Ryan Berg

I approach content strategy and project planning with a focus on analytical thinking, attention to detail, mindfulness, and critical problem-solving to deliver meaningful results.

Resume

Summary

Senior Technical Writer passionate about creating and managing robust content that enables positive, meaningful customer experiences. Proven ability to meet deadlines, set goals, and face challenges inherent in the iterative process of content creation and management. Demonstrates analytical capabilities, attention to detail, mindfulness, and critical thinking skills when planning and implementing content strategy and project plans.

▪Efficiently solves problems as part of a team or as an individual contributor, ensuring delivery of quality content in a timely fashion.
▪Applies strong relationship building skills when working with people across a variety of roles and responsibilities.
▪Builds consensus via comprehensive review processes, communicating with a diverse range of stakeholders with strong opinions and differing goals.
▪Clearly communicates complex technical topics that are concise, accessible, and understandable by technical and non-technical individuals.
▪Develops polished and well-structured documentation, applying expertise in honing and clarifying subject matter for greater understanding and precision.
▪Seeks and values feedback to continuously improve content and the processes of content creation.

Strengths: Strong leadership and team-driven results | Continuously improves content quality and publishing processes | Creates and maintains well-researched and presented content | Drives and manages content localization | Owns complex documentation projects end-to-end

Experience

Steyer Content-assignment with Microsoft, February 2016 – present

Senior Technical Writer and Editor, FastTrack for Microsoft 365 Learn Team
Manage, control, and maintain customer-facing content and the FastTrack for Microsoft 365 service description, which is the most popular, visible, and utilized resource for the FastTrack organization. Support content creation and management processes for global corporate customers migrating to Microsoft 365.

Customer-facing content
▪Responsible for content strategy, writing, quality assurance, and delivery resources built for multiple audiences (IT professionals, internal stakeholders, subject matter experts (SMEs), and field personnel). Provide content used when engaging, presenting, migrating, onboarding, deploying, and troubleshooting products for customers, business decision makers (BDMs), and technical decision makers (TDMs).
▪Based on project needs, serve as a senior technical writer, senior technical editor, content manager, content creator, project manager, and team liaison for internal and external resources. In each role, utilize knowledge of the technical products and comply with requirements, guidelines, and rubrics for Microsoft voice and style, globalization, localization, and accessibility.
▪Manage collateral that include PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, Visio files, and customer communications (email, white papers, and targeted support and marketing).
▪ Lead the localization effort to ensure collateral is translated into 11 different languages beyond US English. Serve as the primary point of contact with an outside localization vendor resource to coordinate, hand off, receive, and embed localized content for internal and external use.
▪ Facilitate content lifecycle processes that include iterative reviews, cost estimates, negotiations, meetings, overall governance, vendor coordination, final resolutions, and publication. 

FastTrack for Microsoft 365 service description (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fasttrack/introduction)
▪ Author, maintain, and publish the FastTrack for Microsoft 365 service description for monthly releases, managing a review and validation process with engaged and vocal stakeholders.
▪ Upon receiving ownership in 2016, applied best practices in content management to the service description. Updated the poorly organized, difficult to navigate online resource to be far-more usable and reader friendly, as well as more easily managed and updatable.
▪ Lead reviewer meetings with senior management, product SMEs, legal representatives, and reviewers to discuss, resolve, and finalize content needing greater visibility and approval.
▪ Collaborate and work closely with customers, software developers, managers, SMEs/stakeholders, product owners, and technical teams to deliver the support documentation.
▪ Support content that’s authored and managed in VS Code and published using GitHub.
▪ Update internal SharePoint pages where release, volume, cost, and remaining budget are tracked in proprietary Azure DevOps locations.
▪ Lead efforts to settle issues between stakeholders/SMEs, Legal, Publishing, and my team. Strike a delicate balance between conflicting concerns and goals, working to satisfy requirements while being mindful of resource limitations and guideline constraints. If consensus isn’t achievable, take a decisive position orescalate to management as needed.
▪ In 2020 and 2023, led large-scale efforts to reorganize and update the format of the sizable service description from start to finish. Coordinated with stakeholders and departments to provide feedback and suggestions, validate input, and led meetings to discuss unresolved or unclear issues.

Wadeware LLC-assignment with Microsoft, June 2011 – July 2015

Senior Technical Writer and Editor, Office 365 Online Services (Dedicated focus)
Improved the reader experience, creating, editing, managing, and maintaining content that was clear, approachable, consumable, and helpful to both internal and external customers.

▪ Interviewed SMEs 1-on-1, applied the results to recraft SME-created content that had led to customer confusion and dissatisfaction.
▪ Managed the complexity of handling multiple deliverables, as the product and content scope expanded to include Lync/Skype Online Dedicated and Exchange Online Dedicated.
▪ Built content iteration processes that were flexible and manageable, so the flow not only made sense but also served the needs of multiple audiences, stakeholders, and consumers.
▪ Collaborated closely with SMEs, operations personnel, project managers, release managers, and service managers to guarantee accuracy, quality, and clarity of documentation.
▪ Coordinated documentation for pre-deployment, deployment, administration, and configuration guidance, including service descriptions, TechNet articles, UI text, UX flow, video tutorials, and customer communications (email, web pages, bulletins, onboarding collateral, and white papers).
▪ Authored and created content with both writer-based apps (Word, DX Studio) as well as video production apps (Camtasia).

Areas of expertise

• Microsoft 365 and Office 365-based presentations and content (English and localization-focused)
• learn.microsoft.com articles
• White papers (technical, business, and customer-focused)
• VS Code authoring
• GitHub (publishing and repository management)
• Internal guidelines development and maintenance
• UX text
• UX flow
• Video demos and tutorials
• Online help
• Online wizards
• Blog posts and articles

Computer skills and software experience

• Windows: Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7
• GitHub and GitHub Desktop
• VS Code
• Markdown
• HTML
• XML
• Microsoft 365/Office 365 products (Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, Outlook, Defender)
• SharePoint (current, 2019, 2016, Dedicated, Online Services)
• OneDrive (current, OneDrive for Business)
• Azure DevOps
• Microsoft Copilot
• ChatGPT
• Product Studio
• DxStudio 3.0 and 2.2
• Documentation Studio
• Camtasia Studio 8 and 8.1

Education

Seattle University, MAEd
Oberlin College, BA