I'd Rather Be Writing Podcast
Topics and issues for technical writers. Improve your technical communication role. Empower users with better documentation.
- Update frequency
- every 22 days
- Average duration
- 41 minutes
- Episodes
- 323
- Years Active
- 2006 - 2025
Discoveries and realizations while walking down the Docs-as-Code path
This past week I had some good discussions with developers about the right directions in our doc-as-code project at work. I say good discussions, but actually they were challenging. The outcome led m…
00:23:59 |
Wed 23 Aug 2017
Why Stack Overflow's Documentation effort failed -- a few thoughts from a technical writer's perspective
Stack Overflow, mostly known as a forum for answering niche software questions, recently tried to launch a Documentation component to their site. The goal of Documentation was to 'do for Documentatio…
00:12:09 |
Sat 05 Aug 2017
Tech docs and Agile: Problems with integrating tech writers into engineering Scrums (Part 1)
Although it seems like documentation should be treated like other features worked on by a Scrum team, frequently it is not. When tech writers try to integrate into engineering Scrum teams, they usual…
00:35:04 |
Fri 04 Aug 2017
Tech docs and Agile: Alternatives to integrating into engineering Scrums (Part 2)
This is part two in a series on Agile and tech docs. In the previous post, I outlined challenges in integrating into engineering Scrum teams. Some alternatives to Scrum include Kanban, Extreme progra…
00:31:07 |
Fri 04 Aug 2017
Why simple language isn't so simple: the struggle to create plain language in documentation
Although you can adjust your content's style to be simpler and more readable, technical documentation introduces many new terms and concepts for readers to learn. Many readers who don't already under…
00:30:12 |
Thu 27 Jul 2017
When the pain of ignorance exceeds the pain of learning
Users turn to documentation when the pain of their ignorance exceeds the pain of learning. Unfortunately, this is the worst state of mind to try to learn anything in. To address this impatient state …
00:17:52 |
Sun 23 Jul 2017
Transparency in documentation: dealing with limits about what you can and cannot say
Although traditionally as a technical writer you don't run into too many ethical scenarios for docs, sometimes you have situations where your ability to be transparent about a system's limitations ge…
00:18:28 |
Thu 13 Jul 2017
Recording of my WTD Portland 2017 presentation on Building navigation for your doc site -- 5 best practices
Here's the recording of the presentation I gave at the Write the Docs 2017 Portland conference. The presentation explores best practices for doc navigation, including principles such as hierarchy, mo…
00:21:19 |
Thu 08 Jun 2017
Recording of User-Centered Design Principles for Organizing Documentation
I recently presented to the STC Twin Cities chapter on User-centered Design Principles for Organizing Documentation. When organizing your documentation, such as arranging navigation titles, workflows…
00:57:58 |
Sat 18 Feb 2017
Recording: Modern Technical Writing, by Andrew Etter (STC Silicon Valley chapter)
Andrew Etter presented about his book, Modern Technical Writing, to the STC Silicon Valley chapter on January 24, 2017 in Santa Clara, California. In the presentation, Andrew talks about the strategi…
01:02:00 |
Tue 24 Jan 2017
Recording: Writing tech docs like a hacker with Jekyll
I recently gave a presentation titled Writing tech docs like a hacker with Jekyll to the to the Southern Ontario STC chapter (on Jan 18, 2017). In the presentation, I introduce reasons why we started…
00:59:18 |
Wed 18 Jan 2017
Recording of Open Authoring -- Collaboration Across Disciplines presentation, by Ralph Squillace
Ralph Squillace, a senior content engineer for the Microsoft Azure Infrastructure team based in San Francisco, California, recently gave a presentation to the STC Silicon Valley chapter (on November …
01:36:25 |
Tue 15 Nov 2016
Saving Your Sanity Through Better Client Relations -- with Alisa Bonsignore
In this presentation, Alisa Bonsignore, a technical communication consultant based in the San Francisco Bay area, talks about how she developed confidence and experience in consulting with clients ab…
00:55:22 |
Tue 18 Oct 2016
How can technical writers thrive in agile environments? Event recording and details
Last Monday we had a record turnout at our STC Silicon Valley chapter (with about 40 attendees). The topic was a panel discussion on how to thrive in agile environments as a technical writer. With 5 …
01:05:35 |
Tue 20 Sep 2016
Balancing the never-ending list of documentation to write with your natural interests and passions
Sometimes I think that I've covered every possible topic on this blog that is possible to write about, and my muse becomes silent for a while. But then I remember the purpose of the blog -- to be a w…
00:11:56 |
Fri 02 Sep 2016
Recording of Let's Tell a Story -- Scenario-Based Documentation, by Matt Ness (STC Silicon Valley Presentation)
Matt Ness, a technical writer at Splunk and a co-organizer for WTD San Francisco, recently gave a presentation to the STC Silicon Valley chapter called Let's Tell a Story: Scenario-Based Documentatio…
00:55:28 |
Fri 02 Sep 2016
The complexities of translation and the need for dynamic variables in the build process
Translation is a complex undertaking that usually requires you to take advantage of dynamic variables and other parameters in your source format in order to generate out different languages. Although…
00:14:05 |
Mon 15 Aug 2016
Presentation recording: Hunting for API developer documentation jobs in the San Francisco Bay area, by Andrew Davis
Andrew Davis recently gave a presentation on finding developer documentation jobs (mostly for API documentation) in the San Francisco Bay area. The title of the presentation is Hunting for Dev Doc Wo…
01:13:42 |
Mon 15 Aug 2016
The Story of Paligo: A new browser-based CCMS with all the features you'd ever want
Up until two years ago, Anders Svensson and his colleagues, based in Sweden, provided DITA and XML consulting. They eventually created their own XML-based component content management system (CCMS) c…
00:08:46 |
Mon 01 Aug 2016
Will the docs-as-code approach scale? Responding to comments on my Review of Modern Technical Writing
My previous post reviewing Andrew Etter's ebook on Modern Technical Writing got an enormous response. Some readers said the docs-as-code approach works only for small shops and doesn't scale to large…
00:16:24 |
Mon 01 Aug 2016
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