Category Archives: STC

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promo image for midday mentors interview

Why CPTC Certification?

Category:CPTC,Staying Current,STC

What value does a CPTC certification have for you? Listen to my interview with Estelle Hicks-Bennett for an in-depth discussion.

 

Are you a seasoned technical communicator? Are you changing careers into technical communication? Are you a university student?

Career Changers

Let’s talk about what certification can mean for people transitioning from another career into technical communication. I began working as a technical communicator, but my background was in liberal arts. I had been pursuing a doctoral degree in history but did not finish. Although I could communicate technical information appropriately for different audiences, I had no credential that proved I had the knowledge to work in technical communication. When I started work at RIT, I took coursework and received an Advanced Certificate in Technical Information design.

In my current cohort of students preparing for the CPTC™ exam, several of them are transitioning into technical communication and want the CPTC™ certification for the same reason I sought out coursework. They want to prove both to themselves and to others that they have the knowledge to work successfully as a technical communicator. Certification is a tangible achievement that carries value both personally and in the workplace.

RIT CPTC Promo image

 


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RIT CPTC Class promo photo

RIT CPTC Exam Preparation Class Beginning June 2021

Category:Schedule,Staying Current,STC,techcomm

CPTC Exam Prep Class

Please join me for an eight-session weekly virtual training course for the STC Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC) Foundation exam offered through the Rochester Institute of Technology. 7-8:30 PM Thursday evenings from 3 June to 22 July, 2021.
Register today for the June 2021 prep class on Zoom through RIT

In this eight-session weekly class for certification, we will prepare you for the CPTC Foundation exam. Participants will learn the Nine Core Competency Areas for Technical Communicators that are evaluated by the Certified Professional Technical Communicator (CPTC) Foundation Exam.

  • Project Planning
  • Project Analysis
  • Content Development
  • Organizational Design
  • Written Communication
  • Visual Communication
  • Reviewing and Editing
  • Content Management
  • Production and Delivery

The class facilitator, Ben Woelk, CISSP, CPTC is an accredited CPTC trainer. RIT is an Approved Training Organization.

Please note that the class does not include the exam fee nor provide time to take the exam. The online exam can be booked directly through APMG at https://apmg-international.com/product/cptc, and is proctored remotely. The exam fee is currently ~$300 for STC members, ~$595 for non-members. Attendees have one year to take the exam after purchasing it from APMG. Information about STC membership is at https://www.stc.org/membership/.

Registration Costs:

  • Current RIT student $300 (through 5/15), $350 late registration
  • RIT, Faculty, Staff, or Alumni $500 (Indicate program and graduation year) (through 5/15), $700 late registration
  • Spectrum 2021 conference attendee $500 (through 5/15), $700 late registration
  • No RIT Affiliation $700 (through 5/15), $1000 late registration

Registration costs do not include Eventbrite ticketing fees.

Additional details:

Although not required for the training class, we strongly recommend you study the body of knowledge for the exam, Richard Johnson-Sheehan, Technical Communication Today. Either the 5th or 6th edition is suitable. You can purchase or rent the book through Amazon or Barnes and Noble. Registrants will also receive an invitation to an online CPTC study group hosted on Slack.

For more information please contact Ben Woelk at ato@rit.edu for more information. This CPTC foundation exam preparatory class is being offered by the Rochester Institute of Technology in conjunction with the STC Rochester Spectrum Conference.

Register today for the June 2021 prep class on Zoom through RIT

Course Reviews

Great course!

Excellent style and put us at ease. Really gave us very useful test taking advice and prep.

One of the best instructors ever. Able to hold my sleepy-ADD mind for a day and a half on a weekend while making me retain info. Kudos!

Ben did a fantastic job running this class! He made it clear from the start that this class complements, does not replace, the text. But I feel I have a better understanding of what to expect on the exam.


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Eeshita Grover headshot

Episode 031: Eeshita Grover–Getting Out of Your Bubble

Category:introversion,Introverted Leadership,introverts,Podcast,STC,techcomm

Episode 031 Show Notes: Eeshita Grover

Introduction

Eeshita Grover and Ben Woelk discuss the need to get out of your bubble to achieve your aspirations, the best placement of techcomm teams, and working in an open office setting.

Eeshita Grover headshot

Key concepts

  • Open workspace environments can be challenging for introverts
  • Technical writers and engineers work similarly, often preferring to focus on their work rather than interacting with others.
  • People in very public spaces have a surprising perception that their calls and other interactions are still private.
  • Working with marketing provides technical writers the opportunity to better understand how customers use products.
  • Mindset shift takes time.
  • Three keys to helping an introvert become more comfortable networking: 1. Knowing your subject matter really well. 2. Having people express confidence in you 3. it takes time.

Quotable

Achievement doesn’t happen overnight. At the end of the day, you have to want it. It became very clear to me quite early on that I’d have to get past my own bubble if you will. Get out of it and learn to be more forthcoming and talkative.

Three keys to helping an introvert become more comfortable networking: 1. Knowing your subject matter really well. 2. Having people express confidence in you 3. Realize it takes time.

Resources or Products Mentioned in this Episode

Links

Transcript

Ben: Joining us today is Eeshita Grover. Eeshita is a director of marketing at Cisco and contributed to the STC Intercom May/June, 2018 article, “The Introvert in the Workplace: Becoming an Influencer and Leader.” You can contact Eeshita at eeshita@icloud.Com or on Linkedin, Eeshita Grover. I encourage our listeners to visit Hope for the Introvert.com where you’ll find complete show notes including a transcript of today’s conversation.

Ben: Hi. Welcome to the Hope for the Introvert podcast. I’m looking forward to our conversation. Can you tell us a little bit about your role at Cisco and what your workplace is like?

Eeshita: Sure. I’ve been at Cisco for 14 years and always been in the technical communications function. The key aspect of my job has been producing user-facing content for the data center products at Cisco. And it’s been a really fun ride. Lots of learning over the past 14 years. I can say with 100% confidence that there’s never been a dull moment. I get an opportunity to interface with a lot of cross-functional teams, all the way from engineering to marketing and sales and even customer support. That kind of summarizes my job role and my presence in the landscape, that I’m in good company

Ben: OK. So what’s the actual workplace like? I have no idea if it’s an open office, whether you have your own office. What it’s like working at Cisco?

Eeshita: So we do have an open space or open environment as they call it. There are no cubes. There are no offices. Even our vice presidents and senior vice presidents sit in the open workspace environment, which is challenging. I’ve been in this environment for almost two years and it still feels difficult because you’re out in the open all the time and you really don’t have much space to sort of be yourself or be in your zone as I call it. And in my current setup, I sit with my team of writers and on the other side of the floor we have a large group of engineers. And surprisingly, I noticed that there’s a lot of similarity in the ways engineers and technical writers work. There is that sense of “I want to just focus on what I’m doing,” and often people are focused on their monitors and watching what they’re doing. Now interestingly, on the opposite side of the floor, there is a marketing team and we are in the middle of engineering and marketing. That’s kind of how we are situated. And There’s quite a bit of chatter. There’s quite a bit of talk. A lot of phone conversations with customers, potential sales channels, etc. That’s how we are physically situated here in my current setup.

Ben: So are there issues with noise level and things like that?

Eeshita: Yes, it takes a lot of adjustment. Mostly everyone has their headphones on and they’re trying to just focus on on what they’re doing. There is that, even though some people are particular enough that when they have a private conversation, they will take it out. They go into a private room, but many times people are not conscious of it and they start their conversation with their spouse or their child while everyone else can listen. And that certainly causes a certain amount of hindrance for the rest of us.

Ben: Yeah, it’s interesting. I don’t remember the name of the article, but I’d read an article about a study where there was a class and part of what they were doing was kind of seeing what the perceptions were of private space and public space and how surprised the people doing–the students doing the research work–about how people don’t seem–almost assume privacy. They’re in conversations. And if you go sit in an airport or a large room, you can hear people talking about pretty much anything, sharing credit card numbers, sharing personal information. It’s really surprising in a lot of ways. But I don’t know. It’s very strange. I don’t know whether the fact that we have headphones on and knowing that we’re the only person that can hear the other person, whether I–I’m not sure where the thinking is on that.

Eeshita: It’s actually in line with the question you asked me about how we are situated. My team of technical writers actually reports into marketing in the business unit that I work for at Cisco. And traditionally or more often than not, we’ve seen technical writing teams reporting into engineering or engineering operations. But this setup is kind of unique, and I personally think from a functional perspective, it serves us far better because the content we produce is–we are in closer proximity with the people who actually read our content and use it. But from a personality perspective, I think writers on the team still have a bit of a hard time trying to figure out how to even how to level set or how to strike a conversation or even try to understand marketing perspectives. It’s not a question of alignment. It’s more a question of how you approach your jobs.

Ben: So what do you see as the main difference there?

Eeshita: Traditionally technical writers have been very inward focused. The goal being, okay, here’s your piece. You go write it and once you’ve written it, one of your SMEs is going to review it. And that’s the last time you update the content and then you really don’t get an opportunity to talk to someone who’s actually using the content. But when we are–now that I am part of a marketing organization, we get consistency. You get constant feedback from our customers who are reading our content and voicing their opinion and voicing their concerns about what is it that they need from us. But this is again, something that writers are just not familiar with it. It catches them off guard. There is that general tendency of how come this is happening. There’s that question mark that, oh my gosh, why did this come to me now? And I have realized that it’s not a result of the fact that they don’t want to improve. I think it’s just the fact that it’s a different environment. It’s new. It’s a different way of doing things and that is where the mindset shift comes in and mindset shift takes time. It does not happen overnight. Right?

Ben: Now, was this the same alignment before you went to the open floor plan type workspace?

Eeshita: Yes it was. This alignment happened about four years ago.

Ben: Okay. I’m trying to think because I kind of wear both hats because I always have a communication role. I’m translating my technical content to a non-technical audience or at least one that’s not so versed in the jargon. So for me, I’m used to that but I haven’t done software documentation or hardware documentation type work in a really, really long time. Almost everything has been what is this going to mean for the end user? So that part makes a lot of sense to me, but it’s such a different skillset. I think, or it can be a different skillset between being used to working with engineers as subject matter experts compared to working with marketing people. And part of what you’re referencing is the marketing people from what you’re saying seemed to be more outgoing than either the engineers or the technical communication group.

Eeshita: Definitely. And the sheer fact that marketing brings a more customer-oriented perspective is also new. It’s different. It’s a different way of thinking for technical writers who are more comfortable in the traditional way of doing things. When you think about it, being part of marketing suddenly puts technical writing in the forefront of the food chain. It puts in the front of the food chain versus at the very bottom. And suddenly you are the first customer-facing team who’s looking at the product in terms of how it’s designed and also how it’s going to be used. And this is truly where you are going to be expected to play the role of the user’s advocate and all those wonderful phrases that describe technical writing. Many a times I catch my writers and I will point out that we don’t need to explain to the user how a feature has been designed or how it’s been coded, what they really need to know is how to use it.

Eeshita: And then there’s that sudden realization that, “Oh, I was speaking to an engineer and the engineer just told me how they coded the feature, not really how it’s going to be used.” So that gives you another perspective and that’s where marketing comes in and says “Hey, wait a minute. You need to think about it from a user’s perspective.” So the whole concept of sometimes–and this is another point I’ve made with my writers, is that I have come to a realization that we’ve been doing our jobs wrong. Maybe, or maybe we were missing the mark because we have relied on engineers to give us feedback for our content. But the product is not really going to be used by an engineer or really the user doesn’t really care about how the product was designed. What they need to know is how do I use the product?

Ben: Right. So what might have been very handy if it was a software thing such as a system administrators guide, where they may need to know a lot more detail. Because the audiences, again, which it’s supposed to be anyway, but the audience is really the key determinant in terms of what kind of content you’re going to share and how you’re going to share it. Yeah, I can well imagine the engineers going very much in depth about something they’re very passionate about. But for the person who’s going to use the product, like you said, it may just be totally irrelevant. It may not be something they’ll ever do.

Eeshita: Precisely. Yep.

Ben:  Yeah, there was a really–and I’m sure you’re familiar with this book, but there was a–I think it was Alan Cooper’s book on the inmates being in charge of the asylum, and it talked about engineering driving features and products, and part of his discussion was how you kept getting all, “Well, let’s add that. We can do that. Let’s add this.” So I can have it do that without necessarily looking at the usability side of it or whether those features were something that anyone would even want to use.

Eeshita: Yep. That’s very true.

Ben: So it’s an interesting read. It’s been several years since I looked at it, but some of these things just don’t change. So, yeah. It sounds like an interesting structure that you’re in there.

Eeshita: Yes, I really do think that if you are wired to understand your users’ way of doing things and you’re interested in how they’re going to actually use the product, I couldn’t think of a better place to be in as opposed to where I am at right now. Interestingly, recently I attended a couple of sessions related to customer journey mapping of our product and it was quite an eye-opening experience because high tech companies create these products, and they start to ship them and they start to sell them. Very rarely, even today, not much importance is given to usability or let’s vet the product enough before it’s made generally available. That’s one aspect of the story.

Eeshita: The other aspect of this story is the product is really powerful. It comes with a great brand on it. It comes with a great brand name and there’s credibility associated with the product. We definitely need to invest in this. And that’s where the big decision makers come in and put a stake in the ground. And the decision is made for people who have to ramp up from ground zero to learn how to use the product. And that is where the content that my team creates comes in is, is front and center, and that’s where the value add comes in.

Ben: Right, and it’s a very competitive marketplace so you constantly have that. In some ways you have to get it to market or you may miss the opportunity completely. I recently watched a show. It’s on Netflix. It was an A&E program to start with called Halt and Catch Fire. And it had to do with the beginnings of the personal computing industry and it goes forward a decade or so after that. But the whole race to get something to market first and if someone beat you there first, whether it be a portable computer at the time when they were such rare things, or Yahoo getting their search engine embedded into Mozilla initially, it’s kind of like, “Well they got the market share because they got there first.” So I understand the tension. But I guess part of the brand name thing is that people will expect the company to stand behind it and work through whatever the issues are and make the improvements. Yeah, definitely an interesting space in which to work.

Ben: So we connected initially becausey ou were at Lavacon, and you had done a presentation about Introverts and Leadership and we connected after that. And we’ve chatted quite a bit really over the years. And so I’d like to get an idea of–now, so you’re a marketing director, you’re situated between engineering and marketing. How does that work for you? As an introvert, how do you approach your work? What do you find to be strengths? What do you find to be challenges?

Eeshita: What I default to in terms of strengths is always my knowledge around content, and obviously to some degree in my product level knowledge that I have gained over the years. My challenge still remains terms of going out there being sort of the “go getter” or someone who’s going to be absolutely comfortable starting a conversation with a complete stranger. Those are some of the things that still pose to be a bit of a challenge for me. I am thrown into those situations and I have to tell myself that I just have to do it. That’s the only way. Over the years I’ve been able to overcome my inhibitions or shyness if you will, by just constantly telling myself over and over again that I know my subject, I know this best and my job here is to really rely on my own knowledge, my own experience and make sure that the points I make, how I contribute to a discussion is really about me talking through my own expertise.

Eeshita: Not feeling that. Not thinking about the fact that I know less than XYZ or this person knows more than me. That’s always going to be the case. Someone out there is going to obviously know more than you, but there have been–it’s been a series of several incidents where a lot of self assurance has come into play. There have been instances where I have often relied on my own friends’ and my own colleagues’ confidence in me that, “Hey, you know you got this. You know how to do this.” And that has helped immensely. So it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. But at the end of the day, you have to want it. You have to want it. And I did. I always knew that I wanted to reach a certain point in my career. I wanted–I have had aspirations, I still have aspirations. And it became very clear to me quite early on that I’d have to get past my own bubble if you will. Get out of it and learn to be more forthcoming and talkative–engaging. Those are the things that are–that don’t come inherently to me.

Achievement doesn't happen overnight. At the end of the day, you have to want it. It became very clear to me quite early on that I'd have to get past my own bubble if you will. Get out of it and learn to be more forthcoming and… Click To Tweet

Ben: So I’m hearing three different things really that have helped you along this. One of these is knowing your subject matter really really well so that you are comfortable and you can rely on that expertise. The other thing I heard out of that was having people express confidence in you. “You’ve got that,” I think is the way you phrased it. I think that part is really really important. And the third thing you mentioned really was it takes time. For me, I’ll look back at it as a series of small successes mainly, but of course there are failures at times too. But you know, definitely a series of things I can look back on that are in some ways markers. I had a friend who referred to them as tokens in a sense that you can look back as achievements that help you realize that, yes, you actually should be in this space. So I think it’s really interesting.

Three keys to helping an introvert become more comfortable networking: 1. Knowing your subject matter really well. 2. Having people express confidence in you 3. Realize it takes time. Click To Tweet

Eeshita: Yup. What surprises me is that I always knew that there wasn’t–I never had stage fright. You put me up in front of people and I have to present. That was never an issue with me. But at the same time, if I was to go to a get together where I probably knew five out of 10 people, even that would be a challenge for me. So it was getting to those self realizations and getting to understand yourself. Like, okay, I’m perfectly comfortable if I’m put in front of a room full of strangers and I have no issue with that. But on the contrary, even I have to be in a get together, where I probably know 50% of the people, there’s that whole “I don’t know if I want to go. Oh, I’m too busy.” You know all of those excuses. [Ben laughing]

Ben: Sounds like me quite a bit as well. Typically I don’t want to go, but that doesn’t mean there’s always an option around it.

Eeshita: Exactly. And that’s kind of where I picked up. I’m okay, as long as I’m talking about things that I know of and I have fairly decent knowledge and experience. I can make conversation. I can talk about those things. And so you get to that point where like “Let’s play it by ear and see how it goes. It might not be that bad,” and slowly but surely you start getting comfortable in those settings as well. And like I said, it takes time. And if I was to tell you how many years it took me, I would say it took me about seven-eight years to sort of be who I am today from what I used to be.

Ben: Well. Awesome.

 

 

Extras

Why Introverts Make Successful Leaders, Lavacon 2017


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Gabby Pascuzzi headshot

Episode 024: Gabby Pascuzzi–Vulnerability and Leaning In

Category:introversion,Introverted Leadership,introverts,Leadership,Podcast,STC,Summit

Episode 024 Show Notes: Gabby Pascuzzi

Introduction

Gabby Pascuzzi and Ben Woelk talk about the importance of vulnerability and openness in the workplace, empathy, and leaning into weakness.

Gabby Pascuzzi headshot

Key concepts

  • Remote work can be challenging because so much of communication is non verbal.
  • Vulnerability and openness can be a strength
  • When you lean into a perceived weakness you may find it’s really a strength
  • Leaning into a weakness can help you improve that area
  • Empathy is a key leadership trait
  • No one started off as an expert and you do yourself a disservice if you write yourself off and say, “I can’t do that.”

Quotable

On remote work–The nuances and so much of communication is nonverbal, that you really have to work hard to make sure that you’re not misconstruing something that somebody said…making sure that your tone is appropriate and thoughtful. @gabbypascuzzi

On authenticity–at the end of the day, even if we’re writing alone, we still need our teammates. And one way to build a stronger team is to let them see who you are. @gabbypascuzzi

Being comfortable with my emotions is tied to one of my biggest strengths, which is being vulnerable and being authentic and just being really present, bringing my whole self to work. @gabbypascuzzi

Empathy helps you put yourself in other people’s shoes so that you are able to do more of this servant leadership style where you’re serving the people under you. @GabbyPascuzzi

Leaning into weaknesses, meaning things that you are not very naturally skilled at. We get so obsessed with “What is your strength?” @GabbyPascuzzi

Nobody started out as an expert and you really do yourself a disservice if you write yourself off, and say, “Nope, I can’t do that. That’s a weakness,” because you don’t know if you may have more skill then you thought or you’re able to improve. @GabbyPascuzzi

Resources or Products Mentioned in this Episode

Links

Transcript

Ben: Joining us today is Gabby Pascuzzi. Gabby is a technical writer at Tenable, a cybersecurity company. She also competed on the 37th season of Survivor: David versus Goliath. I met Gabby at the 2019 STC Summit Conference in Denver where Gabby was our keynote speaker for our Honors event. Gabby shared her experience as a contestant on Survivor: David versus Goliath. Her presentation was well received and one of the hits of the conference. You can follow Gabby on Twitter @GabbyPascuzzi. I encourage our listeners to visit HopefortheIntrovert.com where you’ll find complete show notes including a transcript of today’s conversation.

Ben: Hi Gabby!

Gabby: Hi Ben.

Ben: I’m excited that you’ve agreed to join us today. I’m very much looking forward to chatting with you. I’m sure we will chat about Survivor, but I’d like to talk a little bit about your career in general, and we’re going to talk about weaknesses and strengths and how those should maybe be handled in life and in the workplace. So you work at Tenable, I’m in Cybersecurity, so I’m actually familiar with Tenable, but can you tell us a little bit about what you do for them and what your workplace is like?

Gabby: Yeah, so I have been a technical writer at Tenable for a year and a half now. And I write mostly user documentation, our user guides for a couple of different products. One is Nessus, which is a vulnerability scanner. Another is Tenable IO, which is our platform. And yeah, a lot of user guide content which is pretty, pretty fast. We are always coming out with new features. So we do work in an agile environment.

Gabby: I have only been a technical writer for–this is my fourth year, so this is pretty early in my career and I’ve found that it’s been really challenging, but really interesting. And another challenge that has come with working for Tenable, which is one of the things I love as well, is it’s largely a remote company. So a lot of the employees are remote. The headquarters is in Maryland, but I live in Virginia and we do a lot of our coordinating and communicating through Slack and through Zoom calls, and we have people not only in this area, but also spread across the country and sometimes in different countries. We have some people in Ireland, some people out of India, so it’s a very global company, which makes for an interesting workplace at times. But yeah, very fast moving and I’m excited to be working for them.

Ben: What led you into technical writing as a career?

Gabby: I had no idea that technical writing existed until right before I graduated from college. I went to school at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and I majored in Linguistics, and then I added a second major, which was in the English Department called Professional Writing, which is–I always laugh because what’s the opposite of that? Like unprofessional writing? But, they had a few technical writing classes and I had always been pretty technically minded. I always did well in science and I had taken an introductory computer science course at CMU, which is a school that’s kind of known for that.

Gabby: I found that the technical writing classes really merged my skills in writing, which I had always been interested in English and writing, but I had never been particularly creative. I was always more on the technical side. So that’s when I discovered that technical writing existed and allowed me to really combine those two skills.

Ben: Yeah, it’s interesting. I took linguistics classes in college also, though I actually did an anthropology undergraduate, which I’m certainly not doing that now, but I found the linguistic stuff absolutely fascinating–just how much it could inform a culture and tell you about a culture, but also in some ways determine how a culture acted in some ways. So it was always a really, really interesting field. I didn’t go there, but it’s definitely an interesting field. So do you work as part of a team at Tenable? How often do you see each other?

Gabby: Yeah, so I am part of our technical writing team and there are 10 of us and we have a manager that’s just our manager for the technical writers, but each one of us focuses on a different product. And so then we’re also integrated onto those development teams. I’m pretty well connected to the developers for the products I write about as well as the product managers. And as you know, with all of us tech writers we’re always talking to everybody. So you get to know a lot of people, even though I’m not seeing them all face to face all the time, and my team gets together at least once a quarter, which I feel like is important for us to have that bonding time and remember that each other are people, not just our little screens. We Zoom call a lot so we make sure to do video calls. So we do see each other face to face, which I feel like is important in a remote context, because you don’t want to just always be communicating via Slack message or email and then you really–you don’t even know what the other person looks like or sounds like and you lose some of that personal touch.

Ben: Yeah. It’s interesting because at the Summit conference where I met you there was one woman I had been mentoring for the last three years, and we’d never seen each other face to face. We’d seen each other on our screens through Slack calls or whatever. But it was so funny. It’s, “Oh, you’re really tall,” and all that sort of thing, which you obviously can’t tell that when you’re just talking virtually, but I agree. I think that face-to-face connection makes such a dramatic difference in terms of–well you catch nuances that you wouldn’t catch otherwise and just getting to know each other a little bit better.

Gabby: Yeah, definitely. I mean, working for a remote company definitely has its pros and cons and a pro is that you really have awesome team members that are not limited by geographic location. Right. We have some brilliant people that they happen to live a state over so they can’t come into headquarters, so it’s great in that way. But yeah, there are drawbacks, which is that you don’t have those face to face. I agree with what you said, the nuances and so much of communication is nonverbal, that you really have to work hard to make sure that you’re not misconstruing something that somebody said as well as you have to make sure your intentions are clear when you’re just chatting over Slack, making sure that your tone is appropriate and thoughtful. And that is, that’s relevant to us as writers, you know, because we care about our tone, but definitely something to keep in mind.

On remote work--The nuances and so much of communication is nonverbal, that you really have to work hard to make sure that you're not misconstruing something that somebody said. @gabbypascuzzi Click To Tweet

Ben: Yeah, definitely. So I have a question. For our listeners, one of the things that we do, is our guests fill out a questionnaire and they describe themselves in the questionnaire. And Gabby described herself as an awkward extrovert, which is interesting. And I was curious, what do you mean by that and how does that play out?

Gabby: Yeah. So when you asked me to be a part of your podcast, the first thing I said to you was, “You know, I’m not really an introvert. I am actually an extrovert”, but I can relate to introverts because I can be awkward and I can be shy at times. And not to call introverts awkward and shy [laughing], but I feel like a lot of introverts might describe themselves that way. So to me it means that I am extroverted. I really get my energy from being around people, talking to people. That’s how I recharge. I’m very outgoing, but there are definitely times where I find it hard to reach out, especially if it’s someone that I don’t know very well. And so there’s definitely a little bit of a hump for me to get to that extroverted part of myself.

Gabby: Being an awkward extrovert is also sometimes challenging in my remote workplace because, for all of us as technical writers, we have to initiate a lot of conversations because we need to ask somebody for information. We need to ask for clarity; we need to ask for reviews. So it’s hard because a lot of technical writers are introverted or are a little awkward, when really we need to be very bold and not shy. And that can be really hard for a lot of us. It’s hard for me and it’s something that I’ve definitely had to work at, just being confident that, okay, I’ve got to get an answer so I’ve got to reach out and you really can’t be too shy about it.

Ben: Okay, awesome. So what do you see as your main weaknesses and strengths?

Gabby: I think my weaknesses and strengths are very linked and I feel like that’s true for a lot of us. So when I think about my weaknesses, I think about things that affect me. Sometimes I can be a little disorganized. Sometimes I have a hundred ideas at once. I like to multitask. And that can be challenging. Things that other people have said are weaknesses of mine, and this actually for me, it came out in the context of Survivor, which I’m sure we’ll talk more about later, is that I am a person that definitely wears her emotions on her sleeve. [laughing] So I think that some people might view that as a weakness because you’re in a workplace, you’re in a professional place, and it’s not to say I’m having emotional breakdowns in the middle of the workday, but I’m pretty open with my emotions, and some people might take issue with that, and I think it ties in perfectly to what is my strength.

Gabby: And I actually feel that being comfortable with my emotions is tied to one of my biggest strengths, which is being vulnerable and being authentic and just being really present, bringing my whole self to work. I don’t feel like I bring a fake version of myself to work. And, what that means to me is that I’m able to show up and connect with my peers, my coworkers, and not just be a robot behind a screen. Especially, like I said, especially if we’re just talking over Slack, somebody that’s just asking for this, asking for that, let’s get the job done with no sense of personability. Is personability a word? [laughing].

Being comfortable with my emotions is tied to one of my biggest strengths, which is being vulnerable and being authentic and just being really present, bringing my whole self to work. @gabbypascuzzi Click To Tweet

Ben: Sure. We’ll go with it.

Gabby: The thing is, as writers and as linguists, we can just make up words. But yeah, if you’re not bringing your authentic self to work, I feel like you’re missing out on an opportunity to build those connections with your peers.

Gabby: And at the end of the day, even if we’re writing alone, we still need our teammates. And one way to build a stronger team is to let them see who you are. And that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t still be boundaries and that there aren’t things that are appropriate and not appropriate to talk about or to show at work. But when you’re able to be–have a little fun and tell people when you are really excited about something or tell your teammates, “I’m really frustrated about this, can I vent to you for a second?” And maybe you’ll find out that they’ve been experiencing the same issues too. And what can you guys do about it? Maybe you can trouble–you can brainstorm how to fix this issue. Maybe it’s a culture issue that you guys are going to bring up in your next team meeting, but that really isn’t possible unless you are open and show up every day. So that was a long answer to your question.

On authenticity--at the end of the day, even if we're writing alone, we still need our teammates. And one way to build a stronger team is to let them see who you are. @gabbypascuzzi Click To Tweet

Ben: No, but it’s very interesting issue because I think for most of us in the workplace, the idea is that–maybe the idea is that you squashed down your emotions and you do your work and then you some ways you are not yourself in the workplace. There was–actually part of the Next Big Idea Club, which is a book club, which I don’t read nearly as many of them as I should, but one of their recent offerings is called No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work. And that’s by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy‎. And that one gets very much into really being, I think completely at the workplace and recognizing that you need to be able to share your emotions. And I think that’s in some ways it’s a corrective, I think to a lot of the business type writing that’s been out there in terms of what are we supposed to be like in the workplace. We’re supposed to be very just not emotional or just always focusing on work. So I think it’s a really interesting discussion and an interesting thing for a lot of people.

Gabby: Yeah, definitely. That book sounds really interesting. I am going to have to take note of that and read that. It’s something that I’ve thought a lot about. Can we have emotions at work that are appropriate and be more authentic? Rather than squashing them down because everybody knows what happens when you squash down emotions. They are going to bubble up. And I don’t think people at your workplace would like that very much either, if suddenly there was an explosion of emotions that you had been letting pent up, because you weren’t comfortable talking through anything that came up. And I think with emotions and with emotional intelligence also comes empathy. And empathy is very important for interpersonal skills in the workplace, especially if we’re talking about leadership skills. Empathy is one that I feel you must have as a leader; it helps you understand if you have people below you, it helps you relate to them. It helps you put yourself in other people’s shoes so that you are able to do more of this servant leadership style where you’re serving the people under you.

Can we have emotions at work that are appropriate and be more authentic? Because everybody knows what happens when you squash down emotions. They are going to bubble up. @gabbypascuzzi Click To Tweet

Empathy is very important for interpersonal skills in the workplace, especially if we're talking about leadership skills. @gabbypascuzzi Click To Tweet

Empathy helps you put yourself in other people's shoes so that you are able to do more of this servant leadership style where you're serving the people under you. @GabbyPascuzzi Click To Tweet

Gabby: And I know for me, I’m not in a real leadership position in my team. I’m a technical writer. I’m on the same level as a lot of my peers. But for example, in a group discussion, so once every two weeks we have a group meeting where we revisit our style guide and we make decisions on outstanding items where we haven’t come up with a standard for our style, or we revisit past decisions if they’re not working for us. And it’s definitely a group conversation. And I think when you are empathetic, for example, in that situation, you’re able to understand everybody’s viewpoints and listen to each person fairly and not be biased and not take things personally if somebody’s opinion doesn’t agree with yours. So in that kind of situation, empathy really is key.

Ben: And I think that gets back to our comments early on about nonverbal communication. And I’ve just seen too many times somebody gets an email and they read it–I’m assuming they misread it in terms of the emotion or the intent that was behind it. But having that ability to see each other face to face and catch those nuances is critical as well.

Gabby: Definitely. Yeah. So many times things can get misconstrued. And I think if we all just try to remember that most people are coming from a good place and things usually are not personal in the workplace, then hopefully we can avoid some of that. And that also comes with lowering your guard a little bit and not being so on defense. Right? If you’re always playing defense, then you’re possibly going to take things as a personal attack, when really it may have just been somebody posing an alternative and it’s nothing personal against you. And the more empathetic you are able to be, the more open minded and emotionally intelligent that you are, the easier it will be for you to listen to feedback like that and not take it super personally.

The more empathetic, the more open minded and emotionally intelligent that you are, the easier it will be for you to listen to feedback and not take it super personally. @GabbyPascuzzi Click To Tweet

Ben: Yeah, and I think it’s hard. For instance, if I have an idea of doing something in a different way and I’m very, very invested in it and I’m very, very passionate about it, but then it’s not received well, it’s very hard for that not to feel like there’s a personal element there. Mainly because I’ve probably invested too personally in whatever the idea was.

Gabby: I’m definitely guilty of that. Yeah. I’ve seen it go that direction as well. And it’s really hard sometimes to not feel attached to your work because we do care about it so much. And you know that that happens to me even with things as simple as I send things for a peer review and they didn’t like the word I chose. And I’m like, “What do you mean? I really thought about that word.” Because you really have to remind yourself sometimes it’s not personal. If you’re on a team, you’re working together to create the best outcome and there are always going to be differences of opinion.

Ben: Yeah. It’s funny because you’re gonna get that. But that was, what do they, what are they saying about me if they don’t like my word, you know? Yeah. It’s funny. Don’t they appreciate me?

Gabby: Yeah, definitely.

Ben: Gabby, one thing that you had mentioned to me before we started recording today, was this idea of leaning into weakness. And when we had talked about leaning in, you said it wasn’t necessarily in the sense of the book for women in the workplace called Leaning In. Can you expand on that a little bit? What do you mean by leaning in and especially in the leaning into your weaknesses?

Gabby: Yeah, I am very big on this idea of leaning into either what you perceive to be your own weaknesses or what others perceive to be your weaknesses. When I think about the idea of leaning into your weaknesses, I see two halves to this. One is the idea that what people may see as a weakness is not really a weakness. So by leaning into it, you’re really highlighting a strength of yours. So for example, like I mentioned before, as a person myself who is very in tune with her emotions, some people may see that as a weakness. I see it as a strength. So if I know that I can’t really help but be emotional, let me think about how I can use that as a positive influence in the workplace.

Leaning in is the idea that what people may see as a weakness is not really a weakness. So by leaning into it, you're really highlighting a strength of yours. @GabbyPascuzzi Click To Tweet

Gabby: So can I use it to connect with a coworker that is having a bad day? And I’m able to empathize with them and we’re able to talk and, and I help then refocus is, is it possible for me to use my emotions, my emotional intelligence to have a tough conversation with a manager about a culture problem that I see that needs to be addressed that I noticed because I’m in tune with my emotions. So I think when you lean into something that is supposedly a weakness, it actually might highlight it as a strength.

Gabby: The other half of it is leaning into weaknesses, meaning things that you are not very naturally skilled at. So I really feel like sometimes we get so obsessed with “What is your strength?,” “What are your strengths, what are your strengths? “And that’s great. We should also be doing jobs that highlight our strengths. However, you don’t want to become so scared of leaving your comfort zone that you never try anything new. For example, if I am scared of public speaking and I consider that a weakness of mine, what if you really tried to lean into that and signed up for a toastmasters club or went to a public speaking class or volunteered to lead the next meeting that your team was having? If you really try to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and do things that make you uncomfortable, I wonder if you might discover that it’s not as big of a weakness as you may have thought.

Episode 024: Gabby Pascuzzi–Vulnerability and Leaning In Click To Tweet

If you really try to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and do things that make you uncomfortable, I wonder if you might discover that it's not as big of a weakness as you may have thought. @GabbyPascuzzi Click To Tweet

Ben: Well, I think you also have the perception when looking at someone who’s been speaking for a while, that they’ve always been a good speaker. And I think realizing that it is a process. And it’s a learning process and that goes from everything from initial podcasts as opposed to 20 episodes in, to being willing to speak in front of a team meeting to maybe addressing several hundred people like you did at the STC Honors Event. I think what happens is I think you get more comfortable with it the more often that you do it in that example and I think the leaning into that weakness or knowing it’s something that you want to maybe turn into a strength. I think makes a lot of sense.

Gabby: Yeah, I definitely agree. We really have to remember that not everybody–actually, nobody started out as an expert and you really are just doing yourself a disservice if you write yourself off, and say, “Nope, I can’t do that. That’s a weakness. I don’t do that. I’ve never done that. And I never will do that,” because you don’t know if you may have more of a skill there then you thought or just that you’re able to improve from where you were at one point.

Episode 024: Gabby Pascuzzi–Vulnerability and Leaning In Click To Tweet

Ben: Well that’s awesome. I think there’s some very good things here. And Gabby, I’d like to thank you for being on the podcast and I’m looking forward to our next time together and we will, I promise our listeners, we will talk about Survivor.

Extras

Survivor Profile

Gabby Pascuzzi on Survivor


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Ben Woelk Speaking Schedule–Fall 2019

Category:Schedule,Security Awareness,STC

Fall 2019 Speaking Schedule

Here’s my virtual and in-person schedule for Fall 2019. I hope to see many of you. Check back for updates.

Don’t forget to listen to the Hope for the Introvert podcast!

 

Schedule

Date Event Topic Format More information
2 October Rochester Security Summit We’re All Winners: Gamification and Security Awareness Presentation  Rochester, NY
4 October 2019 NYSERNet Conference The Introvert in the Workplace: Strategies for Success Presentation Syracuse, NY
26-27 October CPTC Exam Prep Class at RIT Certified Professional Technical Communicator Exam Prep Class Training Class Rochester Institute of Technology
7 November PMI Rochester Introverts and Leadership Presentation Location TBA
4 December STC Chicago Webinar Topic to be announced Presentation Webinar

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