This is a talk on expressing yourself clearly, succinctly, and professionally in writing. Writing well has always been a superpower in a professional context, but with more and more teams and organizations adopted a distributed and asynchronous style of work, good writing has become paramount.

This talk gives you a number of hints, tips, and suggestions for being a better writer and communicator in a professional tech context.

This talk covers

• the importance of clarity, and the ultimate goal of all professional writing: being understood.
• the two aspects of clarity: clear expression, and clear structure.
• George Orwell’s Six Rules, and their applicability to writing in a modern context.
• little things you can apply to improve your clarity.
• the five-paragraph briefing format.
• a proposed format and structure for good and useful meeting notes.
• hints on avoiding “Germglish” (and Poglish, Ukrainglish, Sweglish and others) and making yourself understood to people who share your working language (English), but not your native language (not English).
• the #1 awesome writing superpower that will make all your writing so much better (trust me!).