Professional Experience

Principal Technical Writer

Confidential

Using Madcap Flare, wrote and produced installation, upgrade, configuration and administration guides for BA-Insight, a startup that provides full-featured extensions to Microsoft Enterprise Search for SharePoint.

• As a member of two off shore Agile teams, wrote and maintained documentation for the Content Connectors product, which includes a database connector framework and more than a dozen individual Enterprise content connectors for sources such as Documentum, MS Exchange, and LiveLink.
• Initiated documentation infrastructure and life cycle process for managing doc source in source control TFS , publishing doc review versions to a staging area, and publishing released documents in Web and pdf formats.
• Created and applied css style sheet for print and web outputs that is shared with multiple projects in Madcap Flare.
• Worked with an offshore team to write and maintain user documentation for the Federator product.
• Created documentation for the Search Preview product. Worked closely with the product owner to write introductory sections to the product documentation, including detailed architectural overviews showing how the product interoperates with SharePoint and FAST Search, a section on how to choose among application models, and a section on capacity planning.

Business Consultant

Confidential

Developed user documentation for the LexisNexis Insurance Exchange, a multi-year initiative to create a Web-based insurance exchange for agents and carriers in the casualty insurance industry. Also developed Training videos for new users of the Exchange.

• Proposed plan to create on-line training for users of the LexisNexis Insurance Exchange.
• Conducted research and initiated the purchase of Adobe Captivate to develop proof of concept. Researched and wrote a detailed proposal with proof-of-concept demos that I presented to project management. Proposal was approved and adopted.
• Managed a small team to create and test training modules, approved modules for production, and coordinated deployment schedule. Successfully delivered and deployed 30 training demos in Flash format swf to production. Modules average 3 to 4 minutes in length..
• Successfully delivered and deployed 30 training demos in Flash format swf to production. Modules average 3 to 4 minutes in length.
• Wrote and published user documentation for the initial production version of the Lexis Nexis Insurance Exchange.

Contract Technical Writer

Confidential

documentation for the pilot version of the LexisNexis Insurance Exchange. FirstBest is a startup that was contracted by LexisNexis to develop the Web front end for the Exchange. I was hired fulltime by LexisNexis when the contract ended See description above .

• Participated in a small distributed team using Agile SCRUM software development methodology.
• Using Madcap Flare, designed, wrote and maintained on-line help for the LNIE Agent and Carrier Workspaces, Application Configurator and Operator Console
• Using collaboration tools like IM and WebEX, communicated daily with team members to refine requirements and implementations for product features.
• Reviewed and approved test case scenarios written by QA engineers and business analysts.
• Participated in bi-weekly sizing efforts to determine details and scope of proposed product features for future sprints.
• For each sprint retrospective, provided demos of new documentation topics and features to the SCRUM team and an expanded audience, participate in a critique of the current process for improvements, and contributed to defining the scope of proposed features for the next sprint. :
• Designed, wrote and maintained on-line help for the LNIE Agent and Carrier Workspaces, Application Configurator and Operator Console.

Contract Technical Writer

Produced technical documentation and performed data analysis and reporting for Self Clearing Services SCS , a large enterprise-wide initiative to implement a new business model on the Fidelity brokerage platform.

• Technical Writing and Document Management
• Designed and wrote a suite of documents collectively called the SCS Cookbook for Application Developers. This document set includes an overview of project strategy and system architecture, descriptions of test environments, and detailed instructions for modifying mainframe software components batch and on-line and distributed system components to meet project requirements. The SCS Cookbook was accessed hundreds of times per week by software developers and managers throughout the IPGT organization.
• In response to the scope and pace of software and organizational changes, initiated and managed a monthly document release cycle. Monitored project correspondence and attended meetings to gather information for document updates.
• Created the SCS Implementation Cookbook, a reference document for managers and developers that provides an overview of the software implementation process and schedule, and detailed instructions for preparing, verifying and moving enabled software components to the production environment for the first SCS client implementation.
• As site administrator, managed the SharePoint document repository for the SCS project.

Data Analysis, Archiving and Reporting

• Database containing 8500 VSAM and DB2 data sets currently processed by the brokerage platform. Contacted application owners to determine the in-scope status of each data set for the SCO initiative, and to obtain the initial state of in-scope data. This information was used to initialize and refresh data in the SCS test environment.
• Database containing 50,000 jobs currently running on the brokerage nightly batch cycle. Obtained job in-scope status from application owners and accessed mainframe job libraries weekly to determine enablement status. Results were used to initiate batch cycles in the test environment.
• Architectural Implementation Proposal: Wrote an overview of hardware system components and data flow, descriptions of development, QA and production environments, and an overview of data sources.
• Researched and wrote documents for TITAN, a PERL-based system application that gathers, parses, and stores trade execution data from various business units for analysis by Corporate Security.
• Provided data and analysis to support other initiatives related to the SCS project.
• Designed a complex set of SQL queries to generate regular status reports for SCS team members and for IPGT senior management. Reports were used to track the progress of application groups in complying with project requirements.
• Technical System Design document: Described application components, including scripts for data gathering and parsing and rules processing, stored procedures for data manipulation, and table schema.
• Titan Installation Guide: Provided an overview of the installation process, instructions for installing TITAN software from the QA to the development environment, a summary of the installation components, and troubleshooting information.

Confidential

• Wrote documentation for BEA WebLogic Server, version 9.0. BEA was acquired by Oracle in 2007.
• Securing WebLogic Resources: Wrote a reference manual for system administrators describing application security on the Web Logic server. Content included an overview of declarative security and the process of securing resources using security roles and policies, configuration options for securing J2EE components using the WebLogic Administration Console and/or J2EE deployment descriptors, and definitions and examples of built-in conditions administrators can use to create security expressions.
• Developed on-line help companion to the reference manual. Used an XML editor XMLMind to create context-sensitive on-line help tasks for securing resources with WebLogic Administrator's Console.

Fidelity Business

• Designed, wrote, and produced documentation for Struts , an Open Source development project that defines loosely-coupled components for extending the Jakarta Struts Open Source framework.
• Struts User Reference Guide: Produced a detailed guide for using Struts components to develop Struts applications. Includes sections on Struts Action extensions, Tiles, and extensions to the validation framework. Also documents core components for data access using JCA , configuration, administration, and general J2EE utilities.
• Struts Tutorial: Wrote instructions for downloading components and creating a simple Struts application that uses a JCA Connector.

Principal Technical Writer

• Wrote documentation for exteNd Director, an integrated development environment for coding, assembling, and deploying J2EE applications on the Web.
• Initiated, researched, and successfully proposed using WebWorks Publisher as a Frame-to-HTML converter and Linklint as an HTML validator.
• Workflow Guide: Described how to use the Workflow Modeler tool and API to create workflow applications for multiple users.
• User Management Guide: Described how to set up J2EE and LDAP server realms, secure application objects, and implement user profiling with user attributes.
• Provided a section on an event handling API for content management applications.
• Provided a section on scoped paths, a syntax based on XPath for accessing session-level and persistent data from workflow and portlet applications.
• Edited and coordinated comments provided by developers using Javadoc and in-house tools.

Confidential

• Wrote documentation for SilverStream Software, a startup that developed an early Java-based application server which included a graphical Java/HTML development environment.
• Administrator's Guide: Wrote a guide for administering the application server, with sections about the server architecture, configuration options, security, database connections, and runtime administration.
• Samples Guide: Wrote reference material and instructions for using sample components on a portal page.
• Rules Guide: Documented how to use the Rule Editor and rule API to create reusable business logic components for ePortal. Includes a section on implementing java beans to create custom rules.
• ePortal Guide: Wrote a conceptual overview and documented how to configure and use a prototype Web portal application development tool.
• Wrote documentation for the initial version of exteNd Director, which was initiated by Novell. Novell acquired SilverStream in12/2002.
• Programmer's Guide: Provided documentation for using triggered business objects for responding to different types of server events.
• API documentation: Wrote and edited comments for administration API packages using Javadoc.

Senior Technical Writer

• Wrote documentation for the Enhanced Traffic Management System ETMS used by the FAA to manage domestic air traffic at various locations throughout the U.S.
• Wrote documentation for the Progress Software 4GL product suite.
• Rewrote and reorganized the User Interface Builder Developers Guide, a visual development tool for Progress 4GL applications.
• Developed on-line help for WebSpeed v. 2.0, a browser-based web development tool.
• Documented database replication procedure for the Progress System Administration Guide, v. 8.1.
• Wrote and managed updates for the ETMS System Administration Manual used by technical personnel at FAA sites.
• Contributed new sections to the ETMS Tutorial and ETMS Reference Manual used by air traffic controllers and managers.
• Wrote sections for the ETMS System Design Document, used by ETMS software developers.

Business Analyst

• As part of a user team, analyzed business requirements for a software conversion from a mainframe to a PC LAN. My specialty was business correspondence.
• Proposed and delivered a software tutorial for the PC LAN system used by 150 internal users
• Created and maintained a business correspondence system used by client service representatives.
• Edited and approved all client service correspondence before mailing.