I’m heading up a project within this community called LDSTech Blog. On this project, volunteer members help write and edit articles for the LDSTech Blog, pictured below.

If you’re an English major wondering how you’ll get a job after your graduate, or if you’re a creative writer sweating your time in an MFA program thinking about how to transition into the real world (that was me), this is a perfect opportunity.

People are always asking me how to break into technical writing. In fact, just tonight I was responding to someone who explained that they don’t have any experience, that they’re struggling to find an internship or entry-level position.

You know how I transitioned into technical writing? I had a job as a web copywriter for a health and nutrition startup. I wrote all kinds of content for the company, from web articles to press releases to product descriptions. I compiled my best pieces into a portfolio and brought it to my interview for a technical writing job at a financial company.

One of my articles explained how protein worked (because the health and nutrition company sold protein pills to triathletes). One interviewer read the article and was impressed by the clear, articulate way I explained protein. She herself had a PhD in biology, so this topic was something she could evaluate. I beat out a handful of other candidates precisely because I had a strong portfolio, even though almost none of it involved traditional technical writing deliverables.

If you want to transition into technical writing, or any kind of writing career, a strong portfolio will help you get a foot in the door. You need some interesting, well-written articles to influence your interviewers. If you don’t mind writing articles related to technology projects for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), and you can work remotely and use virtual tools to communicate (email, phone, skype, chat, IM, video, ec.), and you have some bandwidth to do some writing and editing this summer, and you want some serious blessings for volunteering, then this opportunity is for you.

As you write and edit articles for the blog, I’ll give you feedback and guidance and explain ways to improve your writing. Any thing you write you can include in your portfolio, and if my experience working with you is a positive one, I will write you a reference letter.

But really, only sign up for the LDSTech Blog project if you’re serious about helping out. If you’re just slightly curious and don’t have any extra cycles to write or edit content, then maybe keep the idea in the back of your mind for a future time when you’re more available.

If you are interested in getting involved, do the following:

1. Contact the local missionaries through mormon.org and get baptized right away. There are only six lessons and within 2 weeks you can …. Just kidding! You don’t have to be Mormon to work on these projects.
2. Register for an LDS Account — this gives you a login to Church sites. By the way, you don’t need to be LDS to have an LDS Account. Go to http://ldsaccount.lds.org and click Register for an LDS Account. Walk through the screens and sign up. (Skip the section that asks for your membership record number.
3. Send me your LDS Account username. I’ll then add you to the project and give you more information.

That’s it. Once you join, I’ll immediately add you to our Google Group and share a Dropbox folder with you. I’ll then ask if you’re interested in writing an article about a specific project. I’ll give you a person to call, you’ll call them, conduct a phone interview to gather information, and then write up a 500 to 800 word article. I’ll review the article and give you feedback. I’ll suggest ways you can shape the article better, and so forth. Maybe it will be perfect already. After we finalize the article, I’ll submit it through the necessary approval processes and then publish it on LDSTech.

Does this sound interesting to you? Want to get involved? Feel free to contact me at tom@idratherbewriting.com with questions. I’d love to work with you.

Note: If you’re a teacher, you could use this as an assignment for students. Even if they only write one article through the project, it could be a much more realistic experience than doing a theoretical exercise from a workbook.

Blog Sponsors

• Webworks ePublisher
• Scriptorium
• Help Generator help authoring software
• Southern Polytechnic: Information Design and Communication
• Simplified English
• MindTouch
• Madcap Software
• Dr.Explain
• Adobe Technical Communication Suite
• Congree

I’m also an active member of the Church, and like most male members, served a mission in Venezuela for two years when I was 19. (I’m now 32.) My wife is a lifetime member, but I joined the Church at 15. Jane and I were married in the Manti temple in Utah after only four months of dating at BYU.

I’ve had the idea for a collaborative scripture reading site for a while. About 5 months ago I created a Ning group and experimented with a beta version of the site. We had about 20 members (mostly family and friends), with at least a quarter of them participating regularly. The site was taking off. But then I fell behind in my reading, I became frustrated with Ning (the social network software I was using), and the site lost momentum. It went into a state of dormancy for a few months.

A couple of weeks ago at Church I realized I was slipping into a passive, automatic mode – going through the motions, but not really feeling passionate or engaged. I thought about the collaborative scripture reading project I had going a few months back, and decided to resurrect it, only this time using WordPress, following a reading schedule that synced with the Sunday School curriculum, and opening it to the general public.

I’m not sure if this version will be more successful, but I know that it engages me more. I am simply accustomed to the blog format, to reading and commenting and viewing others’ comments. I think applying social media to a traditionally print-based, physical format may have some interesting results. Right now, I’m the only one commenting on the site. But maybe it will grow into something larger. Anyone is welcome to participate.

You may belong to another faith, or to another group, such as a book club or a creative writing group. You can apply the same type of collaborative model to any situation. The cool thing about WordPress is its flexibility. You can bend it to serve almost any need. (If you remember, I also used WordPress to create my Writer River site.)

But really the technical part is easy. The community is much harder to create and keep going. Some collaborative blog sites, like Times and Seasons, have a tremendous energy behind them, and it is entirely due to the community of readers and participants. Without community, many authors lose motivation to keep writing.