Ed Marsh (00:00)
Hey, it's Ed Marsh. I know it's been a while. Actually, it's been over four years since my last podcast. It was on indefinite hiatus because of various reasons, So welcome back and thanks for listening. I really appreciate the impact that doing this podcast has made for me over the past 11 years when I started in 2015.

Yeah, it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy, like thinking back and I did it for seven years and I'm still asked to talk about it. And it's still a big part of my life and I missed it. And now I have the opportunity again. you know, back in the very first episode, one of the first people I reached out to, to see if it was a viable thing for me to do, enthusiastically came back and said, yes, let's do this. So it's wonderful to have this person back on as a friend.

as a mentor, as a colleague, and as someone who I highly admire and has a great story to tell. So my first guest was Sharon Burton, and today is my friend, Sharon Burton. Hi, Sharon.

Sharon (01:00)
Hello, it's so exciting to be back. It really is. Yeah. A bit.

Ed Marsh (01:03)
Yeah, it's been a little while. So, yeah,

Just a few years. So, what have you been doing for the past 11 years? Yeah, just hanging out.

Sharon (01:11)
Nothing, you know, let's see. ⁓

Yeah, no, there was a husband that died. Let's see, there's been some jobs in there. There was meeting another guy who turned out to be awesome and so I got married again, because apparently I just keep getting married. ⁓ and then, you know, there's the book project that, yeah, you know, but nothing, nothing really, you know, there's.

Ed Marsh (01:34)
there's a book? I didn't hear about this.

Sharon (01:40)
Yeah, like nobody has heard about the book, like, you know, chasing people down in parking lots now. It's like, I want to tell you about this project. Yeah. So do you want to hear about the book seriously? Or is that like super old news?

Ed Marsh (01:50)
Well,

It's been 10 years. Why don't you tell us what you've been up to Are you doing the same stuff? I know you're still teaching, but give us a little history of you for the people who didn't hear our very first episode. And just give us your spiel.

Sharon (01:57)
I'm st-

⁓ for the many people who

have no idea who I am. Yes, I know. So I do content strategy. I've been in the tech comm field for 30 years, which I find surprising because as God as my witness, I started the whole thing thinking, yeah, I'll just do this till I get bored and then I'll go do something else, So here I am 30 years later, still waiting to get bored. The field has changed lot, but I'm still waiting to get bored.

⁓ I'm doing content strategy now because that for me is where my interests in, my, and my skills and my gifts in business coincide with my skills, my gifts, and my interest in getting content to people in the place they need it at the moment they need it in the form they need it to smoothly use the products that they buy. Because I believe deeply that if we.

as an industry are going to go to the trouble of making products, our customers deserve the very best products that we are capable of delivering. If you're going to ask people for money, they deserve to get the very best product that we're capable of delivering. That's what they need. And content is a critical aspect of that because content solves the problem of how the hell do I use this thing? It does. And it's not just onboarding, which is important.

But it's that continuing use, which in the product management world, they call stickiness. Content is a significant part of stickiness. so content strategy kind of solves all of that. Right now, I'm working on a long-term contract with AMD, which is exciting and fascinating and wonderful with a great team. And I'm doing really interesting work. I'm the first content strategist for this group.

Ed Marsh (03:30)
Hmm.

Sharon (03:49)
And I've been there for 14, 15 months and the work is really fun and it's interesting. And the people are all really passionate about semiconductors and delivering good content to customers to use these board layout tools and semiconductors and chips and AI and like all this amazing technology. And I'm just, having a gas. So.

Ed Marsh (03:49)
nice.

Sharon (04:18)
That's who I am. What else? I teach part-time at the University of California, Riverside. I teach in technical communication to engineers and the program has grown. I've been there for 20 years and the program has grown from 48 students every quarter, four quarters a year to now we have this quarter, were 170 something students.

Ed Marsh (04:33)
Wow.

Wow.

Sharon (04:48)
Yeah, five, seven labs of 24 students each. So whatever seven times 24 is. Notice none of my gifts involve mathematics. I just proved that, which is fine. They don't have to. And it's a required class for a whole bunch of majors at UC Riverside and a strongly recommended optional class for all the other engineering majors. and it's all online now.

It's all online. We're doing the whole thing online. Yeah, it's amazing. No. So between working for AMD from home and teaching from home, I mostly live here in my office. I don't really ever leave my house. That's not true. I go to the gym. But except for going to the gym, don't hardly ever leave my house. Why would I? Why would I?

Ed Marsh (05:11)
really? ⁓ I didn't know that. I didn't know. I thought you were still in person.

Same. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's one thing that's certainly changed over the past 11 years, 20, since 2015 is like, hey, most people, seems like an increasing number of people in our field are working remotely. And it's wonderful. Like I told you before we started recording, we're going to get 18 to 24 inches of snow this evening. It's a Sunday night, Sunday afternoon. We're recording into Monday. And thankfully my wife, who when I first started recording our podcast,

was not a front end developer, it has now been a front end developer for eight years. She works remotely too, so we ⁓ are both safe and comfy for the two feet of snow that is supposed to be coming to our area here in New York City.

Sharon (06:12)
I just, as a Southern California girl, I just marveled at, like, y'all just go, well, yeah, we're just gonna get two feet of snow. I mean, for me, that would be, my God, let's get out of here quick, get on a plane, I don't know, how ⁓ fast can we drive, what direct, like, but I don't do cold. I don't like cold.

Ed Marsh (06:30)
I don't either, which is why I don't leave the house now. ⁓ yeah, I mean, it's just part of what it is. no one liked this snow, and no one likes this amount of snow. But we're also experiencing drought in New Jersey for several years now. So hopefully this will ameliorate some of it. But we're not here to talk about the weather. I just wanted to point out that, hey, it's pretty cool that we can work from home now and not have to trudge to an office.

Sharon (06:33)
You

you

Yeah.

man.

You know, and I'm, I am, I, the thing I love about working from home is I can work in the hours that I know I am at my most creative and my most focused. And that for me, you would think that an employer would, would want that. I work East coast hours. I work from six in the morning until two in the afternoon. And at AMD, that's working out great because I work with lot of people in Europe, a lot of people on the East coast of the U S.

Ed Marsh (07:05)
Mmm.

Okay.

Hmm.

Sharon (07:22)
Some here on the West Coast, AMD's got a big office in the Bay Area. But my most focused creative hours are from seven in the morning until 11 o'clock in the morning. And so for that time period, instead of sitting in a car, driving it, like all of that, can log in at six, get my day organized by seven. I can go head down, start focusing. And that seems to me

Ed Marsh (07:32)
Okay.

Sharon (07:47)
Like why wouldn't an employer want that? Why wouldn't they want that?

Ed Marsh (07:51)
I mean, you know, I

mean, especially if you're a parent, like you've got to time your kids, you know, school, I know going to school and coming home from school and coordinating that and leaving the office and then logging in later. Like, you know, I know a lot of parents where I used to work had to do that and accommodate their accommodations to say, OK, well, yeah, you can leave and then log in later on kind of thing at night after you put your kids to bed. I'm like, OK, well, we can we can do that now. But I guess what's interesting to me is like, you know, when your productive time is and like

Sharon (08:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ed Marsh (08:21)
That's not the scope we want to talk about. How did you find that out? Because I'm curious. I know I'm a morning person, oddly enough, at work as well. But I'm logged in at 9 o'clock because I want to get the hell off at 5, 30, or 6 o'clock. So how did you figure out that you were when your quote unquote productive hours were? Because my wife is like 7.30 at night a lot of times.

Sharon (08:39)
I- I-

Yeah, I started paying attention. I like getting up before the sun is up. I like that. I happen to like sunrise. It's a great deal. ⁓ They're very hopeful. It's the most hopeful part of the day. There's a sunrise. It could be glorious. But even if it isn't a glorious sunrise, the birds are awake and it's all starting. And anything could happen today. But I'm a wild optimist. I just started noticing when

Ed Marsh (08:45)
Ugh.

You

Nice.

Sharon (09:04)
I am productive. And when I started to flag, you know, just, just like started to, it started to be a grind. For a while, I was trying to fit into that, that eight to five thing, get in the car and, and it, it wasn't a good fit. It just, and the way I start, what happened is that the way I started working around the fact it wasn't a good fit, I would start working here in my office.

Ed Marsh (09:09)
Hmm.

Sharon (09:29)
at six in the morning. And then I would get, pack my stuff up at like seven, 38 o'clock, drive into work. And then I went, wait a minute, I'm getting more done at home than I'm getting done once I get to work. Yeah, that's because this is my most productive time. Okay, all right, all right. Now I need to figure out how to turn that into a lifestyle.

Ed Marsh (09:38)
⁓ lord.

Okay, that makes sense because I know when I was commuting, I always commuted via mass transit, thankfully. So I had an hour on the train and I'm like, you know, I might, some of my teammates were like, well, why do you have Outlook on your phone and why do you have Teams on your phone and yada yada? And I'm like, well, that gives me time to like check in in the day and like to see what I'm preparing myself for and like responding to those emails first thing. So that way I'm not flooded with emails when everyone else logs on at, you know, 9, 10 AM in Eastern time. So,

Sharon (10:10)
Yeah.

Ed Marsh (10:24)
I get it. get it. it's like, you know, he's like, bang, you know, okay, nine o'clock, my coffee's done. I'm going to log in and I've got a I've got a docking station here. So I just literally push a button and log into the laptop for my work or my contract work that I'm currently doing right now. And it's wonderful not to mention that there is, you know, another thing that's changed since since I last recorded podcast is I have a cat break now. So we have a cat and she is wonderful to ⁓

Sharon (10:42)
Yeah.

Ed Marsh (10:53)
know, to break up the day and make me feel present and that you don't get in an office.

Sharon (10:56)
No, yeah, I have a cat named Molly and to be honest, surprise she's not in here with me, although she's curled up on the bed because she is, but normally she's in my office and she makes her appearance so often in meetings with her big fluffy tail going past my camera, just like going past like this and then going past back again, that people actually will type in a meeting, they will type, good morning, Molly.

Bodie does not make the appearance nearly as often. He occasionally will appear. But Molly is, she's my little dog cat. And if I'm in here, she, especially in the morning, it's like, well, we only slept together all night. I've barely seen you. So we clearly interact, right? She's a very funny little cat, very funny.

Ed Marsh (11:39)
I know those names, you've had them for a long time.

Sharon (11:42)
I got, well, you know, it's funny. So my late husband died and then right after he died, my cat died. That was not fun. ⁓ I know it was just, 2016 was not my favorite year. So I love the whole thing right now. People are like, let's be nostalgic for 2016. I'm like, let's not though. Let's not, let's not be nostalgic. No, no. I lived through 2016 and that was called a win for that whole year.

Ed Marsh (11:51)
Aww.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Sharon (12:10)
But I was sitting on the patio one morning, because I love sunrises, I was sitting at the patio, and Saturday morning, beginning of 1st of October, 2016, and I literally had been thinking, I was sitting there thinking, you know, I've got a of like a conference or two to go to, and I've got a business trip, but you know, after the first of the year, I should probably get another cat, you know, because I've just got, at the time I had the Australian Shepherd.

I was like, I really should just get another cat. I that's nice. And I was drinking coffee and watching, you know, and the sun came up and it was very nice. And the Australian shepherd was outside with me and all of a sudden he jumped up and he ran over to the pool equipment. He started barking and I went, God, now he's probably found himself a squirrel. This is not going to end well. I need to get him away from the squirrel. And I walked over to the pool equipment and there in pool equipment was an adolescent gray cat just sitting there. Gus, cause Gus knew about cats. He'd had cats his whole life. He knew about cats.

Ed Marsh (12:50)
Hmm.

Sharon (13:01)
And Gus's nose is like 12 inches from the cat and he's wiggling his butt like crazy. Super happy he's found a cat. And the cat's just sitting there looking at me and looking at Gus like, I had no idea this was going to happen today. This is fantastic. And I of course said, well, hello. And he stood up and wasn't using his back leg. And then I really looked at him and realized he's starving to death. So now I have a broken kitty who's starving to death. And so I shoved him in a box and put him in the car and drove him down to the vet.

and walked in with Kitty in a box. And I said, I just found this in my backyard. I need you to figure out what's wrong with it. Find out if it's healthy. I have to go grade student papers. I'll be back. And so a couple hours later, it's a vet thing. I knew the vet. I didn't just wander into some strange vet. Yeah, no, no, No, I knew the vet. And so a couple hours later, they called me and I went back in and they said, okay, so he's got, he obviously had been hit by a car. It's been healed. So he's got a broken hip. The femur part,

Ed Marsh (13:46)
OK, well, that's interesting.

Hmm.

Sharon (14:00)
you know, the part that fits into your hip has been broken off and it's just floating around in his hip. That needs a surgery to fix that. And he won't use the leg until we get that done, but he's also starving to death. So he's far too skinny to do the surgery anytime soon. ⁓ and by the way, it's a boy and I guess you have a cat. And I just stood there and looked at him and I said, well, I guess I do. I feel like the cat distribution system has said this one, this one's broken and he's going to be very expensive to fix. You need to have this one.

Ed Marsh (14:14)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Sharon (14:30)
And so I got him fixed. I got him healthy and then I got him fixed and And he was the worst adolescent cat ever ever and I've had a lot of cats in my life. He was the worst like a terror and so So that was the first of October Right after Christmas. I went yeah. No, he's got I gotta get him a buddy I got to because he's just an absolute he's just a horrible cat and I need like

So I went to the shelter and the shelter said, yeah, no, we had a lot of cats we gave away just for Christmas. We've only got a few left. And I went, well, that's lovely. I mean, yay, right? Like yay. But, and so then they had this little gray kitten, this little gray fluffy kitten who had big wide eyes. And they said she was five months old. She was not five months old. She was three months old. I grew up with cats. She was three months old. And she just...

Ed Marsh (14:55)
Sandy.

Sharon (15:21)
She did the whole wide-eyed, you know, this is wonderful. And so I brought her home and that's how I got my two. And I've had them since 2016. So they are 10 year old creatures now. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah. So Molly just had her, just had her, annual performance evaluation. We looked at her KPIs. she's been doing very well. ⁓ I know, I know. Yeah. It's, it's all good. I, sorry.

Ed Marsh (15:30)
No.

good for her.

I hope her comp

went up.

Sharon (15:49)
Hahaha!

Ed Marsh (15:53)
Yeah, speaking of cat redistribution system, our cat found us when my wife had her first development job. There were three cats living in our condo parking lot, basically. And one of them just, you know, Stephanie would come home and she would say, hi, and then he like basically after a while just came to her car door or was waiting for her when she got home and like would like if he was running late, he would be sprinting across the parking lot, meowing to get her attention.

Sharon (16:17)
⁓

Ed Marsh (16:18)
So yeah, adorable, adorable.

And then eventually we caught him, brought him in and thankfully he was fine. He was outside for about a year and a half, we think. He was someone else's cat. And thankfully he was healthy, relatively healthy when we brought him to the vet the first time. And vet's like, what are you going to do? Well, like, well, we want to keep him. you know, so yeah, he was great. And then we inherited my late mother-in-law's cat. That's a...

Sharon (16:36)
Yeah, let's get him fixed and here we go.

Ed Marsh (16:45)
Well, that was Lupi-less, which we called him Lupi. He was a great ginger cat. We lost him, unfortunately, to cancer. But then, like I said, we inherited my mother-in-law's cat, is Furiosa. And she didn't like Lupi that much because she was a 12-year-old cat who had never had other cats. So we were not sure about her so much. But now she's wonderful and we know how to communicate with her. Being communicators and having the cat learn how to communicate with you and learning what the cat's trying to tell you.

Sharon (17:00)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (17:11)
has been really, really awesome. So

Sharon, think we've hit the cat tax for today. ⁓

Sharon (17:18)
It is required now. I've discovered on the good social media. You do have to pay a cat tax pretty much pretty much for everything. Yep. Yep.

Ed Marsh (17:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, well so we've got that. Well

that's cool. So just a few things have gone on in the past 11 years since we first recorded our podcast. But the reason why we're talking today, and I'm gonna give you a little bit of backstory on my experience in tech com with women I was very fortunate.

Sharon (17:32)
Yeah.

Ed Marsh (17:42)
In my very first role I ever had as a tech writer, I didn't even know what a technical writer was at that point. I went to school to be a reporter. I wanted to work for the New York Times or Car and Driver magazine. And somehow I fell into technical writing. It was great too, because it paid a hell of a lot more than being a reporter. And my very first role was in, I think, about thousand person software company. And I think we had 30 to 40 technical writers.

And it was largely women and women in leadership roles. And it was a very diverse place, a very diverse company and a very diverse team of people who were wonderful. So I have a ton of women to thank for my career and not even that just started it. So when I started hearing that like women aren't that big in tech, I'm like, what are you talking about? All I've learned is from people like Frances Gambino and Karen Florman and like all these other people that I can name.

And there's so many across my career that made me the technical writer who I was So I guess that's the big reveal is Sharon, why don't you tell us about your book and what your book is about because I think it's a little relevant to what I just brought up

Sharon (18:54)
Yeah.

the book is called Women in Technical Communication. The subtitle is From Typewriters to Touchscreens, a History by the Women Who Did the Work. And so what this book is, it is 69. I'm one of the 69. So 68 other women who, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.

Oh yeah. I get a little inarticulate here, which is amusing to me. So I put out a call for writers in March of 2025.

Sharon (19:37)
and I had dinner with my my best friend that night and you know, she'd known I was gonna do this I talked about it and all that and

So I went over to have dinner with her and I said, okay, I put out the call for writers. I put it on all my social media, all of that. And she said, well, how are you feeling about that? And I said, I'm absolutely certain I'm going to get terrible. I'm to get 10 terrible pieces. This is probably a terrible idea. And a year from now, we shall never speak of it again. And she said, I don't think that's going to happen. I said, I'm convinced of it. I'm certain of it. In fact, what I got was 68, 68,

wonderful pieces, some from women I've never heard of, but I should have now that I've read their story. And some from the heavy hitters in our field, Joanne Hackes, Karen Shriver, Anne Rockley, Rahel Bailey. mean, women who defined parts of our field that

Ed Marsh (20:30)
Mm-hmm.

Sharon (20:35)
a lot of the generation that's coming up don't even know that they're using the ideas that these women created. So why did I go for women in tech comm? so here's a little history of our field. In 1970, our field was 70 % men, 30 % women. There was some research done by STC,

that 70-30. And that was like news to celebrate, right? Because that was like, wow, there's a lot of women in the field. Well, yay, women. But you go, wait a minute. There's nothing about tech writing that requires a penis. why would, right? Like it just, but it doesn't, you know? And there were a ton of women who had science degrees, who had engineering degrees and science degrees.

but they couldn't get jobs as that, or they were discouraged from being in the field, or frankly, those women often didn't expect to stay in the working world. They got a college degree, they maybe worked in it little bit, then they got married. They were discouraged culturally and socially from staying in the field. And so they went home and they had their children and they ran a household and they lost their minds, right? That's just kind of what happened. So.

Ed Marsh (21:41)
Hmm.

Sharon (21:57)
With the women's movement, women went back into the working world and then by the 80s, the economy had changed such that women expected to stay in the working world for the bulk of their careers. Sorry, stay in the working world as their careers. They were going to have a career and have their families or whatever it was that was going to happen. So,

Ed Marsh (22:07)
He

Sharon (22:19)
By 19, I want to say 98, 2000, the field had shifted from 70 % men, 30 % women, it had flipped. The field is now 70 % women and 30 % men. And that to me is a fascinating flip. Like what happened? Well, what happened is these women with engineering degrees or otherwise STEM kind of women,

Ed Marsh (22:36)
Get outta here.

great.

Sharon (22:49)
stumbled into tech writing. And as everybody in tech writing knows, especially for our generation, tech writing is often something that you did as a second career. You stumbled into it as you were hired for something else and you discovered that nobody else liked writing the policies and procedures or how do you do stuff. And so this woman went, yeah, but I kind of liked that. And everybody went, good, you do that because we really hate that.

Ed Marsh (23:16)
Okay.

Sharon (23:17)
And she didn't even know she was a tech writer. She didn't even know.

And then she found STC or she found Winwriters or she found a book or and went, my God, there are other people who do what I do. my God, this is an actual job. You mean I could just write. I can have access to the money that the tech industry has. And I could have a good career, a financially rewarding career, maybe support my children. Maybe not. Maybe she doesn't have children, but if she does.

I could do that. So 68 women. Here's the amazing part. The 68 women are international. have women from India. We have women from Mexico. have British women. have, I don't have the list in front of me, Ireland, I think. I'm almost certain. Australia, Israel, where else? It's a long list. Yeah, it's...

Ed Marsh (24:00)
nice.

Sharon (24:22)
Like, so that's exciting, right? Like that got me all excited. And then as I was having dinner with my husband, because my house has been this project for a year, a very, very patient husband, Andy is incredibly patient. So Andy and I were having dinner one night as I was, you know, it reached the point the call for writers had closed. I was still going, oh my God, I've got all of these submissions and they're all amazing and important. And we were talking about them.

Ed Marsh (24:45)
Hmm.

Sharon (24:49)
And we were talking about the different storytelling traditions that different cultures have, because I'm trained as an anthropologist and I get very interested in that. And I was talking about the different ways that the different storytelling traditions were showing up in different women's pieces based on the cultures they're from and like that kind of thing. And that was interesting. And then I said, I just said this thing and then it stopped me in my tracks. And I said, but what's interesting is of course,

Some of these women are the heroes of their story because they are the first generation of women to work full time in the workplace for their whole lives. And then I went, crap. my God. Every woman in this book is of that genera- my God. my- ⁓ no. I have just accidentally captured the self-told history of the first generation of women who-

Ed Marsh (25:25)
Mmm.

Okay.

Sharon (25:47)
went into the workplace expecting to have a lifelong career. Oh crud, I am completely ill-equipped to deal with this. I have no training in this. Like I... oh no, oh no!

Okay, well, I guess I need to do the very best I can because these women really, really deserve the very best that I can bring to the party. Okay, that's different than, hey, let's just get a bunch of people to tell cool stories about their career. Crud, now I'm documenting the history of a field. Shoot.

Ed Marsh (26:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that's a little different scope there.

Sharon (26:26)
Yeah,

yeah, project changed up from under my yeah talk about somebody should have filed a change order request. ⁓ yeah, scope change documentation. Yeah. so, but that must have helped. mean, if you have a few have a history in anthropology wouldn't

Ed Marsh (26:35)
Who wants that documentation though?

Well, but that must have helped. I mean, if you have a history in anthropology, wouldn't that have

helped with your process?

Sharon (26:47)
You know, think part, my anthropologist heart gets so happy with anything that is from other cultures. Like I'm, I have a running joke, except it's not a joke, it's the truth, that I am absolutely at my happiest when I am sitting on a sidewalk somewhere, maybe in a chair, who knows, and I don't understand any of the language around me. I have no idea where I am.

I have no idea what it is I'm eating. I don't know where my hotel is. I am the happiest I literally can ever be. My husband has seen this and he's like, Andy's like, yeah, he's seen me do it in China. He's seen me do it in Nepal. I am so happy when I have not a clue what's going on. It's the best. So my anthropologist's heart gets very happy about other cultures in a hot second. Reading these stories,

Ed Marsh (27:20)
Huh.

Sharon (27:38)
There are cultural differences, of course, right, of course, the experience of being a woman in India is different than being the experience of being a woman in Finland or being a woman here in the United States or, you know, and the, the, the story that goes furthest back in history, I think she started in the field in 1964. And then I know, I know, right. And then we've got women who broke into the field in the early 90s. So,

Ed Marsh (27:41)
Mm.

Sharon (28:08)
⁓ a real time period. I don't want to say gap, but a long time period. And what's interesting is, of course, being a woman in those different places is different. Those different places, those different times. It's a different experience for each woman. But the experience at another level is the same. And I think the themes that really resonate for me and I'm hoping resonate for other people

Ed Marsh (28:24)
Hmm.

Sharon (28:36)
is being a woman in the workplace, especially in technology, and most of these women worked in technology, not all, most of them. Being a woman in tech, the challenges are the same, regardless of whether you started in 64 or 94 or 2004 or 2024. The challenges are the same. And I think, I think Techcom has been less

Ed Marsh (28:52)
Hmm.

Sharon (29:03)
impacted by the bro culture, although I think it's probably, I can tell you from my personal experience, it's been impacted by it. But tech writing has let women get into the technology world without that technology, without that STEM training. Because as you know, you can get into tech writing without a STEM background and make a darn good living doing it. And especially in

Ed Marsh (29:07)
Hmm

Mmm.

Sharon (29:32)
in some of the other cultures, it has opened doors that otherwise might never have been able to be opened. Really giving women access to a good living. I mean, there's a lot of other ways to talk about this and certainly I love talking about it. But I think that's for me, one of the parts that's just amazing. It's whether you're in Mexico or India or Finland or the United States, you had access to

Ed Marsh (29:39)
Yeah.

Sharon (30:00)
you have access to the benefits of being able to work in the technology field. There are downsides, but the financial benefits are real. I I come from working poor and I was poor for quite some time and it wasn't that fun. It looks fun and the movie's being really poor, looks a like fun, like, I should run right out and be poor. no, it's not romantic. It's demeaning, it's degrading, it's humiliating, it's...

Ed Marsh (30:19)
Yeah, it's romantic.

Not so much.

Sharon (30:26)
terrifying, no. But, and I fell into tech comm. I never expected to stay in it. Yep, fell into it and discovered I love it. I love solving these problems. ⁓ It's a natural, my anthropology training and my interest in technology, it's a natural fit for me and allowed me to climb out of poverty. I was able to buy my own house.

Ed Marsh (30:32)
Hmm, same.

Sharon (30:50)
I was able to build a stable financial life for myself and my kid managed to graduate college and it looks like my grandchildren are going to be able to go to college. it broke the cycle of poverty for generations. That's what happens when you give women a little bit of money worldwide. A little bit of money and a little bit of control over that money and women are going to pull themselves out of poverty.

Ed Marsh (30:54)
Hmm.

Hmm.

My other question, I mean, you're talking about the poverty aspect of it, and I get that, especially in the States, but I in other countries like India, like I remember I joined in, I started as a tech writer in the mid-90s. ⁓

Sharon (31:18)
I mean, you're talking about the poverty aspect of it, and I get that, in the States, but I in other countries like India, like I remember I joined in, I started as a tech writer in the mid-90s.

Ed Marsh (31:38)
And I remember in the 90s when outsourcing kind of started happening. And I think it started happening in the tech com world first. And I think Adobe was one of the first companies that started outsourcing to India at the time. And I can imagine, I mean, I know it was jarring for us in the States here who had solid careers in tech com.

Sharon (31:38)
I remember in the nineties when outsourcing kind of started happening. And I think it started happening in the tech comm world first. And I think Adobe was one of the first companies that started outsourcing to India at the time. And I can imagine, I mean, I know it was jarring for us in the States here who had solid careers in tech

comm that were going overseas and doing it cheaper. And we know that.

Ed Marsh (31:59)
that we're going overseas and doing it cheaper. And we know that, you

know, back then the quality that we were getting wasn't terrific, but it must have been incredible for those folks in India to be able to have access to that and to that technology for like the first time ever.

Sharon (32:04)
you know, back then the quality that we were getting wasn't terrific, but it must have been incredible for those folks in India to be able to have access to that and to that technology for like the first time

Yeah. Interestingly, one of the stories that we captured is the first woman to run a tech comm consulting business in India. Yeah, we got her story.

Ed Marsh (32:27)
Get out of here.

Sharon (32:29)
my God, that's amazing, right? We've got her story. She wrote her story and that's amazing. Was it easy? No. She started on a shoestring. There was, I mean, all the stuff you would expect. You're going to love her story. All the stuff you would expect, like beg borrowing, steal computers and computer time. I think steal, borrowing a space to put the computers that have like it's

Ed Marsh (32:56)
Oh yeah, good job.

Sharon (32:57)
It is amazing.

And one of the groups that I work with now at AMD is based in India. They're based in Bangalore. Hey guys, if you're hearing me, hey y'all. They're awesome. Today, Indian tech writers are as good as any other tech writers in the world. I will hold them up to any tech writer in the world. They are good and they're passionate and all of it. And that entire industry got built in the last

30 years. They went from not knowing how to do it to doing it. And the woman who wrote her story about being the first woman owned tech com business in India, that it is a story of reading everything they she and a friend of hers who were working with her that everything they could get their hands on and having to fight past some of the misogyny.

Ed Marsh (33:24)
Right, yeah.

Hmm.

Sharon (33:49)
you know that, you're just girls with computers, you know, that kind of thing. And yeah, yeah. Yeah. Not getting paid as much as men. She talks about that. That kind of thing. I, you know, you read her story, at least for me, I read her story and first I wanted to go and sock people in the eye. First thing I want to do, just go punch people in the face, right? Like just like stop it, just stop it.

Ed Marsh (33:52)
I didn't even think. Wow.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Sharon (34:13)
But I just thought this is what women do. And I think this is part of what motivates me for this book. And there are going to be other books in the series, but for this book in particular right now is women show up and they do the work and they do the work when it's hard. And they do the work when there are obstacles in the way. And they do the work when and when and when and when. And then you know what they do?

Ed Marsh (34:26)
wow, okay.

Sharon (34:39)
They go home and they feed their kids, they get them to bed and they get up the next day and they do it all over again. I'm not saying that men don't do that, but I'm saying that women, we do it and often nobody even notices we're doing it. They just know that the laundry is always done and the kids are fed and, right? And I'm not saying that we deserve parades, although certainly if you want to throw us parades, we will take the parades.

But instead of the parades, actually we'll just take equal pay. I mean, to be honest, you know, and maybe, maybe like clean up the kitchen after we make dinner. That would be good too. But the world runs on women, on women's labor. The world runs on it. We would not want to live in a world where women were not doing the work they're doing because it's important work, even though it's not always the sexiest work.

Ed Marsh (35:06)
That would be nice.

Sharon (35:29)
So reading these stories of women, I mean, some of the women in this book, they changed our field. Karen Shriver changed our field, 100 % changed our field, 100%. And yay, I'd like, yay, I fangirled reading Karen's piece like you wouldn't believe, right? Like total dork, I was crying as I was reading it, because I couldn't believe I'm editing Karen Shriver's piece, wow.

Ed Marsh (35:49)
Ugh.

Sharon (35:53)
But then there's these other stories of women who showed up, they did the work to the best of their ability and because they cared, because it mattered to them to do a good job. And then they went home and got on with the rest of their lives. both of those are worthy of notice and worthy of praise. And I find both to be quite moving. I don't know how to explain it more than that.

Ed Marsh (36:17)
Now, is that like a theme that people talk about a lot with the work, what we call work-life balance now? ⁓

Sharon (36:18)
Now is that a theme that people talk about a lot with the work, what we call work-life balance that a theme

I asked, in the call for writers, prompted people, so I gave people some prompts, but I said, use these as required. Like you tell your story, how you tell your story, because God knows in industry it's

I'm tired of people telling me what my voice should be. You should use your voice to tell your story how it's right for you. And they did. Not everybody talked about misogyny or about managing, but some people did. Some people did talk about some of the difficulties of being a woman in the tech world.

Some people were aware that there were difficulties. They talked about being aware there were difficulties, but mostly just ignoring them because the work was important or they didn't care. Some women talked about work-life balance. They talked about the joy of being able to finish for the day and then taking care of their family and doing the other stuff that matters to them.

Ed Marsh (37:13)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Sharon (37:28)
trying to think. A couple of people talked about the craziness of the tech industry and having no work-life balance. One one writer in particular was working for Microsoft and wound up driving in or trying to drive into Microsoft in the snow on Christmas Eve because something had blown up and she wound up putting her car in a ditch. And it occurred to her then that maybe this was just kind of getting out of hand. Maybe, possibly.

Ed Marsh (37:51)
Little bit,

little bit.

Sharon (37:52)
Yeah,

possibly. And there's some pieces are more businesslike. And again, there's no wrong way to tell your story. I wanted every woman to tell her story the way she felt her story should be told. And so some stories are very businesslike. And then some stories are very personal. ⁓ We have one writer who talked about her struggles with alcohol and how that impacted a lot.

Ed Marsh (37:59)
Hmm

Okay.

Sharon (38:17)
including her children and her career. And I thought that was, I thought that, I hate to say brave because that it's an overused word. I thought it was honest and I really respected that honesty. It would be very easy to pretend that wasn't a thing, but to be honest about here is my story and it has not always been.

Ed Marsh (38:31)
Hmm.

Sharon (38:42)
happy or perfect or wonderful. It's been a mix of all of it. For my piece, I found it surprisingly difficult to write 3,000 words. That was the limit we were given. 3,000 words about my career. found it, it was interesting. And I chose to be pretty honest. I may regret that, but I...

Ed Marsh (38:54)
Okay.

That doesn't surprise me.

Sharon (39:08)
Yeah, I chose to be fairly honest about my career. did not talk about, there's some things I didn't talk about because I simply didn't have the room. You would think 3,000 words, there's a lot of room. There's not. Yeah, not to talk about a career. It's, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. mean, when your career spans decades and you've done so much like, know, plus in teaching on top of that, like that's

Ed Marsh (39:17)
Mm.

Yeah, I mean, when your career spans, you know, decades and you've done so much like, you know, plus in teaching on top of that, like, that's a that's a lot

to encapsulate in a few words, relatively few words.

Sharon (39:40)
Yeah,

I and it it was funny because I finished you know, I finished my piece and you know and then let it sit because the way my writing process is I finished piece I let it sit for a bit and cook and think about what it's done and then I come back to it and make some changes and edits but it's just my process and I finished it finished it and submitted it to the publisher and Then I just I had a moment. I'll be honest. I

I don't spend much time thinking about how wonderful I am, to be honest, because I just don't. There's a lot going on in my world. There's a lot of people who are really wonderful and I don't spend any time thinking about that. And so when I handed my piece over to the editor, I was sitting here in my office and I had a moment where I just thought, you know, you might've done okay. You might have contributed.

a little bit to the field overall and you might have done you might have made it a little better than it was when you got here and and that's okay you you you did okay i'm not done yet god knows i've still got tons more to do but i just i had a moment of satisfaction it's like you know i yeah i might have made a small difference and yeah you have that feels good like i've always

Ed Marsh (40:50)
Yeah, cool.

You have, and that feels good. I've always, one

manager asked me what my motivation was and he said his was money. And I'm like, mine was making a difference. And I think you can do that in this field. And, you know, looking back now, like I remember back in my thirties, you know, when I was just starting ish and be like, no, I haven't done much Just has been kind of easy, yada, yada, yada. And then like, well, wait a second. You take a look back at everything you've done, like not only as a ⁓ employee, but making a difference outside of that and mentoring.

Sharon (41:04)
One manager asked me what my motivation was and he said his was money. I'm like, mine was making a difference and I think you can do that in this field. you know, looking back now, like I remember back in my thirties, you know, when I was just starting ish and be like, no, I haven't done that. Just it's been kind of easy, yada, yada, yada. And they're like, wait a second. You take a look back at everything you've done, not only as a employee, but making a difference outside of that and mentoring

Ed Marsh (41:31)
and presenting and being that thing,

Sharon (41:31)
and presenting and being that.

Ed Marsh (41:33)
it's incredibly rewarding. And I look back and I was like, wait, I actually worked my ass off. And I'm sure for women, that's gotta be doubly so in a lot of ways.

Sharon (41:43)
Yeah,

I I am wired up that I need to be I need my Contributions to make a difference. So if you are looking to employ me as human widget 3592

I'm not going to be very successful in that role. I bring significant unique skills and, and I solve to me interesting, important business problems. And I need to feel like I'm valued. need to feel like what I'm doing is making a difference. I don't need the company to, know, every day going, thank you, Sharon, for being here. I'm able to generate that. feel like I'm making a difference. I can generate that on my own based on the work and the problems I'm solving.

Ed Marsh (42:03)
Mmm.

Sharon (42:30)
But I learned myself well enough to know if I'm not feeling that, I need to go find something else to do. That's the, whatever it is I'm doing, whether it's baking bread or working in tech com or teaching or I need to feel like I am making a difference, otherwise why am I here? I need to go find a place where I'm making a difference. Because...

Ed Marsh (42:38)
Hmm.

Sharon (42:55)
I'm spending a lot of time and energy thinking about this thing. And if I'm not making a difference, this is a waste of my time. That's privilege, I think. Oops. Yeah. ⁓

Ed Marsh (43:05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I want to ask about your process, a little bit of the putting the book together. Particularly, you said that you had some prompts

for those folks. And I'm curious where you started with that and what was, I saw you put it on social media. didn't pay too much attention to it because I wasn't the target audience. But I'm curious about what kind of prompts and what you put out there to get those calls for entries.

Sharon (43:29)
So I was looking for specifically at retirement, as in retired or near retirement age people. Because my initial thought was, oh, well, let's just grab all of those women who have aged out because they wanted to.

Ed Marsh (43:37)
Okay.

Sharon (43:44)
aged out of techcomm or at the age where it would not be unreasonable to expect they might be retiring at some point soon. In other words, my age or older, which I still find surprising because you take a nap when you're 42 and next thing you know, you're, you know, right, like don't take naps that that's the don't take naps in your 40s. I'm just telling you. So, and I realized just saying, hey, I'd like to hear your career.

people are going to go, well, what should I talk about? So I should give them some prompts. And so I gave them, I said, you know, if you are staring blankly at the screen, consider some or all of the following. And it was things like, how did you get into tech com? Did you study for it? Did you train for it? Did you drift into it? What was your first job? What was it like? What did you do? What did you like about that? What did you not like about that?

Ed Marsh (44:17)
Mm.

Sharon (44:40)
What was the economic impact of getting into this field? Did it make a difference? Did it provide you things that turned out to be wonderful? Like maybe, because I was thinking, know, women knowing women, and I know women, you know, maybe a woman got into this and she discovered the economic freedom. She didn't have to stay in a bad relationship. She could just walk. She'd take her kids and walk because she could support herself.

Ed Marsh (44:47)
Hmm.

Sharon (45:08)
That's huge. think that's huge. If you're in a bad relationship, that freedom is huge. So I was like, wow, that'd be interesting if that happened. So things like that. Were there situations that you encountered as a woman that you didn't see your male coworkers encountering? How did you solve that? If you did solve that, or how did you put up with that? Those kinds of things. I wanted to get...

more than just here's my career. It's like, how did your career feel? Not in a super touchy way unless you wanted to share it, but like we are breaking ground. We women in the tech industry, that generation is breaking that ground. What's that like? Right? Like, so 50 years from now, when somebody reads our story, they can get a sense of what's that like? What was it like to break this ground? And

Ed Marsh (45:39)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Sharon (46:01)
I got stories. I still cannot believe I got almost 70 stories. That's insane. Because even the publisher, when I first pitched this to the publisher, he's like, so what are you thinking? Maybe 20 stories you're thinking. I'm like, like, sure, 20 would be amazing. But, you know, let's see what comes in, you know, thinking, it's going to be 10 bad stories, right?

Ed Marsh (46:06)
That's insane.

Sharon (46:25)
And so then I got almost 70 stories and I thought, well, surely, you know, half of them will be good. And no, no, they're all good and they're all interesting and they're all a slightly different view of our field and the experience of being in our field. And I don't have words to explain how grateful I am.

that every single one of these women went, yeah, no, I'll tell my story. Yeah, I'll do it. And then did it. And then put up with me with my weekly emails and my, and my, and my, and my.

Ed Marsh (47:02)
Okay, okay.

Sharon (47:07)
Yeah. So as editor of the book and having 68 quality submissions, does that make your job easier or harder? Boy, we have a joke in my house right now because so let me back up a little bit. So this book is the first book in a series of books. The next book is going to be Women in Engineering. ⁓ And then after that, in an order yet to be determined, it's going there's going to be ⁓ people of color in technology.

Ed Marsh (47:07)
So as editor of the book and having 68 quality submissions, did that make your job easier or harder?

Okay.

Sharon (47:35)
There's going to be gays and lesbians in technology. And then depending on how those do and any interest, we may circle back and do parts two. There's a series of books here. Because what I want to do, what I realized I am doing, is I am providing a space for regular people to tell the story, to tell the history of technology, the people who actually did the work. Not Steve Jobs, not Bill Gates, not, right?

Ed Marsh (47:36)
okay.

Hmm.

Sharon (48:04)
Those are the people who led the companies, but the people who actually built the technology and did the work, especially the more marginalized people, the voices that we don't get to hear hardly ever anyway, those people need to tell their stories. What is it like to have been you, to have done the work that you did, to have worked on the projects that you worked on? How did that feel? What was it like? What were the barriers? How did you get around them? Did you get around them? Like that. What interesting technology did you get to work with?

Regular people who did the work need to tell their stories because those stories are going to get told one way or the other But we should tell our own stories. We know what what it was like. We did the work So All of that to say we have a running joke at my house that all things being equal This has not been a difficult project. I was working with professional writers who understood deadlines and I got professional pieces

Ed Marsh (48:40)
Hmm.

Sharon (49:03)
Basically when I needed them.

Ed Marsh (49:06)
that's great.

Sharon (49:07)
And my husband and I have to keep, just, the running joke is the next ones aren't gonna be this easy. They're not gonna be this easy because we're not gonna be dealing with professional writers. They should understand deadlines, but they're not gonna be professional writers. So when I edited, I edited very lightly. I didn't need to edit very heavily. And I really was committed to letting a woman's voice.

Ed Marsh (49:18)
And it's true. Yeah.

Hmm.

Sharon (49:33)
shine and let her story unfold the way that she felt her story should unfold. So my editing work was finding places where maybe the story bumped or maybe because we're all very close to our own stories, maybe where it wasn't clear, the order of events wasn't clear and we needed some clarity or especially because this is an international group, women would tell the story about

There was one woman who told the story and she lives in the Pacific Northwest and she used local vocabulary for the environment. That is normal, I would imagine, for anybody who lives in the Pacific Northwest, possibly even people who live in the United States. But for people who don't live in the United States, they won't understand. They didn't understand what she was referring to.

So there was those kinds of things, looking for things that wouldn't make sense to people outside of our culture. And then there's one piece in here that I did not initially think I was going to allow. I wanted women to tell their own stories. I did not want people to tell the story of a woman that they knew. And so, but now she's died or something, right? Like Susan Loran's, that kind of thing. I wanted women...

Ed Marsh (50:44)
Okay.

Sharon (50:46)
who were still alive telling their own story. And then I got a piece written by two women. in the submission form, they explained that this was not them. This was a woman that they studied under. But they were gonna submit this because, read the story. So I read the story. So the story is of a woman in Finland who for all intents and purposes created

the field of technical writing in Finland. Right? So, right? She taught at a university, created the field, trained all of the baby tech writer people. Right? We captured that story. I know. So, and again, another one where I just sat there crying as I'm reading this, just going, I had no idea.

Ed Marsh (51:18)
Jesus.

Ow.

Sharon (51:40)
I would, I initially was like, no, I'm not going to, and then I got halfway through the story. I'm like, oh yeah, no, we have to have the story. The story is way too important to not have captured. We have to have this story. And now I'm like, how many other stories did we not? But yeah, we caught, yeah, the things, the stories that we caught. I was sitting here in my office one day going through, you know, cause it,

Ed Marsh (52:03)
exciting.

Sharon (52:10)
there were a lot of stories to read. So a lot of reading, a lot of editing, like a lot. So I spent quite a bit of time here in my office for a bit, late summer. And Andy came in here to ask me a question. And the way my office is situated, I have my back to the door, pretty much working on this one, multiple monitors, but my favorite kind of puts my back to the door. And so I was sitting here quietly, you know, working and reading. And I don't remember whose piece I was reading, but I was reading somebody's piece. And,

And Andy came in to ask me something inconsequential like, do you want to go grocery shopping later? Something like that. And I turned around and I tears just pouring down my face. And he goes, are you crying again?

I said, yes. And he said, okay, fine. Are you okay? I said, no, no, no, no, this is not, there's nothing wrong. This is just, I'm just crying because this is amazing. This is just amazing to me. I, I.

Ed Marsh (53:04)
Hmm.

Sharon (53:09)
I come from nothing. I come from nothing. You have to understand. I feel like I have to share this with you. So when I was 14 years old, my parents individually sat me down and each one of them. And obviously they'd had a talk. Now in retrospect as an adult, I realized they'd obviously had a talk. And my mother, my father sat me down. He said, okay, so I see two things that you can do with your life.

You can be a showgirl in Vegas or you can be a lawyer. I don't really know what else you can be.

Ed Marsh (53:39)
That's an interesting conversation to have.

Sharon (53:40)
Right,

right. That dichotomy is always like, I've always been like, really dad, those were the options for me. Yeah, my mom sat me down and she said, ⁓ everybody has talents. And she really had no idea what mine were. So to say that there were low expectations for me is to, think, perhaps overstate, perhaps. Yeah, perhaps. So.

Ed Marsh (53:47)
That's that. Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon (54:06)
My life has turned out to be amazing. Like, it's magical. My life is magical. My life is magical. And so the idea that me, that I have been editing pieces from women that I have admired my entire career. Me.

Ed Marsh (54:20)
Hmm.

Sharon (54:29)
Show girl a lawyer, choose, right? Like there were times where this entire process has felt literally like an out of body experience. To be editing Ginny Reddish, I edited Ginny Reddish. ⁓ I edited Ginny Reddish. Like, okay, wow.

Ed Marsh (54:42)
Huh.

⁓ okay. Yeah, wow. Okay.

Sharon (54:56)
I... you know, that kind Right!

Ed Marsh (54:57)
And Ann Rockley and Rahel, like Ann Rockley is, you know, she was the last podcast

I had ironically back in 2022, whatever the hell year we are now. And like, she's like the mother of content strategy and Rahel too. Like, and you've got to edit their work. That's crazy.

Sharon (55:07)
She's like the mother of confidence strategy. Yes. you've got to edit their work.

I'm editing them. you? Dude, there weren't this part of why that's part of there were other reasons why, but that's part of why sometimes I would just sit here crying going, I do not believe my life. I don't believe that I'm doing this. I don't believe that I am that this project is working. I don't believe that I'm editing women.

I have profoundly admired. mean, they have done work in our field that I can't believe anybody did, that the benefit of which we've all reaped, right? Like all of it. And I'm just sitting here in my little office editing their work. you know, editing their, like.

Ed Marsh (55:48)
Hmm.

Sharon (55:57)
And they wanted to be in the project and, Like I, I can't 10 bad pieces, Ed, you have to understand.

Ed Marsh (56:06)
So it sounds like you've been through a little

bit of an emotional roller coaster during this process.

Sharon (56:10)
Yeah, I'm now at the point, it's a joke, kind of, but it's also kind of not a joke. am, we are about, at the time that we are recording this, we are at about a week from pre-sales being available. And I am pretty sure that no one's going to buy the book. And I've been pretty sure no one's going to, yeah. I've been pretty sure no one's going to buy this book since about Thanksgiving.

Ed Marsh (56:27)
I mean, take my money, damn it, Sharon. Like, take my money.

Sharon (56:37)
pretty sure no one's going to buy it. And it's gotten to the point. No, I can't do that. Andy and I, so Andy is retired. So he takes care of me and takes care of the house, which is great because I'm very busy. And so, and our kitchen, dining room, living room is all one big room. And well, actually the living room and the kitchen are all one big room. And I was sitting on the sofa a couple nights ago and ⁓

Ed Marsh (56:39)
Could you make it required reading in your classes?

Sharon (57:05)
And we were talking as he was making dinner. And there was a moment of quiet, you know, because there was a moment of quiet as merry people do. And then I looked up and I said, ⁓ I need to, I need you to tell me something. And he stopped what he was doing. Stop putting his utensils down. And then looked at me and he said, people are going to buy your book.

I said, that's good. I need to hear that. That's not what I was going to say to you, but I do need to hear that. So well done.

Yeah, I think it's going to be interesting. I would certainly buy it. I would buy it in hot second. But this has been a year of my life and...

And it means a lot to me. This project has meant an enormous amount to me. And I guess this is probably normal. This is probably a normal feeling that, yeah, nobody's going to buy this. Yeah, no one's interested, know, just me and the other writers, but we're the only ones. But it matters to me. think that this is important, not because I did it, but because I think our stories as

regular people doing, frankly, some pretty important work. I think those stories matter. And I think it matters. I do, I think it matters. Absolutely it does. Yeah. I mean, the history of TEPCOM, like, you there's not going to be a whole lot of documentation about that out there. especially, you know, geared towards the women who have made it possible over the past six decades.

Ed Marsh (58:27)
Hmm.

It absolutely does. I mean, the history of tech com, like, you know, there's not going to be a whole lot of documentation about that out there. especially, you know, geared toward the women who have made it possible over the past six decades.

Am I doing the math right? I'm not a math person. Sixty four, five decades. Yeah.

Sharon (58:50)
Am I doing the math right? Five, five decades, 1964.

six decades, six decades, yeah. Shoot, I got it right? Yeah, dude, well done. Well done, you did math on the fly, good job. did a math on the calculator and 3,000 words times 69 submissions is 207,000 words. Yeah, was a lot. How many pages is it to be? Like it's got to be like almost encyclopedic.

Ed Marsh (58:57)
Shit, I got it right.

Speaking of math, I did a math on the calculator and 3,000 words times 69 submissions is 207,000 words. So how many pages is it going to be? It's got to be like almost an encyclopedia thick.

Sharon (59:18)
Well, you know what's interesting? So now we're going to geek out for a minute. So we got all these submissions in a Google form, publisher, XML press, and huge shout out to XML press. I love XML press. He set up a form, a Google form for us to capture these pieces, the submissions, right? So we got all the submissions are all in this Google form. And I was like, okay, now I need to copy all of these into an individual, each one of these into individual Google docs.

That sounds painful and boring and I hate painful and boring. I wonder if I can automate this because I'm me and I'm the laziest person in the world. So I was like, I wonder if I could automate this. And I found out G drive, Google docs, all of that has a scripting language. I went, really? I don't code, but AI does. And so I asked AI if it could take a form and create

Ed Marsh (1:00:03)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Sharon (1:00:15)
folders and then create docs. so the bottom line is wrote a script, AI wrote a script. I use the script. went in, I told it, start here at this folder, then go look at the form, take the first letter of the first name and take the last name, two different columns, create a folder with that information and then take from this column, take that information.

open a G doc, shove it in there and then name it this and it did. It did. So I got all of that stuff automated, like it automatically. Now there was some stuff for me to clean up manually inside each Google doc, but the heavy lifting was all done automatically. I felt like the cleverest girl ever, right? Like I'm brilliant. I'm amazing. Vibe coding. Look at me, man. I'm vibe coding. This is awesome. So

Ed Marsh (1:00:48)
that's cool.

Hmm.

Sharon (1:01:12)
One of the things that I needed to know, I realized as we went on, I needed the total word count because that's going to drive page count, it's going to drive book design, it's going to do all of that. So back to AI. Asked AI to write me a script that went through, counted the exact words in each file, and then gave me a total word count. And then do that every week because there was a time period where the writers had a chance to go in and make any changes they wanted.

Ed Marsh (1:01:39)
Hmm.

Sharon (1:01:40)
to

add things, remove things, like all of that. And so I wanted to know what the ongoing word count was every week. So every week I would run that script and that let me see what the total word count was. And that was amazing. And that let me start looking at total page count, which got frightening because figuring 250 words on average per page, at one point the total page count was looking like 600 pages. And I went, my God.

⁓ that's terrifying. but I think, I think, wait, wait, wait, I actually know the answer to this. I think the total page count is four hundred and eighty. Just under five hundred and it's indexed and it's indexed brilliantly, brilliantly again, shout out to XML press and.

One of the things that we were hoping to get the book released by January, one of the things that slowed us down, but it was a great idea and it's worth slowing it down. The publisher realized that because of the book that we had, what we needed was the bibliography. A list of all the stuff that everybody wrote. And so we had to go back to the writers and ask, did you write a chapter in a book or a book? And if so,

Ed Marsh (1:02:50)
OK.

I didn't know where this was going.

Sharon (1:03:01)
send it to us, send the reference to us. And if you didn't, that's fine. There's no judgment. Just let us know you didn't. So we had to have everybody say yes or no. If yes, then provide the information. We could have gone provide all of your journal articles as well, but we needed to verify. And with STC closing down, we realized that verifying journals would be very difficult because they're not the only ones who have closed down.

Ed Marsh (1:03:14)
Okay.

Sharon (1:03:32)
And with the time period that we're looking at publishing people could have had articles back 1969. How do you verify that? Right. So we went we just said chapters and books or books that we could verify. And so that took quite a bit for people because some people have retired. They retired 20 years ago. They had to go and find you know, yeah, I do have publications, but I've got to go find it because I don't remember it. Right. So

Ed Marsh (1:03:32)
Wow, I didn't even think about that aspect of things.

Hmm.

Bye.

Sharon (1:04:00)
Yeah, it's not only the stories. It's also the publications which When you start looking at the publications you start realizing my god these women defined the field I'm not saying the men didn't do work, but my god these women my god. These women did work And then we've got this index so it's right about 500 pages Okay. Yeah Yeah Yeah, it's big And every woman has a

Ed Marsh (1:04:20)
Okay. Wow.

Sounds like it did okay.

Sharon (1:04:27)
Every woman has a small bio that she's provided at the end of her article and a picture of her. I know, I love it. I love it. ⁓

Ed Marsh (1:04:33)
That's great. How cool.

That's so cool. All right, so is there anything else you wanted to talk about or

add before we wrap up things?

Sharon (1:04:43)
Um, no, I think I I obviously could talk for hours about this but at that point it's just I'm just rambling. Um, and I, you know, at my age now rambling isn't good people's people, people go Oh, oh, she's rambling. Oh yeah, she's older now. Yeah, she's rambling. Yeah, cognitive decline. It's sad. It's a sad thing to see.

Ed Marsh (1:05:09)
You're doing great, Sharon. I'm still a fan. I could hear you ramble for a long time.

Sharon (1:05:12)
I'm still a fan. I hear you ramble for a long

time. Yeah, well my voice is like a lullaby, right?

Ed Marsh (1:05:22)
All right, so you've said XML Press is your publisher. You said pre-sales coming up soon. Tell us when we can find this, where we can find it, but all the details we need to know to give us your money.

Sharon (1:05:22)
So you said XML Press is your publisher. You said pre-sales coming up soon. Tell us when we can find this, where we can find it, all the details we need to know to give us

your money. So XML Press, will have on their home page, you'll be able to pre-order. And then once the book becomes available about the end of March, you'll be able to buy from there.

You'll also be able to buy from your favorite book reseller online. So Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other book places that I don't remember, but other book places. It'll be available internationally, ebook and physical book. And it would be outstanding if people would buy it, because I'm pretty sure no one's going to.

Ed Marsh (1:06:09)
And that's at X.

Sharon (1:06:09)
I have told

Anne, I have this personal, like if we sell a thousand copies, I'm probably gonna wind up just sitting on the floor crying. ⁓ That's probably, yeah, I think a thousand copies is gonna have me sitting on the floor crying. And I'm not a crier, but there's been a lot of crying in this book. Yeah, you wouldn't know I'm not a crier, but yeah. Yeah.

Ed Marsh (1:06:17)
Yeah.

Yeah, I say.

All right, well everyone, let's

go to xmlpress.net and make Sharon cry in a good way.

Sharon (1:06:34)
and make Sharon cry.

Yeah, we'll have t-shirts printed up with the cover of the book and they just say, I made Sharon cry.

Ed Marsh (1:06:44)
Hashtag merch.

Sharon (1:06:45)
it's been a delight,

Ed Marsh (1:06:45)
⁓

Sharon, 10, 11 years, we've at least been friends longer than that. like we've been friends in this, you know, you've bookended my career here with this podcast thing. So it's kind of damn cool. I do hope folks out there to do more podcasts. This was going to be my hey, I didn't get a job last year. So once I redid my website, I'm going to revitalize my podcast.

Sharon (1:06:47)
10, 11 years we've...

We've been friends and just, you you bookended my career.

do hope the folks out there do more.

was going to be my hey, I didn't get a job last year. So once I redid my website, I'm going to revitalize my podcast.

Ed Marsh (1:07:08)
⁓ So stay tuned, but I am thrilled that the person who was the person who brought me back was Sharon and her book. And I I encourage you all to go out and ⁓ and make Sharon cry. So thanks again for listening. ⁓ Sharon, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for making a difference. Thanks for, you know, pulling

Sharon (1:07:08)
⁓ So stay tuned. But I am thrilled that the person who was the person who brought me back with Sharon and her book. And I encourage you all to go out and make Sharon cry. So thanks again for listening. ⁓ Sharon, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for making a difference. Thanks for you know,

Ed Marsh (1:07:29)
this all together because that's you know, it's not a small task. And I'm looking forward to see the documentation of the history of documentation by women.

Sharon (1:07:29)
pulling this all together because that's, you know, it's not a small task and I'm looking forward to see the documentation of the history of documentation