David Hewitson Email & Phone Number

Birmingham, United Kingdom

Working in IT Solutions Development writing System Architecture, Deployment & Configuration & Support Guides for C# ASP.NET BizTalk integration applications. Also creating Conceptual and Logical Architecture Diagrams, Entity Relationship Diagrams and Project Dependencies and Assembly reference diagrams. Tools used included MS Word and Visio, Sharepoint, Visual Studio and SQL Management Studio

St Albans

Started with Sky IDS (previously Sky IQ) in 2010 when Sky took ownership of Experian Integrated Marketing Services. My role was very much a continuation of my role at EIM, developing documentation to support marketing campaign applications: Campaign Elements, a large .NET client-server application for building marketing campaigns, and Modelling Elements, an application for optimising marketing campaigns using KXEN statistical modelling. Also I worked on documentation for a data cleansing and keying solution and two web-based database applications based on Microsoft SharePoint technology.For all of these applications I created sets of manuals including user guides, user reference guides, tutorial training guides, administrator guides, installations guides, operations guides etc. and to support the production of these manuals, I continued developing the Word Template, designing templates for different products and target templates for Doc-to-Help. Also I wrote a style guide for the templates.Areas of knowledge that I developed during my time at Sky IDS include: SQL, relational databases (SQL Server and Sybase), OLAP data cube, Microsoft SharePoint, Visual Studio, SQL Server Management Studio, Automatic Testing, Telelerik Test Studio and XML.I also carried out system testing of various applications to help the test team in meeting deadlines and helped in the writing of test cases and the designing of automatic test cases, in Telerik Test Studio.Whilst at Sky IDS, I worked in development teams using both Waterfall and Agile methodologies. Latterly development was carried out in a ‘Scrum’ type framework. Hence I needed to adapt my authoring processes to accommodate that, working from a backlog.and supplying documentation for each Sprint.

Luton, United Kingdom

Joined EIM in 2008 to author the documentation that supported EIM's marketing campaign solutions. One of my first tasks was to designed and created a new Word template on which EIM manuals would be based and migrate all manual sets to it. During that time I worked on manuals for three different marketing campaign solutions and a web-based database application.I spent less than two years at EIM before moving to Sky, but in that time I established a documentation standard and started re-designing the manual set for the primary campaign building application, Campaign Elements, and the campaign design application, Modelling Elements, as well as supporting new releases of each, plus a user guide for a web application.

Maidenhead

Created and maintained a set of product manuals for the Alcatel 5959 Open Video Server, including a user guide, system administrator's guide, scheme & PL/SQL procedures guide, installation Guides and maintenance and troubleshooting guide, and video client developer's guideI worked as part of an international team of developers and authors, some of whom were based in St Petersburg, Russia. Eventually I was made redundant and the authoring function moved to St Petersburg, Russia.

St Albans, United Kingdom

Picdar was a small company that marketed a digital asset management solution for storing and managing multi-media digital assets, such as text files, pictures, graphics, video and audio files, etc., and catalogue assets using metadata in an Oracle database. Many of the large national newspapers integrate this solution into their newspaper production process.I joined as the first technical author, hence there were no technical documentation standards and processes, or user documentation in place, so I designed and created:A document template for Picdar technical documentationProcedures for how authors should interact with the development processWeb help for the digital asset management system using the RoboHelp Office Here, I gained experience in designing templates, establishing procedures and proposing documentation requirements in a company which had no previous experience in running a technical authoring resource.

Stevenage

VNL was a venture capital company start up to develop an interactive television network (Video on Demand). I was the first author to join the company and so helped with the setting up the technical authoring group. Hence I was involved in the setting up of documentation templates and technical authoring procedures and standards.Here I wrote the first user-friendly functional overviews of a Video on Demand being developed, including overviews of the video servers, content delivery system, front end processing, internet services, and so on.Also I produced installation and configuration guides, an operation and trouble shooting guide and a service authors guide.

Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom

Worked on an eight-volume set of manuals for the Reality Database Management System, Eventually I became the project author responsible for maintaining the set, including:user guides, operator guides, administrator guides, programmers guides, C programmer's guide, and beginner’s guides. Also on-line help and data sheetsHere at NIS I was:Promoted twice - Technical Author --> Senior Technical Author--> Documentation SpecialistResponsible for creation and timely delivery of a set of documentation Working in a authoring teamWriting technical publications procedure for the departmentAt NIS:I gained a good understanding of the software development lifecycle, I came to understand that the documentation was part of the software product I learned to work within a project team.I also learned to read programming code, particularly Data/Basic and C..

Letchworth

Started my career as a trainee technical author in 1978 working for HEI - a technical publications consultancy in the telecommunications, electronics and software sectors. With HEI, I worked for a range of clients across the telecommunications and computer sectors. Being a customer-facing role, I visited clients on a regular basis to gather information and to laise on progress.Whilst at HEI I worked on a variety of telecommunications projects for different clients, including: a satellite earth station, a digital telephone system and a packet switch network and I learned a number of important skills, including: the importance of budgets and working to tight deadlines; how to work with clients by relationship building, honesty and diplomacy and how to work in a pressurised environment where there are multiple changing demands.