History

Shauna McGee Kinney is a technical writer and web content manager. Her emphasis is translating geek-en-ese (technical and engineering language) into business English.

Evolving with Technology

Shauna started teaching computers to seniors in the Los Angeles and Pasadena areas in the early 1990′s. What started as a hobby and weekend job, quickly became a full-time career. She observed that adults have short attention spans – 45 min to an hour and a half. And, she saw that adults remembered what they learned if they needed and used the skills within the next 48 hours.

As Shauna expanded her teaching to businesses, she realized that many smart, younger people like investors, attorneys and accountants came from a generation before the computer. She saw how they worked and decided to turn the tables – making the computer fit into a person’s work … not the other way around. Her task-based training led her to write tip-sheets and computer training manuals for office-tasks, not a book about computer functions.

During the 10-plus years that she supported computer users with desk-side support and training, she collaborated with (and continues to work with) Productivity Consulting (“Helping computers work with people!”) and MacTech Services Pasadena. Shauna has led computer training in a variety of corporate classrooms in the automotive, entertainment and education industries.

Say What Needs to Be Said

As the newer, younger generations have started working in offices, Shauna has watched these people struggle to simplify and change their communication so that people outside of their industry understand ideas. She’s reversed-engineered her teaching computers to the non-computer generation to help the computer-generation explain their concepts to a broader audience. She’s constantly evolving and observing both her clients and their audience to adapt the words to best say what needs to be said!

Shauna currently supports website clients in California and in Perth – Australia. Her support includes converting websites to systems that admin staff can logon to and update. In addition to making websites accessible to businesses staff, she provides as-needed updates to the websites. Recent work has included online software including contact management PlatFForm.com and event registration systemsEventArc.com. She has been writing and distributing news releases through services like WordPress.com and PRlog.org .