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As a technical content material author for Cisco ThousandEyes, I’ve to confess, my best concern is to get replaced by a generative AI algorithm. In the spirit of “keeping my friends close and my enemies closer,” I made a decision to befriend my potential adversary. In this text, I’ll share how utilizing Cisco’s inner AI assistant has augmented my capacity as a technical author to maintain up with the speedy tempo of change in our business.
Rapid context switching
I work on a number of merchandise for ThousandEyes and, due to my earlier lives as a NOC Engineer (Network Operations Center) and Backend Software Developer, my technical experience means I’m typically known as upon when the crew wants further protection. While 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 a view to manage one’s ideas (not essentially for a response). I take advantage of Cisco’s inner AI assistant as a rubber duck in context switching conditions. With a generative AI chat, I’m in a position to keep a dialog the place I can current concepts and ask it to summarize the important thing factors I have to refresh on. The conversational model strikes me rapidly into the headspace vital for making tough context switches. Rather than needing half a day to get again within the stream, I can pivot to a brand new activity inside half-hour.
Shorter SME interviews
Something 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 pace (and quantity) of innovation, I typically really feel like I’m consuming from a firehose. Cisco’s inner AI assistant offers me with a quiet house the place I can safely ask dumb questions on unfamiliar applied sciences. This maximizes the worth I can carry to SME (Subject Matter Expert) interviews.
When an SME has to stroll me by way of the fundamentals, interviews can take as a lot as an hour and will even span a number of classes. Even once I put together alone, I spend a number of time gathering the data I want and discerning what’s truly helpful. With the assistance of Cisco’s inner AI assistant, the data is offered to me in a summarized kind that’s straightforward 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 have to ramp up on a brand new expertise. As a results of utilizing Cisco’s inner AI Assistant to ramp up on unfamiliar applied sciences, my SME interviews are extremely concentrated and environment friendly, sometimes lasting a mere 15-20 minutes.
Reduced repetitive duties
The Documentation Team 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 take advantage of Cisco’s inner AI assistant to create it with the values I present. Then, all I’ve to do is copy and paste. It’s additionally helpful once I have to summarize content material, equivalent to offering a one-sentence description or writing a brief introductory paragraph to a technical article. Cisco’s inner AI assistant can present me with the summaries I want immediately, sourced from our personal documentation, and all I’ve to do is evaluation them.
Instant contextual info
The hardest factor to doc isn’t the technical stuff. It’s the stuff that connects the technical stuff to what the person actually wants and needs. This 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 desires to do after which determining the easiest way to current the data to reduce the person’s cognitive load.
Feedback gathered by considered one of our product managers reported that clients preferred ThousandEyes’ documentation higher than our opponents’. Caring about our customers is a giant precedence for my crew. For instance, I perceive how difficult making sense of documentation may be within the midst of a high-severity outage, particularly whenever you’ve been woken up in the midst of the night time. When I’m figuring out learn how to doc one thing, I do a number of background analysis, together with perusing instructional supplies on the ThousandEyes weblog and user-contributed content material on websites like Reddit and StackOverflow. Asking Cisco’s inner AI assistant why somebody may use one thing makes a part of the writing course of a lot quicker (though it does take finesse to phrase my prompts successfully).
The advisable checklist of use circumstances 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
Embracing generative AI has remodeled my strategy to technical writing at Cisco ThousandEyes, turning what may have been a frightening adversary into a strong ally. By streamlining context switching, accelerating studying for SME interviews, automating repetitive duties, and offering on the spot contextual insights, Cisco’s inner AI assistant has not solely boosted my effectivity however continues to raise the standard of our user-focused documentation. Rather than changing the human contact, Cisco’s inner AI assistant amplifies my capacity to empathize with customers and ship clear, related content material that meets their wants, even in high-pressure eventualities. As the tempo of innovation continues to speed up, integrating AI into technical writing isn’t just a sensible alternative—it’s a strategic one which empowers writers to remain forward in a quickly evolving business.
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