Episodes

  • How to get hired as a tech writer with Sue Brandt

    How to get hired as a tech writer with Sue Brandt
    May 15 2025
    In this episode, I’m talking with Sue Brandt, a former Director of Documentation who’d hired around 60 people when we recorded the episode. We discuss practical strategies for technical writing job applications, what hiring managers are really looking for in resumes and interviews, and how to stand out in today’s competitive job market.Episode NotesSue and I discuss various aspects of the tech writing job application process, including resumes, cover letters, and interviews. Sue, who has hired around 60 people throughout her career, emphasizes that enthusiasm is often a key differentiator for candidates.Throughout the episode, Sue shares practical tips based on her experience managing tech writing teams of up to 30 people, including ways to stand out as an applicant, how to handle situations where you may not have the exact technical skills in a job description but can demonstrate transferable skills and a willingness to learn, resume and portfolio best practices, how to honestly address gaps in employment, and more. The episode concludes with a discussion of career transitions and the importance of being open to learning new things.About Sue BrandtSue was educated as a biologist, did postdoc research into marine microorganisms, and named 13 new species! She moved a little closer to the tech field when she worked with computer scientists on a bioinformatics project and found herself in the role of "translator" between computer scientists and biologists. Her tech writing career unofficially started when someone looked over her shoulder when she was job searching and said "You could do that.” Sue worked as a Technical Writer at a UK startup for 3 years, then moved to Denmark and worked at Microsoft for 13 years as a Programming Writer and then Developer Documentation Manager. She was always adamant that she didn't want to be a manager, but she was persuaded to try it and found out she loved it! She became Director of Documentation at Sitecore and managed 30 writers, editors, and developers working on 10 different products in 6 countries.—Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:Email: tnbtw@knowledgeowl.comthenotboringtechwriter.comLinkedInBlueskyJoin the discussion by replying Contact Kate Mueller: knowledgewithsass.comLinkedInBlueskyContact Sue Brandt:LinkedInContact KnowledgeOwl:KnowledgeOwl.comLinkedIn—TranscriptKate Mueller: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Not-Boring Tech Writer, a podcast sponsored by KnowledgeOwl. Together, we explore topics and hear from other writers to help inspire us, deepen our skills and foster our distinctly not-boring tech writing community.Kate Mueller: [00:00:18] Hello my lovely fellow not-boring tech writers. I'm Kate Mueller and today's guest, I have to say, also has a storied past. I love interviewing people who got into tech writing by accident after they did something else. And today's guest definitely qualifies as that. She was educated as a biologist and did post-doc research, and then slowly moved into bioinformatics before ending up in tech writing, and then also ended up being a people manager at some point in there. Lots of unexpected twists and turns, and you know how much I love a good, not boring, 'twisty and turny' story. I'm very excited to welcome to the pod today, Sue Brandt. Sue, welcome!Sue Brandt: [00:01:00] Hi! Thanks very much, it's great to be here. I'm looking forward to the talk.Kate Mueller: [00:01:04] So excited to have you. For our listeners, I just spoiled a little of it I think, but can you give us your tech writer villain origin story? How did you get into tech writing in the beginning?Sue Brandt: [00:01:16] I'm wondering, is there anyone who actually planned to be in tech writing from early on? It seems like everyone just falls into it by strange and wonderful means. I've heard all sorts of stories. My story is that I was looking for a new role. I was doing post-doc research and I enjoyed it, but it was really stressful to have to keep applying for new grants and not knowing if you still had a job in a few months. I had no idea what I wanted to do instead. I was looking at everything within about a 40 kilometer radius from my home. Someone was looking over my shoulder and pointed to something and said, you could do that.Kate Mueller: [00:01:50] The infamous tech writer "oh, you could do that". Lo and behold, you could do that and you did.Sue Brandt: [00:01:55] I was super lucky because the hiring manager was somebody who took a chance on me. I was writing about how you use software to program hardware, and I didn't know anything about software or hardware or tech writing, but somehow she twigged that I might be good at this and gave me a chance. So as I say, I was super lucky.Kate Mueller: [00:02:18] This makes me really love that we're trying to talk about how you get hired today, because it's funny how those little moments of somebody maybe taking a chance...
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    41 mins
  • Kate sounds off on knowledge sharing and docs stewardship

    Kate sounds off on knowledge sharing and docs stewardship
    May 1 2025
    In this solo episode, Kate shares an update on her content update progress. She also reflects on Marcia Riefer Johnston’s interview (S3:E8) and on the idea of docs stewardship as opposed to docs ownership.I’ve continued my work to update the KnowledgeOwl Support Knowledge Base to align with major navigation and UI changes that were rolled out in December. I updated an additional 91 articles since my last episode, taking my total to 457. 🎉 I also reorganized another three Features subcategories, taking me to the milestone of having updated half those categories using content type-inspired information architecture. I also relocated 12 mice from my basement.Marcia’s episode prompted a lot of reflection for me. Her infectious, unbridled enthusiasm for this work—from learning new tools to new domains— reminded me of all the reasons I love the craft of technical writing, and how thankful I am that for the last year I’ve largely “only” been doing technical writing. I also appreciated Marcia’s exhortations to share what you know because you never know what great things will come from sharing your knowledge. Too often, we don’t share what we know because we don’t think we know “enough” (whatever that is). But sharing knowledge is a gift to others.Thanks to a conversation with a friend, I’ve started to come around to the idea of docs stewardship rather than docs ownership. “Stewardship” comes from the Old English words for house and guard. Stewards originally managed estates for medieval lords. I extend this into the world of documentation (doesn’t “Guardian of the Docs” sound like an awesome way to describe what we do? Maybe a swag idea, too, non?). Most modern definitions of stewardship include the idea of “careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care” (source), though they may also add sustainability, ethical use, or “a duty to protect and maintain assets which might be natural, financial, or informational” (source). Marcia’s observation that a lot of a tech writer’s job involves project and process management aligns with this approach, I believe. I explore some other ways I like this docs stewardship model and then draw a comparison between tech writers and gardeners.Resources discussed in this episode:KnowledgeOwl Support KB, Features categoryMerriam Webster’s definition of stewardshipmeaningdictionary.com’s explanation of StewardChris Drew’s 25 Stewardship ExamplesTNBTW Episode 8—Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:Email: tnbtw@knowledgeowl.comthenotboringtechwriter.comLinkedInBlueskyJoin the discussion by replying on Bluesky Contact Kate Mueller: knowledgewithsass.comLinkedInBlueskyContact KnowledgeOwl:KnowledgeOwl.comLinkedIn—TranscriptKate Mueller: [00:00:05] Welcome to the Not-Boring Tech Writer, a podcast sponsored by KnowledgeOwl. Together, we explore topics and hear from other writers to help inspire us, deepen our skills, and foster our distinctly not-boring tech writing community.Kate Mueller: [00:00:21] Hello, lovely not-boring tech writers. I'm Kate Mueller, and this is one of our solo episodes where I share things I'm thinking about or working on. I'm recording this episode at the beginning of April, right after Trump announced many new tariffs and before the NCAA March Madness championship. First, my progress update. Since my last episode, I've updated 91 more articles, taking my grand total to 457. I've also reorganized another three feature subcategories. This was a big milestone, since it means I've now reorganized half of the feature subcategories using these content type perspectives. I still have a long way to go on my article updates, but the content hierarchy changes feel like they're adding a lot of clarity. Although I kind of regret combining all of this into one project in terms of velocity, it's also meant that I'm updating the content itself and the way it's organized all at the same time, so each feature subcategory feels fairly done by the time I've made those changes. Well, as much as any documentation is ever done. Also, if you wanted a mouse infestation update, I relocated a total of 12 mice. 12 as in a whole dozen. I was astonished, maybe a little mortified. Since then, I've implemented my preventive measures. Knock on wood, I haven't heard any scratching in the walls since.Kate Mueller: [00:01:55] I hope you enjoyed the episode with Marcia as much as I did. I've been reflecting on a lot of things since that interview. The first is that right now, for the first time in my career, I'm mostly only being a tech writer. I'm sure that sounds odd to some of you, but I entered the tech writing world sideways through support and product. Tech writing has been a part of my roles for a long time, but it's rarely been in my job title. I've usually done support or training or software testing or product management ...
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    16 mins
  • The craft of technical writing with Marcia Riefer Johnston

    The craft of technical writing with Marcia Riefer Johnston
    Apr 17 2025
    In this episode, I’m talking with Marcia Riefer Johnston, a technical writer who’s worked in our industry for 40 years. We talk about how the profession has evolved since she first started in it, the grammar patterns that have helped her tighten up her writing, and how “creative” writing and “technical” writing are just different expressions of the craft of writing.Marcia and I discuss how tech writing has evolved in the last 40 years as the tooling and field have evolved—from literally cutting and taping printed instructions together to using sophisticated content management systems and modular content. She shares the user feedback from her first set of technical instructions for using a remote control set-top box at Magnavox, highlighting how important user feedback is to help determine what needs to be documented.Throughout our conversation, we explore practical grammar techniques that have helped both Marcia and me strengthen our writing, such as restructuring sentences to center the reader rather than the tool. We also discuss how adding “by zombies” is a great way to suss out if you’re using passive voice (e.g. “This podcast is being listened to by zombies.”) and the strengths and weaknesses of the be verbs (am, is, are, was, were, be, being, etc.).We also talk about the value of sharing what you know, and how putting that knowledge out into the world can reap unexpected benefits. And we talk about the fact that the division between “creative ”writing and “technical” writing feels like a false binary: all acts of language are creative, and technical writing shares a lot of overlap with forms like poetry.We close by discussing how technical writers manage feedback from reviewers and explore how a significant percentage of technical writing involves project management skills such as managing conversations and helping everyone align on what the documentation should do.For both of us, handling contradictory feedback from reviewers usually involves having a larger conversation about what the problems or issues were, rather than only focusing on solutions. We theorize that part of the value tech writers bring is our ability to identify less-than-desirable user experiences and to not just take suggested edits as gospel but to question and explore the need for those edits.About Marcia Riefer JohnstonMarcia’s loved tech writing from the time she first heard the words technical and writer together. These days she brings technical and writer together as a consultant for Baxter International. In 2013, she fulfilled a dream by writing her book Word Up! How to Write Powerful Sentences and Paragraphs (And Everything You Build from Them). Two years later, her pocket-sized collection came out: You Can Say That Again: 750 Redundant Phrases to Think Twice About. Occasionally she posts on her own blog at Writing.Rocks. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where she makes things with scrumptious yarn, does New York Times crossword puzzles with her husband (especially the Thursday and Sunday puzzles), and lures in family and friends to play Wingspan and other games.Resources discussed in this episode:How to put the customer first in your sentences - Marcia’s blog post for KnowledgeOwlWriting.Rocks - Marcia’s websiteTo Be or Not To Be — First chapter of Marcia’s book, Word Up!Be and Me — Why writers want to watch for be-verbs. Bonus: the be-verb song.Single Sourcing: Building Modular Documentation by Kurt AmentRead Me First! A Style Guide for the Computer Industry by Sun Microsystems, Inc.Garner’s Modern English Usage by Bryan GarnerThe LavaCon conference on Content Strategy and Content OperationsBuy the Books - Links to Marcia’s books (You Can Say That Again: 750 Redundant Phrases to Think Twice About and Word Up! How to Write Powerful Sentences and Paragraphs (And Everything You Build from Them) and how to buy themResources for Writers - A more complete list of Marcia’s recommendations than we could discuss in the episode.—Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:Email: tnbtw@knowledgeowl.comthenotboringtechwriter.comLinkedInBlueskyJoin the discussion by replying on Bluesky Contact Kate Mueller: knowledgewithsass.comLinkedInBlueskyContact Marcia Riefer Johnston: Writing.RocksLinkedinBlueskyContact KnowledgeOwl:KnowledgeOwl.comLinkedIn—TranscriptKate Mueller: [00:00:05] Welcome to the Not-Boring Tech Writer, a podcast sponsored by KnowledgeOwl. Together, we explore topics and hear from other writers to help inspire us, deepen our skills and foster our distinctly not-boring tech writing community. In today's episode, I talk with Marcia Riefer Johnston, a tech writer who's been in the field for the last 40 years. We talk about how things have changed, or not changed, over time, some of the simple grammar tips that Marcia's found most useful, and how to handle conflicting feedback from multiple ...
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    53 mins
  • Kate sounds off on mice and iterating

    Kate sounds off on mice and iterating
    Apr 3 2025
    In this solo episode, Kate shares an update on her content update progress, muses about the similarities between mice infestations and docs projects, and reflects more on Kenzie Woodbridge’s interview (S3:E6) and how we choose what we work on.Since Episode 5, I’ve continued my work to update the KnowledgeOwl Support Knowledge Base to align with major navigation and UI changes from December. I’ve now updated roughly 400 pages and reorganized a total of five Features subcategories (one more since Episode 5).Most of note this month: I overhauled our Search documentation. This work was necessary due to new search settings and major changes to the search configuration pages. It was also the first feature documentation I wrote at KnowledgeOwl in 2018, and I’ve mostly tried to make minor tweaks to it instead of massively updating it. Thanks to some very positive feedback on the content type-inspired reorganization I’ve been doing elsewhere, I was able to make some much better content organization and substance changes.I’m also battling a mouse infestation in my rented house, and I spent some time in this episode comparing that process to working on documentation projects.This leads me into ruminating on the ways we can try to make the world a better, more inclusive place. I’ve been including a lot of Kenzie’s suggestions in my style guide content updates in this audit:Use actual headings. (Not usually a problem in our docs, but a good review item anyway!)Use sequential headings and make sure no levels are skipped. (This one does occasionally slip in, especially in older docs, so it’s been good to review.)Use link text that has more meaning than "See more" or "Click here". (Again, not a steady thing, but a good review item.)Add alt text to images. (Doing a lot of this!)I like the idea that, as content creators, content accessibility is well within our area even if we don’t feel qualified as experts in it. These accessibility areas are also solid best practices for content, information scent, wayfinding, and search engine optimization. I encourage you to try these or other small, iterative improvements that will make your docs a better place to be in the next month.Resources discussed in this episode:KnowledgeOwl Support KB, Search categoryKnowledgeOwl Support KB, Features categoryTNBTW Episode 5 and Episode 6—Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:Email: tnbtw@knowledgeowl.comBlueskyLinkedInJoin the discussion by replying on Bluesky Contact Kate Mueller: LinkedInknowledgewithsass.comContact KnowledgeOwl:KnowledgeOwl.com—TranscriptKate Mueller: [00:00:04] Welcome to the Not-Boring Tech Writer, a podcast sponsored by KnowledgeOwl. Together, we explore topics and hear from other writers to help inspire us, deepen our skills and foster our distinctly not-boring tech writing community.Kate Mueller: [00:00:24] Hello fellow not-boring tech writers! I'm Kate Mueller, and this is one of our solo episodes where I share things I'm thinking about or working on. I'm recording this episode at the beginning of March, eagerly awaiting the daylight savings time shift. I'm going to start this episode with a quick story. I promise it does relate to documentation eventually, but it begins like this: my house has mice. I've suspected this since last spring when I found an acorn stash and some plant pots I had in the basement. We rent our house and I have to go outside and around the house to get into the basement, so I don't go down there a lot. In the winter, I go about once a month to check our heating fuel levels, and I store the plant pots and patio chairs down there in the fall and bring them out in the spring. Otherwise, I don't really go down there for months at a time. After I found this acorn stash, I had some suspicions, but I didn't have a lot of evidence that these were mice. They could have been chipmunks, I don't know. Or that they were actually living in the house. I was living in this lovely state of blissful ignorance until about two weeks ago when I was taking a bath and I heard a mouse scratching around in the wall right behind my head.Kate Mueller: [00:01:41] As a good tenant, I contacted my landlord who wanted to use glue traps to get rid of them. I have some major issues with glue traps, so for the last week or so I've been baiting live traps with really tasty things and then relocating the mice I trap to a local nature preserve. At the time of this recording, I have now relocated six mice. You might be asking yourself, Kate, why on earth are you bringing up mice on a podcast about tech writing? I do say that these solo episodes are about things I'm thinking about, and I'm definitely thinking a lot about the mice, but where is the relevance? I'm bringing it up because it's a lot like docs updates, kind of. The problem started out feeling somewhat small and not worth prioritizing, and then suddenly it wasn't ...
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    17 mins
  • We’re all responsible for content accessibility with Kenzie Woodbridge

    We’re all responsible for content accessibility with Kenzie Woodbridge
    Mar 20 2025
    In this episode, I’m talking with Kenzie Woodbridge, a documentarian and self-taught accessibility advocate. We talk about how feeling “not expert enough” is no reason to skip content accessibility, four ways you can make your content more accessible right now, and ways you can serve as an accessibility advocate as you review content and work with contributors.—Kenzie and I discuss why content accessibility is something we all need to think about as we create content. You don’t have to be an expert to improve your content’s accessibility. We discuss four areas you can focus on right now:Use actual headings (h1, h2, etc.)Use sequential and hierarchical headings (for example, don’t skip straight from h1 to h3)Use link text that’s actually descriptive, rather than “Click here” or “See more”Add alt textWe also discuss some dos and don’ts with alt text, providing feedback to content contributors who aren’t following accessibility guidelines, tools or processes to help identify accessibility bugaboos in your content, and so much more. Check out the resource list below to sponge a ton of useful resources from Kenzie, too.About Kenzie WoodbridgeKenzie works at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) in British Columbia, Canada, as a Tech Writer, Trainer, and Knowledge Strategist, and is currently a co-chair of BCIT's Accessibility Committee. They have spoken about documentation and other topics at multiple technical conferences, including Write the Docs (their favourite). Kenzie is also a parent, a tuba player, chronically ill, a crafting dilettante, a gamer, and all around nerd who wrote their Master's thesis about prosocial community in multiplayer Minecraft.Kenzie is awesome and you totally want to have them as your friend (offer of friendship void where local laws do not permit, not guaranteed in all circumstances, skill-testing questions required).Resources discussed in this episode:Screen Reader Demo - The video Kenzie mentioned by Marc Sutton at U of CDigital Accessibility Toolkit from the Government of CanadaWhat is Accessibility? (MDN docs)Digital Collegium (formerly HighEdWeb) Accessibility Summit 2025Sa11y & Editoria11y: Straightforward content accessibility at scale - The conference talk Kenzie mentioned comparing two tools for promoting and checking accessibility within content management systems:Sa11y Accessibility Quality Assurance Assistant - One of the two tools discussed in the talk, available for Joomla, WordPress, or as a bookmarklet in your browserEditoria11y Accessibility Checker - The second tool, available for Drupal, WordPress, and SquarespaceWAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools - The WAVE browser extension is Kenzie’s go-to tool for a first pass on accessibility questions. It gives a lot of complex info, which can be overwhelming, but a) if you're seeing a lot of actual errors and contrast errors, you don't have to understand all of those errors to know that there's likely a problem, and knowing there's a problem is the first step 😉, and b) the "Structure" tool quickly shows you a list of the headings on the page and makes it easy to spot skipped levels, etc.Pericles screen reader - Not as fully featured as JAWS or NVDA, but useful for quick checks in your browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox)NVDA screen reader - Downloadable for free, because accessibility really means something to them, but if you're able to donate, please doJAWS screen readerBCIT's Knowledge Base - About Web Content Accessibility—Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:Email: tnbtw@knowledgeowl.comBlueskyLinkedInJoin the discussion by replying on Bluesky Contact Kate Mueller: LinkedInknowledgewithsass.comContact Kenzie Woodbridge: WebsiteLinkedinContact KnowledgeOwl:KnowledgeOwl.com—TranscriptKate Mueller: [00:00:01] Welcome to The Not-Boring Tech Writer, a podcast sponsored by KnowledgeOwl. Together, we explore topics and hear from other writers to help inspire us, deepen our skills and foster our distinctly not-boring tech writing community.Kate Mueller: [00:00:18] Hi, I'm Kate Mueller and this week I'm so excited to welcome to the pod, Kenzie Woodbridge, whom I met, I want to say, back in 2018 at Write the Docs Portland, probably at the QWERTY event there. I was so excited to be able to get Kenzie on the show, because they are probably one of the best advocates, in my experience, in the Write the Docs community for accessibility. So Kenzie, welcome to the show!Kenzie Woodbridge: [00:00:45] Thank you very much, that is incredibly flattering.Kate Mueller: [00:00:49] Kenzie, to start off, for our listeners who don't know you, can you tell me a little bit about your, I call it, tech writer villain origin story? How did you ever connect with this community in the first place?Kenzie Woodbridge: [00:01:02] I fell into tech writing sideways, which in my experience, in talking to lots of other folks,...
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    45 mins
  • Kate sounds off on docs hierarchy of needs and how we talk to ourselves

    Kate sounds off on docs hierarchy of needs and how we talk to ourselves
    Mar 6 2025
    In this solo episode, Kate shares an update on working with content types, muses about the idea of a Documentation Hierarchy of Needs, and reflects more on Janine Chan’s interview (S3:E4) and how we talk to ourselves about being tech writers.—I may have overcommitted myself in Episode 3. I have been incorporating content type work into my massive content audit, but after working on four of the nineteen Features subcategories, I realized it was taking too much time and I had to refocus on my main task of updating content to match our UI and navigation releases. However, I like the information architecture decisions this has helped me make and the clarity it’s bringing to the docs themselves and how I organize them, so it’s a project I intend to continue.Making these kinds of priority decisions is something we all have to tackle all the time. But the content type work got me thinking: I’ve used an intuitive content type sense for a long time. I suspect I’m also using an intuitive decision-making framework for prioritizing my docs work. What would an explicit framework for that look like? In talking this over with a colleague, I realized I wanted a Documentation Hierarchy of Needs. I discovered that MongoDB created exactly this for their documentation overhaul once upon a time and wrote this blog post about it. I briefly run through their Hierarchy of Needs and how my decision to temporarily deprioritize content types might fit within it.I also reflect more on Janine Chan’s episode (S3:E4) and her point about reframing the way we talk to ourselves from “I’m not technical enough” to “I don’t know how to do this… yet.” And I share my own suggestion for handling that narrative problem.Resources discussed in this episode:KnowledgeOwl Support KB, Features categoryMongoDB blog post: Applying Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to DocumentationTNBTW Episode 3 and Episode 4—Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:Email: tnbtw@knowledgeowl.comBlueskyLinkedInJoin the discussion by replying on Bluesky Contact Kate Mueller: LinkedInknowledgewithsass.comContact KnowledgeOwl:KnowledgeOwl.com—TranscriptKate Mueller: [00:00:02] Welcome to The Not-Boring Tech Writer, a podcast sponsored by KnowledgeOwl. Together, we explore topics and hear from other writers to help inspire us, deepen our skills and foster our distinctly not-boring tech writing community.Kate Mueller: [00:00:18] Hello fellow not-boring tech writers! I'm Kate Mueller, and this is one of our solo episodes where I share things I'm thinking about or working on. I'm recording this episode at the very beginning of February, soon after the Society for Technical Communication's announcement of its bankruptcy and closure. While I was never involved with STC, I know many writers who were, and I suspect that loss will feel like a gaping hole in our community for some time. Let's all be a little bit kinder to each other, shall we? First up, what I'm working on. In my last solo episode, I talked about content types and how I was planning to use a massive content update for navigation and UI changes as a time to start more intentionally applying content type templates to my docs. I recorded that episode about six weeks ago, and I promised I'd give you updates along the way, so here's my update. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, while I've made a good amount of progress on my massive content update, I haven't focused on the content type work the way I thought I would. Of the 19 feature subcategories in the support knowledge base, I updated four of them using some of those principles.Kate Mueller: [00:01:31] On the plus side, I like the updates to those four subcategories. A couple of them were much older features, and the docs had become a bit unruly, and thinking about content types and user purpose and experience helped me begin the process of finally getting them into shape. That focus on user purpose helped me with some information architecture decisions, and I'm creating a consistent but mildly variable format that, so far, feels like a definite improvement. I also realized that this is time consuming work. I was overly optimistic about how large my existing project was, and how much time the extra work would take. Let's be real, I was making an already large project even larger, and each minute that I spent working on that was a minute I didn't spend updating other docs to have accurate navigation steps or UI wording changes. I've basically hit pause on the content type project for now, but my big takeaways from it are that I do like it and I'd like to keep doing it, I just don't think now is the best time. I need to get through this big project first. As Janine and I talked about last episode, I'm basically setting aside my perfectionism and focusing on improving my docs right now in the ways that feel reasonable right now. Even though I know I want to do more, I'm ...
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    17 mins
  • Bridging the gap from “not technical enough” to “technical” with Janine Chan

    Bridging the gap from “not technical enough” to “technical” with Janine Chan
    Feb 20 2025
    In this episode, I’m talking with Janine Chan, a technical writer and Write the Docs community moderator. We talk about how feeling “not technical enough” is as much about attitude and approach as it is about knowledge and ways you can bridge the gap to a more technical future.Janine and I discuss the fact that there’s no defined/established set of skills or training to become a technical writer. This lovely flexibility can also lead to a lot of imposter syndrome or feeling like you’re “not technical enough.” But through continuous lifelong learning, changing your attitude or the story you tell yourself, asking for help, and letting go of perfectionism, you can transition to a more empowered, technical version of yourself.Along the way we discuss the wonders of indoor plumbing, the fact that growing up to a be a tech writer isn’t typically on kids’ radar, our tendency to get curious when we’re frustrated about something, the importance of trying to answer a question before you seek help, how to be generous in requesting help, how generally awesome and generous with knowledge people are, how the experience of knowing little makes us more empathetic writers, and so so much more.About Janine ChanJanine is a technical writer based in Calgary, Canada. When she's not writing software documentation or shoehorning sociolinguistics into conversations, she's usually either outside, or hunkered down trying to make room in her lap for both a knitting project and her cat. (She recognizes that "not-boring" is a relative term.) You can find her on LinkedIn and the Write the Docs Slack, where her inboxes are always open for more tech writing chats! She promises she won't write in third person like she is now.Resources discussed in this episode:Write the Docs—Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:Email: tnbtw@knowledgeowl.comBlueskyLinkedInContact Kate Mueller: LinkedInknowledgewithsass.comContact Janine:LinkedInContact KnowledgeOwl:KnowledgeOwl.comJoin the discussion by replying on Bluesky .—TranscriptKate Mueller: [00:00:05] Welcome to The Not-Boring Tech Writer, a podcast sponsored by KnowledgeOwl. Together, we explore topics and hear from other writers to help inspire us, deepen our skills and foster our distinctly not-boring tech writing community. Hi, I'm Kate Mueller. In today's episode, I talk with Janine Chan, a senior technical writer and a Write the Docs community moderator. We talk about that feeling of not being technical enough and ways to level up your technical skills so you can flip the narrative to, 'I'm a technical writer who just hasn't learned how to do this yet'. Hello my not-boring tech writers. I am so excited this week to be joined by a writer that I met kind of by happenstance. I gave a talk at one of the virtual Write the Docs Portlands a few years ago on Beating the Virginia Blues, and this woman happened to be my moderator for that session and ended up being amazing. She handled the other person who was doing Q and As audio networking with total aplomb. I can say she is both great under pressure and also not boring and a delightful human to boot. So I would like to welcome to the pod Janine Chan. Janine, welcome.Janine Chan: [00:01:20] Hi, Kate. Thank you so much for such a kind intro. Oh man, all those AV issues. I guess I must have blocked them out.Kate Mueller: [00:01:27] You've repressed them. It's fine.Janine Chan: [00:01:29] Yeah, that's exactly what happens. And what a great talk it was. To be introduced to you by virtue of amazing athletic feats and also technical writing. Who could ask for more?Kate Mueller: [00:01:42] There are two areas that have way more overlap than the average person probably thinks, because the number of people who messaged me after who were like, I've been a thru-hiker, or I'm thinking about being a thru-hiker, or I just really loved your talk. Apparently the Venn diagram of not-boring tech writers, and also people who enjoy doing outside things is pretty strong. There's a huge overlap there.Janine Chan: [00:02:05] I love it. I love hiking, but I do love showering and getting in my own bed that night. So different sense of scale there.Kate Mueller: [00:02:16] I will say, I never got used to not showering. Ever.Janine Chan: [00:02:20] I always wonder, and it's a weird question, but I always wonder.Kate Mueller: [00:02:24] Yeah, I never got used to that, ever. It is, for me, one of my favorite things about not thru-hiking is getting to shower on a daily basis if I want. However often I want, there's hot water there. It's great. I can be clean. It's awesome.Janine Chan: [00:02:39] Indoor plumbing, what a gorgeous thing.Kate Mueller: [00:02:41] One of the best things in modern civilization.Janine Chan: [00:02:42] Welcome to the Indoor Plumbing Fan Podcast.Kate Mueller: [00:02:45] Forget tech writing, we're just going to talk about the wonders of indoor plumbing ...
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    56 mins
  • Kate sounds off on content types

    Kate sounds off on content types
    Feb 6 2025
    My current in-flight projects include updating nearly all of our documentation to reflect major changes to our user interface, which includes changes to screenshots, navigation options, and section/subsection labels. I’m also working on my long slog to convert all our screenshots from .png to .webp format. As I make all of those updates, I’m bringing our content into line with our current style guide (the first time I’ve used an explicit style guide in the KnowledgeOwl Support Knowledge Base).I recently finished teaching my first Knowledge Management Master Class with KnowledgeOwl. This was mostly a success, though it was a sharp learning curve for me and I’m already full of ideas on what to do differently next time. It also humbled me since it made me view my own docs through the lens of all the best practices I was suggesting people employ–and realizing how often my docs fell short.For me, the most fascinating takeaway was really digging into the concept of concept types or information typing. I’ve never done this as an explicit, intentional exercise. After researching various approaches, I’m sold on the underlying concept. My plan is to create some templates for each major content type, using The Good Docs Project’s templates as a starting point). I’m then going to use those templates as I update content in our Features category to test and refine the templates before gradually applying them to the entire knowledge base. I’ll be using tags to track my progress and identify the content type for each page, too. In Episode 5, I’ll report back on how I’m doing in my endeavors!Resources discussed in this episode:KnowledgeOwl Support KBDiátaxis content types for software documentationDave Gash’s A Painless Introduction to Information Typing, which is a pretty solid introduction to Information Typing as it’s used in DITA and other frameworksThe Good Docs ProjectWisdom Wednesday on Use tags + Manage filters for fast docs updates/audits: Kate’s quick walkthrough on how she uses tags and Manage filters in KnowledgeOwl for content audits and updates—Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:Email: tnbtw@knowledgeowl.comBlueskyLinkedInContact Kate Mueller: LinkedInknowledgewithsass.comContact KnowledgeOwl:KnowledgeOwl.com—TranscriptKate Mueller: [00:00:04] Welcome to The Not-Boring Tech Writer, a podcast sponsored by KnowledgeOwl. Together, we explore topics and hear from other writers to help inspire us, deepen our skills and foster our distinctly not-boring tech writing community. Hello fellow not-boring tech writers. I'm Kate Mueller, and this is one of our solo episodes where I share things I'm thinking about or working on, or both. I'm recording this episode in early December, right after Assad's ouster and the murder of the UnitedHealthCare CEO, just for some context. So first up, what am I working on? I'm in the midst of making a lot of updates to the KnowledgeOwl support knowledge base. KnowledgeOwl has released a lot of UI changes in the last couple of months, which of course I got behind on, so now I'm working to get our screenshots and text updated from those changes, while knowing that there are more changes coming in the next few months too. This has been a lot of changes. We changed our whole color palette, we changed a lot of the user interface key elements, we also just rolled out a totally different left hand navigation so I've got my work cut out for me. But it's a good exercise because it's prompted me to really evaluate how useful a lot of those screenshots are and whether we actually need them. In particular, there are a lot of older articles where I used screenshots of code as a final example for some of our step by step documentation, and I'm gradually replacing those screenshots with formatted code blocks just to reduce the screenshot maintenance burden.Kate Mueller: [00:01:41] I've also been updating screenshots. We're moving away from PNG format and into WebP format, just to try to keep our file sizes a bit smaller and maybe give our SEO a tiny bit of boost. That change came out of me writing our 'image best practice guide' for customers and actually researching image best practices. So that's been a fun change. And last but not least, after years of having a fairly vague style guide, or no style guide, I've written a clear one. So as I make all of these updates, I'm bringing the text into alignment with the new style guide. All of that has already been in flight for a few months. I also recently finished leading a Knowledge Management masterclass with KnowledgeOwl. And as the old saying goes, the best way to learn something is to teach it to others. So I'm thinking a lot about things like content types, information architecture, information scent and findability and good metrics for success. Teaching the class was really humbling to say the least. It's kind of impossible for me...
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    16 mins