In May 2018, I became self-employed as a contract technical author. I needed to set up a company quickly as I was starting a short-term contract in Media City, Manchester.
I knocked up a rough outline of a logo on the back of a post-it note on a train journey back home from my current long-term contract near Milton Keynes. I passed it across to Stuart Josephson who converted the post-it note into the proper looking logo above.
I also didn’t want the hassle of setting up yet another domain, with yet another copy of WordPress, more theme choices, more content and so on. So I used my existing site and added this new page – and any future sub-pages that I haven’t yet thought about needing.
Contract Work Done (& Doing)
This page, and any sub-pages that follow, will follow my career progress as best as I can. Due to some of the work I do, I won’t be able (sometimes) to go into any detail other than a basic location / job role.
| Position / Date | Overview |
|---|---|
| Technical Author / Auden / May 2018 | A 3.5 week contract to help bring a range of documents up to date. They were mostly Word-based documents, along with a few Visio diagrams. Also updated a few pages on Confluence. |
| Technical Author / June 2018 onwards | Sole technical author for a government institution. (On-going until March 2021, although currently WFH due to COVID-19 pandemic) This is my current role and involves a wide-range of skills including: updating/creating Word documents, updating/programming macros for Excel (inc. development of a Code Library for others to use) and updating a large selection of Confluence spaces and pages. |
Pro-Bono work undertaken
Pro Bono work undertaken
I've been helping out others for years (and years), but since I launched Mee Docs Ltd, I've decided to keep a record going.| Who for | Description of work undertaken |
|---|---|
| "Fish & Chip" website (Can't remember name!) | Suggested a few changes to the creator of the website and ended up reviewing every single page and suggesting fixes. |
| Atari Legend | Reviewing all of the interviews / reviews on the website as and when asked. |
| Appvertise | Reviewing all of the text within the app and accompanying website. |
| ISTC website | Converting articles from older issues of The Communicator magazine from PDF into WordPress pages. |
| Breakin' The Borders | Proofreading of the translated text (originally written in German) for the English versions of all three books. |
| Woad Farm | I was staying here as part of my long-term contract, so I ended up being their unofficial Android app support as well as helping them with their own website queries - initially through the now defunct Web Eden and then moving their site into a WordPress one using SiteGrounds. |
| TCUK Metro 2020 website | Helping more with the tech support for WordPress than actual text editing etc. |