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As a technical content material author for Cisco ThousandEyesI’ve to confess, my biggest concern is to get replaced by a generative AI algorithm. Within the spirit of “protecting my buddies shut and my enemies nearer,” I made a decision to befriend my potential adversary. On this article, I’ll share how utilizing Cisco’s inside AI assistant has augmented my means as a technical author to maintain up with the fast 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 Heart) and Backend Software program Developer, my technical experience means I’m usually referred to as upon when the workforce wants additional 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 a view to manage one’s ideas (not essentially for a response). I take advantage of Cisco’s inside AI assistant as a rubber duck in context switching conditions. With a generative AI chat, I’m capable of preserve 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 shortly into the headspace essential for making troublesome context switches. Reasonably than needing half a day to get again within the circulation, 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 usually really feel like I’m ingesting from a firehose. Cisco’s inside 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 deliver to SME (Topic Matter Knowledgeable) interviews.
When an SME has to stroll me by the fundamentals, interviews can take as a lot as an hour and will even span a number of periods. Even once I put together alone, I spend loads of time gathering the data I want and discerning what’s really helpful. With the assistance of Cisco’s inside AI assistant, the data is offered to me in a summarized kind that’s simple to digest. I can shortly 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. On account of utilizing Cisco’s inside 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.
Decreased repetitive duties
The Documentation Staff at ThousandEyes makes use of a “docs-as-code” method. 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 inside 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 inside AI assistant can present me with the summaries I want immediately, sourced from our personal documentation, and all I’ve to do is overview them.
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 consumer 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 consumer desires to do after which determining one of the best ways to current the data to reduce the consumer’s cognitive load.
Suggestions gathered by one in all our product managers reported that prospects favored ThousandEyes’ documentation higher than our rivals’. Caring about our customers is a giant precedence for my workforce. For instance, I perceive how difficult making sense of documentation could be within the midst of a high-severity outage, particularly while you’ve been woken up in the course of the evening. After I’m figuring out the way to doc one thing, I do loads 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 inside AI assistant 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 advisable checklist 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 genes
Embracing generative AI has remodeled my method 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 inside AI assistant has not solely boosted my effectivity however continues to raise the standard of our user-focused documentation. Reasonably than changing the human contact, Cisco’s inside AI assistant amplifies my means to empathize with customers and ship clear, related content material that meets their wants, even in high-pressure eventualities. Because the tempo of innovation continues to speed up, integrating AI into technical writing is not only a sensible selection—it’s a strategic one which empowers writers to remain forward in a quickly evolving trade.
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