’m one for a blended approach and stating both, even if it means that the objective is buried in a purpose statement.
Purpose + Objective = Purpose
The result is something like this:
“The purpose of this guide is to enable readers to complete
a customer claim accurately to company standards.”
Big whoop—I know—it’s not all that different, but by taking in both the document and its reader, the purpose statement becomes much more meaningful (it’s not filler at the beginning of a guide), and the reader can go back to the beginning and assess if that objective was fulfilled (or not).
Testimonial – easily navigable, with understandable language and an accessible layout
I recently had the pleasure to work with Jason on a project for a new unit that I created. We had another writer work on a manual for my group, but the final product was far from what we needed.
I had a very brief conversation with Jason and he knew right away how to put together my document so that it was easily navigable, with understandable language and an accessible layout.
I learned a lot working with him and was so impressed with how quickly he was able to fix my document, which was almost 90 pages, but also how professionally he worked with me. The end product was better than I could have imagined and much more than I could have done myself. My team continues to use this document on a daily basis.
I highly recommend Jason for any writing project and look forward to the opportunity to work with him again.
—Erika Webster, Manager, Claims Business Support Unit, ICBC
Testimonial – I appreciate all you’ve done to contribute to our success.
Thanks for all your hard work converting topics from Word to Oxygen Jason. Everything published successfully for release 1.1 and I appreciate all you’ve done to contribute to our success.
—Brody Darough-Hardekopf, Senior Business Advisor, ICBC
Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC)
Role: Procedures Analyst (2018–2021)
Need: To comply with new government-mandated changes to automobile insurance, ICBC needs to revise all of its policy and procedural material. Projects included Rate Affordability Action Plan (RAAP), Modernization of Passenger-Directed Transportation (MPDT – otherwise known as Car Sharing/Ride Hailing), Material Damage (new Collision and Glass Repair programs).
Activities:
Working with business policy analysts and subject matter experts (auto insurance, healthcare, legal) to ensure readiness for province-wide rollout to ICBC’s internal departments and over 900 independent insurance brokers.
Tools used:
- Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)
- Oxygen Authoring – XML editor
- Information Mapping methodology
- SharePoint
- Jira
- Confluence
- Microsoft Office
Deliverables
- hundreds of Oxygen Authoring reference, policy, procedure, and process topics
- Conversation guides
- many SharePoint adjuster strategy topics
- Job aids
- and more
Testimonial — a proven IT consultant
Jason is a proven IT consultant and has been a pleasure to work with over the last few months.
When we were partnering to find his next position, Jason was always very committed. He was extremely easy to work with, was always open to making strategic changes to his resume, and most importantly, was always available to talk.
Thank you Jason!
—Robert Peterson, Account Manager
British Columbia Institute of Technology
Role: Technical Writing Instructor/Instructional Designer (2007–present)
Need: BCIT’s Department of Communications relies on instructors with industry expertise and still active in the field, so it was my 15 years of experience as a technical writer that brought me into their technical writing courses. In addition, while there I also attained the Provincial Instructional Design Diploma in Adult Education designation to ensure my teaching ability is the best possible.
Activities:
Classroom experience as core instructor for the Technical Writing Certification Program.
- Employing learning objectives and ADDIE model to develop courseware.
- Analysing learner needs, designing lesson plans, developing learning assessments and evaluation tools according to criteria and rubrics.
- Implementing blended learning (instructor-led training (ILT) and computer-based training (CBT)), and evaluating effectiveness of learning against learning objectives and
criteria.
Courses taught: Technical Writing Style, Technical Editing and Grammar, Writing for the Web, Business Communications.
Tools used:
- Learning Hub (online learning management system)
- Moodle
- WordPress
- Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint…)
- Wiki
- Adobe Acrobat
WorkSafeBC
Role: 
Adult Education Consultant (2009) and Technical Writer (2018)
Need: WorkSafeBC (the Workers’ Compensation Board of British Columbia) needed to modernize the way it processed its claims. As an agency mandated to reduce workplace injury and illness, the new system needed to allow WorkSafeBC employees with the ability to use create and follow the progress of claims from admission to release (including all communications regarding workers, employers, and health care providers).
Solution: Working out of the Richmond, BC Head Office, I was brought in (2009) to write training manuals for the enormous roll-out of the system. Training modules included procedures for processing worker injuries, long-term disability, healthcare, wage loss, employee/employer entitlements, and more.
I coordinated with subject matter experts and ran procedures within the CMS (Claims Management System) system. The resulting manuals were used for a province-wide software roll-out.
In 2018 after nearly ten years, I returned to update technical and training materials for the new upgrade. To do this, I re-ran procedures (from 2009) and revised them according to changes in the new version of CMS. To ensure consistency across more than 800 documents, I also developed a style guide.
Tools used:
- Claims Management System (an in-house managed IBM/Cúram Social Program Management enterprise module-based platform)
- Microsoft Office (Word, Excel…)
- TechSmith Snaggit (a screen capture and screen recorder tool to create and edit images and screen captures)
- SharePoint (a Microsoft enterprise file-management tool)
- Adobe Acrobat