What I would like to do
Work in progress
This page will describe my transition from my early days as a musician (bass guitar and vocals) and sound engineer, through my brief career as a chef, and then on to my times spent as a research editor, community arts worker and counsellor/psychotherapist before becoming a technical author for Psion Software. It will then briefly outline my transitions, expansions and achievements since then leading to my current position as business analyst, trainer and documentation manager with Intelligent Environments in Kingston upon Thames.
My ideal position
For the past fifteen years I have been a technical author within the IT industry. I have worked for, among others, GE Healthcare, Nokia, Psion/Symbian, GE Energy, and SMBC Bank. I am currently employed in a full time and permanent position as a technical author and trainer, in a role that I have been in since September 2008.
Recent months have seen my roles and responsibilities expand hugely and I now act as, among other things, Documentation manager and quality control officer, SharePoint administrator, Training manager, Information Architect, Front line support contact, Business Analyst, Webmaster, creator of software demonstrations, author of sales collateral, and owner of policy and procedures documentation (for further information see my CV).
I would like very much to move into a more senior role with greater and more formal responsibility for documentation (also training and possibly websites) companywide – for example editing and proofing, quality control, checking and editing of (e.g.) marketing materials, managing the storage and distribution of corporate documentation, defining and enforcing style guidelines, creating policy and procedural documentation, and so on. I suppose my ideal role would be something like ‘documentation manager’ across an entire company.
I am not in any great hurry to move – I have a fairly secure role at the moment and I am not unhappy there – but if a possible new position were to offer me more in the way of responsibilities, job satisfaction, potential, and salary, then I would certainly be interested in hearing about it. I would also be interested in reducing my daily commute (I live in Bounds Green, North London, and am travelling to Surrey every day) if at all possible.
