Spinning complex ideas into clear docs with Kri Dontje
Welcome back! This week, we’re shining a spotlight on Kri Dontje, a technical writer who’s become an essential voice in making Cisco Talos’ work understandable for a wide audience. With a background in technical communications and a career that began at a small startup, Kri discusses the importance of consistency, accuracy, and accessibility in documentation, as well as how to get the most out of a subject matter expert-technical writer relationship.
Now transitioning into a new role, Kri continues to bridge the gap between deep technical expertise and clear communication. When she’s not decoding cyber jargon, she’s hand-spinning yarn for stunning knit pieces, showing that creativity and tech go hand in hand. Keep an eye out for more content featuring Kri in the future.
Amy Ciminnisi: Can you tell us a little bit about what you do here in Talos?
Kri Dontje: Absolutely. I have a technical writing degree — technical communications — which means I translate very technical topics into something that other people can understand if they’re not necessarily experts in that field. I’ve had a very nontraditional career. My first position was at a very small company, 14 people at its largest. I did documentation, design and demonstration videos, and rebuilt their health system from the ground up. It was interesting and terrifying because I was learning it completely alone.
I’m also a huge nerd and a learning junkie, which helps with this kind of job. I enjoy being around people who are into really complex things and talking to them about it. I spent a lot of time around a local miniatures wargaming shop and became friends with a bunch of nerds, some of whom have migrated into Talos.
I transitioned over to the strategic communications team as a research engineer. I’m going to focus more on communicating about Talos at a slightly more technical level than our communications have been to the public for a while, while still creating content that makes Talos accessible for people as much as possible.
AC: What do you think are the most important qualities or skills that make someone a really good technical writer, especially in a fast-changing landscape like cybersecurity?
KD: That’s a big contradiction. One of the most important things for tech writing is consistency and accessibility. It’s not a career that encourages adjectives. You want to use the same word to mean the same thing every time because if you use a fun synonym, the reader might think it’s an entirely different concept.
Versioning is a big problem. People won’t trust documentation if they find bad information in it. They’ll never think it’s a reasonable place to go again. So keeping things accurate is really important.
Being snoopy and not being afraid to feel real stupid in front of extremely smart people is also key. Usually, you can find common ground. It’s important to recognize you’re not talking down to the audience or making the information for stupid people. Even within Talos and the cyber community, everyone has broad-ranging specialties. Most people don’t know what others do or can’t figure it out without spending a lot of time and energy they don’t need to. So the important thing is to bring the information to a level where other very intelligent people can cross-reference it and make it applicable to what they’re doing.
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