This website contains a selection of articles, communication briefings, training material, FAQs and presentations produced during my communications career.
It contains a mixture of:
Career Background
Evening Press
Joined as a messenger, learned how to write, got promoted to sub-editor and ended up as a production sub-editor, with articles published
in Irish Press (Financial Pages), Evening Press, Sunday Press, Business & Finance, and Technology Ireland. I discovered I had a talent for making the complex
simple, so I moved on to....
Glockenspiel
Glockenspiel, an Irish company, was one of the first to specialise in developing C++ software.
I joined as a technical writer, later becoming Documentation manager. During my tenure, I produced
software manuals, press advertisements, training and promotional material. But then Microsoft and Symantec put their
weight behind C++ and Glockenspiel suffered, so I found myself at.....
IBM
Joined the Dublin lab as a contract technical writer for a data extract project
but after two months was asked to take on Documentation Planner (i.e. Team Lead) role.
Spent seven months there but several projects got killed, so I went on to....
Symantec
I joined Symantec as International Publications and Services Manager, primarily responsible for international
publications and linguistic quality. During my tenure I developed internal promotional material
for our localisation tools, wrote some manual chapters for software being developed in Dublin, and presented at an
industry seminar in Vienna. After taking on tools development and mentoring the tools developer into a management position, it was time to move on to....
Corel
I spent 4.5 years in Corel, joining them as Localisation Manager and leaving as Director of Localisation. The Dublin
operation was shut down in 2000. During my tenure there I produced a range of communication materials, including an industry presentation in Boston on managing change, a Recruitment
Radio Advert, and the Staff FAQ when we were shutting down the plant.
After shutting down Corel, I wanted to do something different, so I moved on to.....
Braxtel
Braxtel was an Irish-American software house specialising in call-centre software/hardware. Unfortunately by the time I joined - as Corporate Services Manager - it
had almost run out of cash. Most of my time was spent consolidating buildings and releasing staff. Communications here included Consolidation notices to staff and a Stock Options FAQ.
Outside the Box
Once I finished with Braxtel, I spent the summer completing the last stage of my MBA, developing some softskills courseware (time-management & meeting skills, creative thinking and problem-solving skills), sharpening my HTML, XML and Javascript skills and resuming my writing career. I now trade as "Outside the Box", specialising in communications and creative problem solving workshops. I've produced work for Vistatec, AA Global, Kitesurf Magazine, United Cargo Services. I'm currently on a consulting contract to MobileAware, where I am redesigning / rewriting their technical communications portfolio.
