I'd Rather Be Writing Podcast Feed

<a href='https://www.archbee.com/'>Archbee</a> is a relatively new documentation tool that offers a block-based editor, API publishing capability, content re-use, and more. The initial version of Archbee was released in early 2019. Since then, the product has been steadily ramping up in features and growing its customer base. In this podcast, I chat with Claudiu Dascalescu about Archbee, the features driving its adoption, their target audience, and more.

This post is <a href='/trends/trends-to-follow-or-forget-intro.html'>part of a series</a> that explores tech comm trends that I've either followed or forgotten, and why. The overall goal is to better understand the reasons that drive trend adoption or abandonment in my personal career. This post contains a keynote presentation I gave to STC India on March 26, 2022.

I recently chatted with Bobby Kennedy to learn more about the technical writing courses he's offering at <a href='https://becometechnicalwriter.com'>becometechnicalwriter.com</a>. In this podcast, he shares a bit about why he started offering technical writing courses, some of the activities and strategies in the courses, and the outcomes so far.

I recently gave a presentation called <i>How to increase awareness of tech comm inside corporate walls</i> at the <a href='https://megacomm.org'>MEGAComm 2022 conference</a>, which is a conference for tech comm professionals in Israel. The recording, slides, and description of my presentation are available below.

I recently gave an online presentation about product overviews and getting started tutorials in API docs, sponsored by the STC Washington, D.C.-Baltimore Chapter. This post provides a recording of the presentation and related details.

I recently gave a keynote presentation at tcworld China 2021 on the topic of tech comm and marketing. This post provides a recording of the presentation, slides, and detailed notes for the presentation.

I recently gave a <a href='https://www.technical-communication.org/tekom/webinars/upcoming-webinars?tx_zwbisdreiwebinars_webinar%5Baction%5D=detail&tx_zwbisdreiwebinars_webinar%5Bcontroller%5D=Webinar&tx_zwbisdreiwebinars_webinar%5Bwebinar%5D=68&cHash=b1f684b4bedfe40825c942dd02b5fa45'>webinar to tekom Europe</a> about product overviews and getting started tutorials. The recording and slides are below.

In this videocast, I chat with Kate Schneider about micro content and Flare. Kate shares micro content examples from her current documentation and explains the strategies she considers when creating micro content. She shows specifically how to leverage analytics in determining micro content topics.

In a <a href='/blog/document-360-review/'>previous post</a>, I explored how <a href='https://document360.io/?ref=idratherbewriting'>Document360</a>, a new cloud-based documentation platform, handles API documentation scenarios. This time, I decided to record a podcast with Saravana Kumar, founder of Document360, to get the behind-the-scenes story about how Document360 came about, what's driving their fast pace of development, and their roadmap for the future.

In this podcast, I chat with Jonathon Colman about an innovative work model they implemented at Intercom with content designers. In their experimental model, content designers were allocated to one project only, and they expanded their roles to include not only content design but product design as well. These content/product designers engaged on a deeper level to help products succeed.

Although doc reviews are a central part of the tech writing process, it's often a challenge to get teams to review docs. One tip is to bring a list of questions to the doc review. This provides more structure and focus to the review meeting.

I'm trying out a new writing productivity tip that seems to be working fairly well for me: focus sessions. A writing focus session is a one-hour session focused on a writing task. I made a goal last week of doing four writing focus sessions (at work) each day. I figured I should at least be able to devote half of my work day as a professional technical writer doing writing. This technique has boosted my writing productivity recently.

Recently I chatted with Kristof van Tomme, CEO and co-founder of Pronovix, about a topic that's become increasingly relevant in the past several months: how to deal with complex, rapidly evolving landscapes. Specifically, we focus on developer portal strategies that involve finding a balance between constraints and flexibility. Too many constraints reduces your ability to adapt to uncertain changes that might require innovative, unknown solutions. Too much flexibility might not lead to any coherent, overarching story about how to use your APIs in an integrated way toward a business goal.

I recently presented a session at the <a href='https://apithedocs.org/virtual'>API the Docs virtual series</a> on Wednesday, May 27, 2020, as part of the <i>5th edition</i>. My session covered dev doc trends, and another session covered API design. A recording of my presentation is available below.

I recently co-presented in a <a href='https://www.meetup.com/Write-the-Docs-Australia'>WTD Australia event</a> titled <a href='https://www.meetup.com/Write-the-Docs-Australia/events/270641270/'>Techcomm in the times of pandemic</a> on May 28, 2020. The other presenter was professor Kirk St. Amant. A recording is available below.