You don’t necessarily have to take this headline seriously. And that is because I do not see myself as a media guru, but many people do. I see myself as a student who has enjoyed learning within the media space for over a decade. From being a newsroom rat at Tribune Newspapers to the Ministry of Information in Ogun State, Complete Sports in Lagos, OOH firm in Abuja, Digital Ad agency, development media and BTL Marketing. Looks like I have seen it all, right? Enough of media, how did tech get into the story?

Well, the tech industry is a rapidly growing one and it is almost a ubiquitous trade. This may explain why I met Sukanmi Fafowora, a corps member at my office. A calm, focused and very ambitious young man. A Computer science graduate from the University of Lagos and expectedly a programmer. In our short time of meeting, Sukanmi seems to have observed a few of my strengths and is mean about getting me to be better at it and perhaps try something new. I hope nobody has a problem with learning from someone younger. If you do, then you are missing a lot in life and about life.

So, what did Sukanmi want me to do? He simply said, “Mr Moshood, I think you can be a technical writer, and you can earn more than you presently do after learning. Every tech skill requires a minimum of 6 months for the newbie to learn but I believe you can learn in 3 months. These words were enough for me to get into it. And I did.

But at first, my understanding of technical writing was that is it a special kind of writing meant for a specific field of knowledge using jargon or lexicons peculiar to the field. But when Sukanmi sent me a handful of materials to read, I discovered I knew nothing about technical writing.

In my discovery, I found that technical writing is about breaking down and explaining technical terms in software development and tech generally in a simpler, easy-to-understand language to the end user of these products. It includes product features, user guides or manuals, FAQs, and much more. I also found that there are two broad types of technical writing (there could be more). User-focus technical writing and Developer-focus technical writing. My readings summarised that I needed to understand programming to be a respected technical writer. This was an onion bulb for me. I didn’t see it coming.

So, Sukanmi again suggested a few online resources to learn programming from. He advised that I go for Python, stating that it would give me an easy landing to learn as a newbie.

To cut the story short, I have taken the first step on codecademy.com by learning the first module out of 13 modules. Learning to write codes using the # sign and parenthesis is interesting. I know there will be more challenges up front, and I can’t wait to deal with them over time.

For now, the next move is to sign up for the 7-day free trial on codecademy.com and see if I can complete the course before the free trial expires. Meanwhile, this article is also an assignment from my tech mentor, Sukanmi Fafowora. And I want you to watch this space for my progress. I wish myself the best.