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POV: Your AI Tool Broke Up With You and Left You With the Workflow

Writer.ai switching to a token-based model felt like a breakup I did not consent to.

No warning. No closure. Just “this is who I am now” and suddenly I am the one doing all the work in the relationship.

My team and I built real workflows around what it enabled. Speed. Consistency. The ability to get things done without turning every task into a five-step side quest.

Now I am over here trying to make Cursor do everything Writer used to do, and I have fully entered my Wile E. Coyote era.

Confident. Focused. Slightly unhinged.

Every solution looks like a tunnel. I commit. Full speed. Strategic. Visionary.

Painted brick wall.

At this point I am watching Cursor hallucinate and then questioning myself like “is this innovation or am I just tired?”

For example. I asked for a clean logo I could reuse in headers and footers. Not a rebrand. Not a design sprint. Just something functional.

Cursor gave me something.

Half decent. Slightly off. The kind of output where you think “okay… I can fix this.”

And then it followed up with “use a freeware design app to refine it.”

Now to be clear, I have a graphic designer. This is not a total loss.

But that was never the point.

The point was not to open a ticket and turn a 2-minute tweak into a tracked deliverable.

The point was speed.

I expected that I could make small adjustments and keep moving.

Apparently… that was too much.

And yes, I even tried to reverse-engineer my old prompts so I could recreate the magic.

Those prompts did not hit the same.

Which leads to the real lesson.

Tooling changes do not just impact output. They break invisible workflows your team depends on.

So here is the advice I am learning in real time while running into walls:

1. Reverse-engineer the behavior, not just the prompt.
It is not enough to copy the words you used before. You have to break down what the tool was actually doing behind the scenes. What context was it holding? What assumptions was it making? What did “good” look like in its output?
I tried recreating my prompts exactly and still got different results. Because the magic was never just the prompt. It was the system, the defaults, and the way the tool interpreted intent. If you do not map that, you are just recreating vibes and hoping for consistency.
2. Budget for chaos. Your productivity will dip. Your patience will dip faster.
3. Do not force one tool to do everything. Build a stack that actually supports how your team works.
4. Protect your quick wins. If everything has to go through a process, you are going to feel it immediately.

Cursor is evolving. We will figure it out.

But right now I am opening another tab, debating whether this is a “quick tweak” or a sprint task, and running straight into another painted wall.

Growth.

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Staying isn’t always about loyalty. Sometimes it’s survival.



People don’t stay in toxic workplaces because they want to—they staybecause remote roles are rare, benefits are tied to survival, and leaving feels risky.

The real difference? Leadership.

Not always the executives. Often, it’s the middle managers who make you feel seen, supported, and safe. I’ve had both: the leaders who broke trust—and the ones who understood the assignment.

The ones who said, “I’m giving you that raise because I don’t want to lose you.”
Those are the leaders you go the extra mile for—because they’ve gone the extra mile for you.

And yet, companies often replace employees without ever asking:
Why isn’t this person motivated?
Why don’t they want to work for me?
Leadership sets the tone. Culture starts at the top.

And if you’re an executive and your own employees comment on your posts—and you only respond to outsiders, what does that say?

If someone gives 10 years to your company and gets no goodbye, what message does that send?
It says: You’re replaceable.
It says: We don’t see you.

Retention is leadership performance.
Look at Google—consistently named a top place to work.
Why? Because they invest in leadership, development, and a culture where people feel valued.

Celebrate your people.
Support your people.
Because when they know you have their back, they thrive.

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Remote Work Diaries: Volume 598 – “Lunch Is a Boundary. Apparently.”



Working remotely with a global team means time is a flat circle. One team’s waking up, another’s clocking out, and I’m… still here. Half-awake, half-dressed, and fully booked.

Sleep? Rare. Family time? Scheduled like a dentist appointment. Lunch? I block it off on my calendar like it’s sacred. Naturally, someone sees that and thinks, “Perfect time for a meeting!”

Yesterday I was talking with some coworkers and we ended up laughing—because one of our teammates didn’t show up to a meeting. Just didn’t come. And when someone asked where she was?
“Oh, she’s at lunch.”
Lunch. A mythical, protected break. We were amazed. In awe. Honestly, we respected the move.

Meanwhile, I’m over here answering Teams messages with one hand and reheating food with the other, dodging meetings that could’ve been emails, and hiding my raccoon eyes behind blue light glasses—because I got LASIK 15 years ago and I refuse to let the Teams shadows win.

Yes, I work hard. But I’d also like to chew in peace. Just once.

If you’re juggling time zones, skipping meals, and trying to remember what daylight feels like—you’re not alone. Here’s to setting boundaries, reclaiming lunch, and maybe even taking a breath.

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Editing Tips

Tips

Style Sheet

A style sheet is a document that an author can create to give to an editor so there are no misconceptions of the style an author would like their document to have. Design changes, fonts, types of bulleting, numbering and other style preferences are usually documented in a style sheet. A document should not list every editorial change made in the document because it isn’t a transcript of the document it is more like a guideline on stylistic changes the author would like to have in their document. To be consistent in your work and to the works of your peers, you might want to record choices that are already covered in a published style manual.

Guidelines for Editing for Style

The purpose of editing style is to increase overall document effectiveness. The guidelines for editing style are as follows:

Situation                  Make style serve readers and purpose; consider the possibility of an                                                international audience; examine the text for discrimination.

Sentence structures Use structure to reinforce meaning.

Verbs                         Convey the action in the sentence accurately and forcefully.

Nouns, adjectives    Choose words that are accurate, concrete, and understandable

Make style serve purpose and readers

Editing text must suit the audience as well as its purpose so there should be variation in style depending on the situation.

If you are editing a journal article that will be read overseas you would have to make sure that the language is appropriate. You would have to check over the document and make sure that everything is defined correctly because what is common knowledge here may not be common knowledge there.

If you are editing a proposal you must first think of your audience and edit the paper appropriately. In most of these cases your approach will be formal as it is a proposal. Therefore you would have to make sure the wording is formal as well as the stylistic appearance.

For more editing tips visit this web address to access The Technical Editors’ Eyrie:http://www.jeanweber.com/newsite/?page_id=5

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DITA

DITA_finch

Darwin Information Typing Architecture

DITA stands for Darwin Information Typing Architecture. The purpose of DITA is to standardize the architecture of XML data modeling in technical writing, according to the OASIS DITA Technical Committee. In documentation planning it is important to have a standardize model of XML data especially when using XML languages with different programs.

DITA is not a tool but there are tools that support DITA. The use of DITA topic-oriented architecture may influence document planning because it is only accessible in certain programs. Therefore, if DITA is being used in a project this would mean that you may not be able to use Microsoft Word for the document because DITA isn’t available in that program. In choosing programs that enable DITA architecture three names come to mind, Adobe FrameMaker 9, DITA FMX and DITA for Publishers.

Why Use DITA?

Before thinking about the pros and cons of DITA, we, as a company must look at if we could implement DITA and reuse the contents of the documents. DITA’s reuse feature is key to many projects because, it will save us time in building style guides and distributing them. The content is built into the tool and can be built on and reused and even changed. DITA is uniform so it is great for multi-language and multi-format documents. In the long run using DITA will save the company a lot of time and money (Wlodarczyk, 2014).

Of the many reasons to use DITA out there, the main reason that would benefit our company would be that DITA supports information sharing. Some of the other reasons to use DITA are as follows:

  • DITA unifies XML Language
  • Topic-based DITA offers flexibility in content organization by allowing you to order, reorder and nest topics to create any kind of information product.
  • You can reuse the Modularity and topics can be used in more than one deliverable at once.
  • Topics can be presented one at the time in a simple flat online help system, or together in a complex multi-level book structure.
  • You can adapt the tag vocabulary to fit your own specific needs.
  • New topic types can be created from existing ones, which allows for evolution over time.
  • One of DITA’s main advantages is that adding new topics does not make previous projects incompatible with new ones(Baril, 2006).

When DITA Fails to Prevail

DITA, is reliable if the structure is reliable. The team has to be strong and have a fail proof structure for their content. DITA will fail only if the team isn’t being thorough with content or planning. Below are some of the reasons why DITA would fail:

  • Failure to plan:This includes charging ahead without requirements and an ROI framework, but also under-budgeting, not appointing a project lead, not setting aside time for meetings or training, etc.
  • Publishing:plug-in, publishing pipeline, and style sheet development all require skills that are not widely available, so to find someone competent you are almost required to work with a consultant or software vendor.
  • Bad, weak, or missing content strategy.
  • Misguided reuse strategy
  • Specialization too early in the project.
  • Failure to constrain DITA: Simpler is better(Wlodarczyk, 2014).

Analysis of DITA Tools

Adobe FrameMaker: FrameMaker also allows you to generate online output by installing the DITA Open Toolkit and the FrameMaker plug-in that adds the Generate Output menu option. Although FrameMaker is adaptable, there are errors in DITA topics. Sometimes, FrameMaker displays red text when it encounters something it can’t deal with in a DITA file. Usually, the problem is that you have opened a file that has been formatted to look pretty (“pretty print”) in an XML editor such as Oxygen. (Terry, 2008) FrameMaker allows you to insert elements where they are not allowed by the schema. Sure, it will raise a warning when you try to save a file that violates the schema. Then you can try to fix the issue, if Adobe doesn’t crash first, or if you don’t need to resort to editing the XML. Some other con’s to Adobe FrameMaker are:

  • You lose undo history after saving a file.
  • There is no raw XML view–the closest is an option to view the open file in Notepad.
  • It pollutes the markup. For example, it adds attributes for tables and images.

This tool is good for learning DITA because it forces you to fix all of the bugs before you implement the DITA. Otherwise, if you’re looking for a quick and easy DITA tool FrameMaker isn’t the one you need.

DITA FMX: . DITA FMX is a plugin for Adobe FrameMaker. Adobe is a trusted name when it comes to technical writing. This being said when using frame maker one of the best features, is being able to create PDF files. DITA FMX plug-in improves upon the DITA support provided with Adobe FrameMaker 8 and FrameMaker9, including increased coverage of the DITA 1.1 specification and improvements to the authoring experience. (Alan, 2010). It allows you to create PDF’s in FrameMaker. DITA FMX allows Frame Maker Users to enjoy using FrameMaker for all of your DITA needs without as many bugs.

DITA for Publishers: DITA for Publishers is a community forum to enable publishers to learn how to use and implement DITA. Some of the features of DITA for Publishers are:

  • Allows users to use the Toolkit plugins to process publication maps
  • Use the Word-to-DITA transformation framework to convert consistently-styled Word documents into DITA maps and topics.
  • Use the DITA-to-InDesign transforms to generate InCopy and InDesign documents from DITA source.(DITA for Publushers, 2013)

DITA for Publishers is a great tool for learning DITA and implementing DITA in maps and publications. This program provides a great start up for using DITA in all documentations not only technical writing. It is cost effective and a great tool for publications.

 

Choosing the Right Program

Looking at the three programs I have compared, the best option for our company to go with is, the DITA FMX program. Although, DITA for Publishers is a very cost effective program it isn’t a professional program. There isn’t the ability to reuse information or create Multilanguage DITA files. Adobe Frame Maker alone has a great DITA program but there are many bugs associated with the program that are easily fixed with the DITA FMX plug in. Since two of our writers are already working in Adobe FrameMaker the DITA FMX plug in will enhance the features they are currently using as well as enable them to create PDF documents. The PDF documents will enable quick viewing from portable devices and easy editing. Adobe Frame Maker has the capability of file sharing which will make sharing our work over long distance less complicated.

Works Cited

Alan. (2010, January 6). LEXIMATION RELEASES DITA-FMX 1.1. Retrieved from groupwellesley: http://www.groupwellesley.com/2010/01/06/leximation-releases-dita-fmx-10/

Baril, F. (2006, April 13). Benefits of using DITA. Retrieved from DITA XML . Org: http://dita.xml.org/benefits-using-dita

Colborn, B. (2012, January 10). FrameMaker is a Real DITA Editor.. A Very Poor One. Retrieved from Ditanaughts.org: http://ditanauts.org/2012/01/10/framemaker-is-a-real-dita-editor-a-very-poor-one/

DITA for Publushers. (2013, April 21). Retrieved from DITA 4 Publishers: http://dita4publishers.sourceforge.net/

Terry, S. (2008, November). DITA Authoring in FrameMaker 8. Retrieved from Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/Scriptorium/authoring-dita-in-frame-maker-presentation

Wlodarczyk, P. (2014, February 16). How to Decide if DITA is Right for You and Where to Learn More. Retrieved from Easy DITA: http://easydita.com/how-to-decide-if-dita-is-right-for-you-and-where-to-learn-more/

 

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Website Critique

Website critique

Background Information:

BabyCenter_Logo 

Http://www.babycenter.com/ is a great go to website, for tips and information for new and expectant parents. This website has valuable information for any parent of children varying in age, from in utero, to approximately age ten. Some of this information includes product recalls, nutritional information, advice and support, pregnancy facts week by week and many other useful tools.

A great feature of the website is the email newsletters. Once the user has signed up for weekly emails, the website takes their information and generates an email based on the child/fetus’s age. In the emails, users can find details on parenting tips for various stages and age ranges for infants. These tips includes information like, when to stop feeding certain foods and for the pregnant mothers it sends weekly updates of the fetus’s growth patterns.

Arrangement

This website is unsuccessful at achieving suitable, eye catching arrangement. At first glance this website looks extremely cluttered. There is a lot of information coming at the reader in all different forms of content. There are videos on the right side of the screen and two tool bars at the top of the screen which appears to be dynamic. This can be overwhelming, especially for a new mother, who is seeking out advice and tips on caring for a newborn. Every link on the page seems to be clustered at the top and as you scroll down, there appears to be white space nearing the “more tools” and “contact us” section.

Emphasis

 

When looking at this website you can tell that the designer is emphasizing the tools that help parents in calculating various things, the support blogs and the video of the week. These items have a fairly large heading in comparison to the font in the tool bars and they are grey in contrast to the white background. The video of the week is fairly large and is eye catching because the definition is different from the pictures on the rest of the screen.

Clarity

 

This website isn’t very clear. There is a lot of clutter on the screen and it is, seemingly hard to navigate. The designer attempts to create on screen clarity by, putting boxes around the content to frame it. This just groups the information in a non-definitive order. If the website had listed the content in alphabetical order it would have improved the clarity.

 

Conciseness

 

The website designer was very concise when it comes to: the grey scale in the headings on the page, the boxes around the featured text, bold in the font in the tools section and the green blue and white color scheme. The issue is that, the elaborate design in this website, slows down the usability and restricts users who would want to move quickly through the information.

Tone

 

The tone of this website is visually frenetic, there is a lot going on, on the page at once. The designer seems to be more interested in emphasizing the tools on the page, than the information. The underlying tone is professional. The authors of this website want to deliver the most professional, up-to-date medical information, available and you can see this in their wording.

Ethos

 

The “babycenter” website has the look and feel of a magazine. They are targeting women who predominantly read magazines by, adding tools and quizzes to give the website a trusting vibe. Women who grew up reading magazines as their primary source of information, will be drawn to this website just by its design layout. They will in turn, trust the content of the website as they have trusted the content of so many magazines over the years, therefore building ethos.

Gestalt Principles

 

The following table explains how the http://www.babycenter.com designers incorporate the Gestalt Principles in their design.

 

Principle How babycenter.com Incorporates the principle
Figure-Ground Contrast This principle is predominantly shown in the framing of the content on the website. The frame makes the content stick out from the background showing importance. The darker tone enhances the white field in the background
Degrading Figure-Ground with Visual Noise The visual noise in this website occurs towards the bottom of the page, where you see lists and advertisements. The web designers purposely put white space in-between the content of the page and the visual noise to enhance the contents in the framed boxes.
Grouping The grey boxes around the content, fences off one group from another on the page. Although there is a list of tools at the bottom of the page, the most significant titles are grouped and sectioned off by grey frames. The closure of the text creates cohesion.
Patterns: Creating Groups Across the Communication The layout of this website is a large pattern. The tools and advice topics are bolded in an aquamarine color. The important headings are portrayed in dark grey color. The advertisements are colored in green. Any type of “go”, “join now”, “go, calculate” or search buttons, is in a green color.

 Visual Language Matrix

 

Below is a model of the visual language matrix which incorporates the four levels of design and the three coding modes. This matrix is filled out in accordance to the applicable information visible on http://www.babycenter.com.

  Textual Spatial Graphic
Intra ·         Plain Type Style

·         12 point font

 ·         Normal spacing between characters ·         Punctuation marks
Inter ·         Hyperlinks ·         Two clearly visible margins on the left and right side of the page

 

 ·         Text boxes surrounding important text

·         Aquamarine colored hyperlinks
Extra ·         Captions for Visuals ·         In the center of the page the picture size for the three links are the same size ·         Pictures are detailed

·         Pictures are in color

·         Use of color for data displays
Supra ·         Navigational Bars

·         Section Headings

·         Initial letters signaling the start of an article and major text segments

 ·         Page is a scrollable length

·         Portrait landscape

·         Placement of the data and pictures are visually appealing

 ·         Use of color scheme in text

·         Grey Scales around articles, pictures and videos

·