As a technical content material author for Cisco ThousandEyes, I’ve to confess, my biggest concern is to get replaced by a generative AI algorithm. Within the spirit of “retaining my mates shut and my enemies nearer,” I made a decision to befriend my potential adversary. On this article, 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.
Fast context switching
I work on a number of merchandise for ThousandEyes and, due to my earlier lives as a NOC Engineer (Community Operations Middle) and Backend Software program Developer, my technical experience means I’m usually known as upon when the crew 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 to be able to set up 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 fashion strikes me rapidly into the headspace needed for making troublesome context switches. Moderately than needing half a day to get again within the movement, I can pivot to a brand new activity inside half-hour.
Shorter SME interviews
One thing I get pleasure from about being a technical author is attending to study new stuff. As a lot as I really like studying, nevertheless, given our present pace (and quantity) of innovation, I usually really feel like I’m ingesting from a firehose. Cisco’s inner AI assistant 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 Knowledgeable) interviews.
When an SME has to stroll me via the fundamentals, interviews can take as a lot as an hour and will even span a number of periods. Even once I put together by myself, I spend a number of time gathering the knowledge I want and discerning what’s really helpful. With the assistance of Cisco’s inner AI assistant, the knowledge 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 reveals me what sources it used, so I can go deeper by myself. This considerably reduces the time I have to ramp up on a brand new know-how. On account 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.
Diminished repetitive duties
The Documentation Crew 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 overview them.
Prompt contextual info
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 needs. 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 desires to do after which determining one of the best ways to current the knowledge to reduce the person’s cognitive load.
Suggestions gathered by one in every 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 could be within the midst of a high-severity outage, particularly once you’ve been woken up in the midst of the evening. Once I’m figuring out how one can doc one thing, I do a number of background analysis, together with perusing academic 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 really useful 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 GenAI
Embracing generative AI has remodeled my strategy to technical writing at Cisco ThousandEyes, turning what might have been a frightening adversary into a strong ally. By streamlining context switching, accelerating studying for SME interviews, automating repetitive duties, and offering immediate contextual insights, Cisco’s inner AI assistant has not solely boosted my effectivity however continues to raise the standard of our user-focused documentation. Moderately 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 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 business.
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