Mark Siddall, Technical Content Specialist
Meet the team behind CloudM in our new series; Great Minds Make Great Tech
When we look at the world around us, technology has become deeply embedded into our way of life. Technology can help with our healthcare, our finances, and our businesses. Though at times, it might seem like an effortless grind to make all these wonders work, behind the scenes, there are people working to bring that technology to life; improving it, maintaining it, and taking it to market.
At CloudM, we pride ourselves on our team. That’s why we want to highlight our staff in this new series, Great Minds Make Great Tech. First, we spoke with Mark, who has been a technical writer at CloudM for just over two years now and has watched the company grow over its expansion period.
Without further ado, this is just one of the people who make CloudM great.
Meet Mark
I’m the Technical Content Specialist. I take the difficult concepts and the technology, and distil them into simple explanations, walk-throughs, and instructions.
“One of the things in the Tech industry is that a lot of the people are clever and technically gifted, but some can become quite isolated with that. CloudM gives you an environment where you feel safe to reach out to your colleagues.”
My background is key
Being a creative writer foremost, and also having the technical ability, means taking the technical stuff that can sometimes be a bit dry and emphasizing certain aspects to make it more engaging. Having that creative approach gives you a few more tools to explain things in an engaging way to the end-user.
My favorite part of the working week is…
…meetings with my colleagues because learning what’s going on with the people, business, and product are always exciting. We have some amazing people who work for the company. Everyone is on a really similar wavelength. We’re all different people but we all seem to click.
CloudM is not a typical office job
Everyone is really friendly. Everyone is really knowledgeable. Everyone is really helpful. We’re a team and you can tell that from the off. When new people come in, we do everything we can to welcome them in. There’s loads of progression so you don’t have to come in as an expert. You can come in and improve yourself. Everyone improves themselves at CloudM through training, through just being around other people, and learning on the job. It’s a really good atmosphere. I even feel I learn from new recruits when they come in because seeing the new approaches they bring to the table sparks new energy.
We’re trusted to crack on with our work
Here, you can just crack on and do it. There’s a great trust. When I started at CloudM, I knew I was a great technical writer but I wasn’t a great organizer or strategist but now I’m leading projects and I’m doing it well.
I have people in more senior roles that are comfortable and confident to let me lead projects, talk to different people within the business, contribute to leadership meetings, and value my opinion. I think my family would be happy and impressed to see I’m a lot more confident in myself outside of the typical writing role.
Every single day is different…
There is always something different that is going to happen. It’s challenging but also, at the end of it, you’re doing something to help end-users. You have to be ready for anything, which can seem scary, but at CloudM, everyone is up for the challenge.
Of CloudM’s four company values, Crack On is my favorite
It’s just the ability to be trusted to do the job. There’s always a bit of a review process, but I’ve been in places before where you were bogged down by bureaucracy. I felt it would stop me from being able to do things. With CloudM, I’m the expert in my role. They want me to crack on. They’ve employed me to do it as the expert, so they let me do it.
"Don’t get stressed because there are people that can help. Something you don’t know or can’t do, there is someone that can and will help you."
We’ve got so many brilliant people from so many diverse backgrounds. Technical. Creatives. Sales. Support. Customer experience. We’re all heading in the same direction and it feels really good to be a part of that. Everyone knows the goal and everyone’s there to support each other.
My career highlight is…
…when I first joined the company, we had a knowledge base. We were maintaining it and it was okay, but there were always things I wanted to improve. We did a knowledge base update as a project. I had to make the UI better, make the labeling better, and make the articles better. We were basically doing a massive refresh. I led that project from start to finish with multiple people from different departments. In the end, we created what we’ve got now. We’ve had really good feedback internally and externally. I feel confident knowing I’ve done my job, and made a difference at the company.
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