Join us for a chat with Dr. Julie Christen, a Learning Experience Designer at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Hosted by Anuj Gupta, PhD Candidate at the University of Arizona and a DRC Fellow, this episode covers Julie’s journey from academia (where she did a PhD specialising rhetoric, writing, UX, and technical communication) to Amazon (where she designs learning content for cloud application developers).
Julie and Anuj talk about how to transfer academic skills that rhetoric, composition, and technical communication students possess to industry contexts. Specifically Julie sheds light on the importance of instructions and tutorials in digital writing based human workflows. Using her experiences, Julie highlights how simple, clear instructions can improve practices, reduce errors, and enhance learning. Julie shares insights from her work at AWS, discussing the digital writing culture at Amazon, audience awareness, and the role of emerging technologies like generative AI in technical communication.
Julie also gives advice on building key skills for today’s workplaces, stressing the need for research, project management, and flexibility in technical communication roles. If you’re into technical writing, UX research, digital rhetoric, or learning design, this episode is full of practical tips and insights on how to translate academic skills to industry contexts.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of Julie Christen and do not necessarily represent those of her employer, Amazon Web Services (AWS).
To learn more about Julie, you can visit her Linkdin page: www.linkedin.com/in/julie-christen/
