As a technical content material author for Cisco ThousandEyes, I’ve to confess, my best worry is to get replaced by a generative AI algorithm. Within the spirit of “holding my pals shut and my enemies nearer,” I made a decision to befriend my potential adversary. On this article, I’ll share how utilizing CIRCUIT, Cisco’s inner AI assistant, has augmented my means as a technical author to maintain up with the speedy tempo of change in our trade.
Fast context switching
I work on a number of merchandise for ThousandEyes and, because of my earlier lives as a NOC Engineer (Community Operations Middle) and Backend Software program Developer, my technical experience means I’m typically referred to as upon when the workforce wants further protection. Whereas I’ve a broad and deep understanding of many applied sciences, the focus required to successfully write about them is on par with the focus I as soon as wanted as a developer to construct them.
In engineering, “rubber ducking” means to speak out an issue both at somebody or one thing with the intention to set up one’s ideas (not essentially for a response). I exploit CIRCUIT as a rubber duck in context switching conditions. With generative AI chat, I’m in a position to preserve a dialog the place I can current concepts and ask it to summarize the important thing factors I must refresh on. The conversational fashion strikes me rapidly into the headspace crucial for making troublesome context switches. Relatively than needing half a day to get again within the stream, I can pivot to a brand new job inside half-hour.
Shorter SME interviews
One thing I get pleasure from about being a technical author is attending to find out about new stuff. As a lot as I really like studying, nonetheless, given our present velocity (and quantity) of innovation, I typically really feel like I’m ingesting from a firehose. CIRCUIT gives me with a quiet house the place I can safely ask dumb questions on unfamiliar applied sciences. This maximizes the worth I can convey to SME (Topic Matter Professional) interviews.
When an SME has to stroll me by way of the fundamentals, interviews can take as a lot as an hour and should even span a number of classes. Even after I put together alone, I spend quite a lot of time gathering the data I want and discerning what’s truly helpful. With the assistance of CIRCUIT, the data is introduced to me in a summarized kind that’s simple to digest. I can rapidly assess it for accuracy and I can ask questions for clarification, in addition to reply with corrections to enhance my outcomes. It even exhibits me what sources it used, so I can go deeper alone. This considerably reduces the time I must ramp up on a brand new know-how. On account of utilizing CIRCUIT to ramp up on unfamiliar applied sciences, my SME interviews are extremely concentrated and environment friendly, usually lasting a mere 15-20 minutes.
Diminished repetitive duties
The Documentation Staff at ThousandEyes makes use of a “docs-as-code” strategy. For us, this implies our documentation lives in Github and we format it utilizing markdown. Markdown tables are very tedious and error-prone. When I’ve to create a brand new markdown desk, I exploit CIRCUIT to create it with the values I present. Then, all I’ve to do is copy and paste. It’s additionally helpful after I must summarize content material, comparable to offering a one-sentence description or writing a brief introductory paragraph to a technical article. CIRCUIT can present me with the summaries I want immediately, sourced from our personal documentation.
Immediate contextual data
The toughest factor to doc isn’t the technical stuff. It’s the stuff that connects the technical stuff to what the person actually wants and desires. That is the a part of the writing course of that depends upon the author’s expertise and instinct. Technical writing isn’t simply making a bunch of screenshots and describing them. It’s determining what the person needs to do after which determining one of the best ways to current the data to attenuate the person’s cognitive load.
Suggestions gathered by one in all our product managers, clients appreciated ThousandEyes’ documentation higher than our rivals’. Caring about our customers is an enormous precedence for my workforce. For instance, I perceive how difficult making sense of documentation may be within the midst of a high-severity outage, particularly while you’ve been woken up in the course of the evening. Once I’m figuring out easy methods to doc one thing, I do quite a lot of background analysis, together with perusing instructional supplies on the ThousandEyes weblog and user-contributed content material on websites like Reddit and StackOverflow. Asking CIRCUIT why somebody may use one thing makes a part of the writing course of a lot sooner (though it does take finesse to phrase my prompts successfully).
The listing of use instances and descriptions I get from the AI not solely permits me to extra deeply empathize with our customers, but in addition helps me to craft my content material to make sure relevancy and ease of use.
Embracing GenAI
Generative AI has reworked my strategy to technical writing at Cisco ThousandEyes, turning what may have been a frightening adversary into a robust ally. By streamlining context switching, accelerating studying for SME interviews, automating repetitive duties, and offering prompt contextual insights, CIRCUIT has not solely boosted my effectivity however continues to raise the standard of our user-focused documentation. Relatively than changing the human contact, CIRCUIT amplifies my means to empathize with customers and ship clear, related content material that meets their wants, even in high-pressure situations. Because the tempo of innovation continues to speed up, integrating AI into technical writing is not only a sensible alternative—it’s a strategic one which empowers writers to remain forward in a quickly evolving trade.
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