Blog - Posts by Write the Docs Team

Write the Docs Newsletter – December 2021

2021-12-06T00:00:00Z

Write the Docs Newsletter – November 2021

2021-11-03T00:00:00Z

Hi folks! November has somehow rolled around (already??) and it’s that newsletter time of the month again.

As promised last time: I’m super excited to let you know that the Salary Survey is now live. It takes less than ten minutes to complete, so please consider filling it out - you’ll be contributing to a really valuable resource for documentarians. All responses are completely anonymous, and we’re very careful not to publish any personally identifiable information (given the small size of the community). If you’re up for it, fill it out here.

Plus, great news from down under - we’ve just announced the Australia and India meetup will be on December 3rd. This “super-meetup” will be a two-hour event with four fab speakers, and will be free to attend. Sign up for the event here!

And with that, let’s take a look at what everyone’s been discussing on Slack…

Managing when your manager lacks docs experience

This month, our documentarians discussed how they have handled differences with a manager who has no experience with documentation. Among those who have worked for managers without a docs background, there were roughly two groups: the manager either deferred to the technical writer’s expertise or did not.

If your manager is in the first category, you’ll likely encounter less heavy-handed supervision, and docs-related disagreements may be rare. If your manager is in the second category, you have a harder path to tread, especially when your manager’s perspective on docs-related tasks doesn’t quite match yours.

In the course of this conversation, we learned a new acronym: HiPPO, meaning “highest paid person’s opinion.” In this context, the HiPPO method means ultimately disagreements between tech writers and managers are resolved according to the more senior person’s opinion, regardless of whether they have docs experience. When you are subject to the HiPPO method, your ability to affect docs-related decisions depends on how firmly you can gain your manager’s trust.

Even when your manager is inclined to trust your ability, you’ll still need to confirm their confidence by doing good work, cooperating with the rest of the team, and meeting deadlines. This approach is the best path you can take with managers who don’t grasp your ability either – demonstrating that you understand and can document complex processes might be the only way you can get traction.

Options for single-sourcing

Single-source publishing is a content management technique that lets you use one source of content but publish it to different output formats (“write once, publish everywhere”). It’s not something that every team needs, but it can be super useful if you need to publish to the web and PDFs, or if you have many similar variants on one product. If your team is not “technical” - more specifically if they are unfamiliar with version control software like Git, lack software development skills, or have no way of obtaining the support necessary to implement a docs-as-code approach, component content management systems (CCMS) like Paligo and MadCap Flare might be more suitable.

Regardless of the method you choose, decide on a single-source publishing strategy and consider the advantages and disadvantages of each option to determine which is ideal for your team. Distributed contributions, for example, may be a reason to choose the docs-as-code method. In contrast, if you use Flare or a docs-focused CMS like Knowledge Owl, you’ll find more robust support for reusing articles or snippets. Whatever method or tool you choose, have a plan in place to ensure a successful single-source publishing approach.

Documentation gets respect (or at least attention)

Two recent reports highlight the increased attention documentation seems to be getting in the worlds of software development.

The 2021 State of DevOps report from Google Cloud includes data showing the effects of docs quality on devops team performance, and describes practices to improve the quality of your documentation. The report is based on seven years of research and data from more than 32,000 professionals worldwide, focusing on “capabilities and practices that drive software delivery, operation, and organizational performance.” So the focus is not on docs – but the report includes good documentation as one of six findings characteristic of the 26% of teams studied who fall into the highest performing category. This is _internal_ documentation, and its quality has a statistically significant impact on how secure, reliable, and effective a team’s devops practices are. Quality documentation efforts should include critical use cases for products and services, guidelines for updating and editing existing documentation, clearly defined ownership and responsibility for documentation, inclusion of docs as part of the software development process, and recognition of docs work during performance reviews and promotions.

The State of Software Quality API 2021 report from SmartBear similarly points to “accurate and detailed documentation” as a key aspect of the overall success of an API, second only to “ease of use” for API consumers. Disappointingly few survey respondents rated their API docs as “Very Good” – but only 16% of teams include technical writers for their API docs. On the other hand, more than half the respondents contribute to API docs in some way, and 60-70% of respondents work for companies that include a formal API documentation process – but only about half of those companies consider documentation a priority. Respondents cited a range of obstacles to providing quality documentation, but they all fell into the larger category of insufficient resources – time, tools, personnel, budget, and more. On another front, our documentarians who so diligently work with OpenAPI definitions will be happy to read that OpenAPI usage continues high, but GraphQL and AsyncAPI continue to grow in popularity.

What we’re reading and listening to

The #bipoc group’s been discussing the following materials on diversity, inclusion, and equity. Want to join the conversation? Please join us in the #bipoc Slack channel!

This month’s articles are intersectional. They touch on topics that intersect gender identity and people of color.

A short read: A topic of discussion that’s come up in the Write the Docs Slack, is it ok to address a group of people as “you guys”? Baron Schwartz sums up arguments from the internet and offers some alternatives.

A medium read: In the article Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome from the Harvard Business Review, Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey talk about the myth of Imposter Syndrome and how it’s disproportionately hurting women of color in the workplace.

A longer read/listen: This year the McKinsey and Company’s Women in the Workplace report highlights that women, while making some gains in the workplace, are still facing challenges when trying to rise to higher levels. This is especially true for women of color. Despite the increase of self-reported white allyship and an increase in DEI initiatives, women of color report continued micro-aggressions in the workplace and little allyship action from their peers.

From our sponsors

This month’s newsletter is sponsored by Gateway Translations and JetBrains:

Gateway Translations makes it easy for tech writers to get started with localization.

Finding the right translation tool with integrations for easy workflow & file compatibility
Translators with technical backgrounds for 45 languages
Trusted by GitHub, TIBCO, Fortune 500s

Book a free consultation.

'And what is the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?' Tech documentation is also more appealing and easy-to-read when illustrated. What visuals do we insert in our docs? What tools do we use to create and edit them? Help us by taking this survey, and we’ll be happy to share the results with you.

Take the survey

Interested in sponsoring the newsletter? Take a look at our sponsorship prospectus.

Featured job posts

Technical Content Writer, Webiny (Remote)
Senior Technical Writer (Web Developer), Sitecore (National Capital Region, Canada)
Senior Technical Writer, Synctera (Remote - US or Canada)
Senior Technical Writer, Privacera (Remote - US)

To apply for these jobs and more, visit the Write the Docs job board.

Virtual events coming up

09 November, 08:30 EST (Florida, USA) - Morning social
09 November, 19:00 MST (Calgary, Canada) - A crash course in content reuse
16 November, 18:00 PST / 21:00 EST (USA) - A conversation with the authors of Docs for Developers
17 November, 19:00 EST (Toronto, Canada) - Write the Docs Toronto
23 November, 08:30 EST (Florida, USA) - Morning social
03 December, 15:00 AEDT (Australia) - Virtual super-meetup: WTD Australia and India 2021

Conference highlights and thanks to the community!

2021-10-13T00:00:00Z

Hey everyone,

The Write the Docs team is now emerging from the post-conference recovery period, and we wanted to send out a quick message to thank everyone for helping to make our conference such a success. We appreciate everyone who makes the conference possible: speakers, sponsors, organizers, and attendees alike.

Conference recap

At nearly 300 attendees, the conference was active and full of usual mix of talks on the main stage along with Q&A, lightning talks, unconference sessions, writing sprints, social event, and job fair. We thought everything went pretty smoothly this year, including experiments like the new social event platform.

As always, we were excited with how our awesome community come together in our virtual venue. Lots of knowledge was shared, and we had a great time.

Talk videos

Videos of the talks are now available on YouTube. This includes all conference talks and Q&A, as well as the lightning talks. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don’t miss any future content. We are also working to add the videos and sketchnotes for all the talks to our website archive, so stay tuned for updates.

Thanks again to all our presenters and moderators! Huge thanks also to Bart at Work for handling the A/V production on our event, it was flawless once again this year.

Shirts still on sale

If you want a souvenir from this year’s conference, our Write the Docs Prague 2021 Pop-Up Shop is still open! We have loose and fitted options from different fabrics, and you can choose exactly the size and cut you want. The campaign will run in 3-day batches for another few weeks. Shipping is available from the USA or Europe.

New this year: You can shop for non-conference swag in our Write the Docs Community Shop on Threadless. We have non-apparel options like stickers, notebooks, bags, and other accessories with various community slogens (including the now-famous “Docs or it didn’t happen!”).

Code of Conduct transparency report

As with any Write the Docs event, this conference was covered by our community Code of Conduct. We aim to be as transparent with CoC incidents and enforcement as we can.

To ensure that our CoC was visible and accessible, we took a number of specific steps:

Every participant agreed to the Code of Conduct in advance during registration.
The CoC, or a summary, was included on the conference website and Hopin Reception
The CoC was repeatedly mentioned in our conference introduction and announcements.
We specifically stressed that the CoC applies to all conference spaces including the social event.
We encouraged all attendees to report any incident, even if they were not sure whether it was a violation.

None of our organizers were approached about any CoC concerns at this event. We know that this is, in part, a reflection of the thoughtful and inclusive community that we’re so lucky to have.

That being said, we’re also very conscious of the fact that just because nothing was reported doesn’t mean nothing happened. If there was any personal conduct or other aspect of the conference experience that did not meet the expectations of behavior set out in the CoC, please email us at conduct@writethedocs.org.

Keep in touch

As you probably know, we’ve decided to take a break this year from a full Australia & India conference, to help the organizers maintain their well-being and prevent burnout. Instead of the conference, we’re organizing a more casual super-meetup instead. Stay tuned for details soon!

We’re also looking for more sponsors to make our other events just as magical as this year’s Prague event. You can see all our sponsorship options on our website.

Our Slack network has expanded yet again this year. Our #general Slack channel has been extra busy in the days and weeks leading up to the conference, and we hope that y’all continue the conversations throughout the year. If you haven’t joined, now’s the time! Check out the Write the Docs Slack.

Our monthly newsletter is the other place to keep track of everything that is happening with the community. Subscribe to make sure you hear about all the conferences, meetups, job postings, and summaries of relevant conversations in our Slack.

Thanks again to our sponsors

Thanks so much to the following companies for supporting the Prague conference this year:

Red Hat

people text

KnowledgeOwl

JetBrains

Open Web Docs

Aiven

MDN Web Docs

Until next time

We’re so grateful to our sponsors, speakers, volunteers, and attendees for making this conference possible. Whether you were able to attend this time or not, we hope to see you again next year and we wish everyone a safe and happy time!

Write the Docs Newsletter – October 2021

2021-10-05T00:00:00Z

Hello everyone!

It’s Beth here, writing while I’m listening in to Write the Docs Prague. I hope everyone who attended had a great time! For those of you who couldn’t make it, keep an eye out: we’ll be publishing the talk videos on YouTube fairly soon. And if you’d like to get more of a flavour of the conference, you can listen to the intermission music - which I am bopping along to as I type :D

And one more thing to keep your eyes peeled for - the Salary Survey is going through its finishing touches. We’re really excited to be continuing this work to improve transparency around documentarian salaries, so watch this space!

In the meantime, we’ve had another month of interesting conversations and insights from the Write the Docs Slack. Read on, and enjoy!

Docs review strategies for lone writers

Being a company’s only technical writer comes with advantages and disadvantages, but a common challenge for lone writers is getting reviews for documentation. When there’s no established docs review process and there are no other documentarians to turn to, here are some strategies the lone writers of Write the Docs use to get the work done.

You may be able to publish your best efforts without review and await (or seek) corrections, whether from users or others at your company. Docs have bugs just like code, and speedy fixes may be more within your control. The downside with this approach is any mistakes are public until you fix them.

The fastest way to get corrections may be to publish errors, but sometimes that’s not an option. In this case, try to assemble an informal group of docs review resources. Seek a product manager or subject matter expert to review docs for accuracy. For readability, look for someone else whose job requires writing, perhaps in marketing or communications. Your experiments here could help drive support for a more formal docs review process.

Some lone writers solicit docs review by creating feedback channels in Slack with the Workflow Builder. For example, you could create a #documentation channel with a built-in form for submitting correction requests, with fields for specifying the page in question and the requested corrections. Then the Slackbot can notify you when someone submits a correction.

For detailed instructions for setting up your own docs feedback workflow in Slack and other insights from this discussion, read Darryl J. White’s blog post Editing and Gathering Feedback.

Equipment you find useful for working remotely

What are the most useful tools for working from home? This question sparked a lot of conversations this month, but top of everyone’s list was multiple monitors. The simple ability to see more than one thing at a time is hugely helpful, and the benefits of improved productivity and less window-switching have made them essential for work-from-home life.

Other recommended tools mentioned were sit-stand desks and computer accessories like comfortable wire-free mice and keyboards. Aside from hardware tools, software applications like Grammarly, macOS’s Voice Memos, and BetterSnapTool proved beneficial for working from home. Even traditional tools, like a whiteboard and pen and paper, were brought up.

With so many software and hardware tools available, it can be challenging to pick the ones that are worth putting in the metaphorical “toolbelt.” However, whether you want to be more organized or keep track of important meetings, there is always the right tool for the remote job.

What’s in a documentarian resume anyway?

As anyone who spends much time around the Write the Docs community knows, the questions around just who writes the docs, what their job titles might be, what their skills and experience might be, have no single definitive answer. One of our longest recent threads about job descriptions and resumes explored a number of possible answers, though. Here’s what we took away from the 100+ message thread:

Writers and hiring managers alike struggle with whether to focus on docs-specific skills – writing, tools, workflows – or on specific technologies in search of docs. Folks seemed to agree, though, that a documentation position that requires familiarity with the specific tech to be documented needs to emphasize required skills. And finding just the right fit is a challenge whether you’re hiring or looking to get hired.
Writers with non-writing backgrounds can prefer not to list specific tech on their resumes, especially coding, for fear they’ll be considered overqualified or otherwise not the right fit. Other writers are reluctant to mention specific tech if they’re not experts, for fear their skills will be challenged, or assumed to be greater than the writer feels they are.
Some writers emphasize their ability to learn new tech – they consider themselves generalists with strong research skills and experience picking up new areas sufficiently to be able to document them well. Others emphasize their skills in specific technical areas – they consider themselves specialists with the ability to take on non-writer work as needed, especially in QA, design, UX, or support. Curiosity and eagerness to explore and learn were attributes everyone seemed to agree are vital, whichever approach you choose.
Job seekers: be thoughtful about what you put on your resume, don’t rely on LinkedIn alone, and try to tailor your job searches to companies you think might be a good fit for what you want to do – whether it’s tech you want to learn, tech you know a little about, or tech you know a lot about. Cover letters can help you show how you fit a job listing, beyond what you put in your resume.

If you’re interested in pursuing the conversation, join us over at the GitHub Discussion one stalwart WTDer started. Carry on, folks!

What we’re reading and listening to

The #bipoc group’s been discussing the following materials on diversity, inclusion, and equity. Want to join the conversation? Please join us in the #bipoc Slack channel!

In the United States it’s Hispanic Heritage month.

A short read: From Courageous Conversation, do you know the difference between Hispanic and Latino?

A longer listen: From MPR news, How the term Latinx, and other labels, miss the mark. This episode talks about labels such as Latinx, BIPOC, etc, and explores where they started, what they mean, and who uses them.

Featured job posts

MDN Senior Community Manager (1-year fixed term), MDN (remote - Germany)
MDN Senior Technical Writer (1-year fixed term), MDN (remote - Germany)
Programming Writer, DigitalOcean (remote)
Technical Writer (IntelliJ IDEA), JetBrains (remote)
Developer Educator, Aiven (remote)
Technical Writer (YouTrack), JetBrains (remote)
Technical Writer, Inductive Automation (remote - US)
Technical Writer, Aiven (remote)
Technical Writer, Entado (remote - US)

To apply for these jobs and more, visit the Write the Docs job board.

Virtual events coming up

11 October, 19:30 IDT (Israel) - Python for Documentarians
12 October, 08:30 EDT (USA) - Morning social
13 October, 12:00 AEDT (Australia) - Findability in the world of docs
21 October, 19:00 PDT (USA) - Roundtable: New to the field!
21 October, 19:00 EDT (Canada) - Write the Docs Toronto
26 October, 08:30 EDT (USA) - Morning social

Get Ready for the Conference!

2021-09-28T00:00:00Z

Hey everyone!

We’re just a few days away from the start of the conference, and we’re getting excited to see you soon at our online venue for three days of content, collaboration, and conversation. We’re happy to share with you some useful resources to help you prepare for the conference.

Tickets sales closing on Thursday, September 30th

We wanted to let you know that we will be closing ticket sales on Thursday, September 30th at 20:00 CEST. This helps the organizer team manage the platform registrations in time for the start of the conference, and helps keep the cozy community feeling of the event.

If you were hoping to come to this years event, we recommend that you get your tickets before Thursday.

If you already purchased a ticket you should have received an email from us with your Hopin registration link. After we close ticket sales, we will send another email to everyone with a reminder and a link to access the Hopin event.

The Hopin access links were sent today to all Ti.to ticket holders, so check your inbox for a message. If you don’t get an email from us by the end of the week, please check your spam/junk folder first, and then email us and we’ll help you out.

After you register in Hopin and set up your profile, you will be ready to get started on Sunday morning with the Writing Day!

Welcome Wagon guide and orientation sessions

The Welcome Wagon guide has been updated to help you get the most out of our event this year.

We have a lot of information about how to use Hopin, as well as lots of tips and tricks for the best way to plan your days.

This year we are also happy to announce that the Welcome Wagon team will hold live orientation sessions for the virtual platform! The sessions will be held on Sunday during Writing Day and on Monday morning before the conference introduction talk. These sessions will give you a chance to walk through the virtual event and ask all your questions.

Check out the Schedule page for exact time and location.

All our events and activities

Write the Docs is more than a conference. Every year we make sure to have a variety of activities that our attendees can enjoy, whether you want to learn something, meet new people, or share knowledge. And even though this years conference is held online, we’re holding to that plan.

Lightning Talks. We’ll have lightning talks each day after lunch. These are 5 minute presentations and a lot of fun. They can be about anything you want, this is your chance to share something you are passionate about with the audience. Slides are not required. Sign-up for lightning talks will be posted on Monday and Tuesday morning, and the selected talks will be announced before the lunch break on each day.
Unconference. We’ll be running the Unconference all day Monday and on Tuesday afternoon. Want to chat with like-minded folks about a specific thing? This is the place.
Job Fair. As with the previous years, on Tuesday morning we’ll have a job fair where you can find your next documentarian friendly job.
Social event. On Monday night the main stage will be closed, and we will switch to social mode! We will be using a spatial chat platform for the social event this year, and we will post the link for the social space during the day on Monday. It will be much closer to a “real life” social where attendees can move between different rooms and group conversations, and the Pac-Man Rule even works!
Conference Help Desk. If you have any questions about navigating the virtual event, we’ll be running the Write the Docs Helpdesk booth, where you can chat with one of the organizers and the Welcome Wagon team.

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The Schedule page has the latest and most complete information about all our events. This is where we will also update any changes/cancellations if they should occur.

Thanks so much to all our sponsors

We are so grateful to have our sponsors help in bringing these events to life every year. You’ll be able to chat with most of our sponsors at the Job Fair, and a few will have booths for conversations the entire conference.

Thanks so much to the following companies for supporting the Portland conference this year:

Red Hat

people text

KnowledgeOwl

JetBrains

Open Web Docs

Aiven

MDN Web Docs

We’re excited to see all of you soon, and can’t wait to share a wonderful few days with you in our online space.

The Write the Docs team

Announcing Full Schedule

2021-09-08T00:00:00Z

Hey everyone!

We’re less than a month away from the second online Prague conference, and we’re working hard to make sure it’ll be as welcoming and as fun as last year’s event.

Today we’re announcing the full presentation schedule and the platform we’ll be hosting the conference on. We are working on last-minute details for a few more activities during the conference, so look out for more information in our next mailing.

Conference platform

The conference will again be held on https://hopin.to/, which not only provides a stage for our amazing speakers, but also has integrated chat, unconference rooms with breakout calls, expo booths, and even a virtual hallway. We have an updated Welcome Wagon guide to help you get familiar with the platform before you’ve even arrived.

IMPORTANT: If you registered for a ticket on Ti.to, please monitor your inboxes during the next weeks for an email with a registration link to Hopin. We recommend that you register for the platform in advance, to avoid the “Monday morning rush”.

Full presentation schedule

The conference website is now updated with the talk schedule for the main stage presentations, so you can start planning your time (and getting excited!) for the conference. We’re excited to have live Q&A after most talks, which will come from your questions but be moderated by an MC.

Start thinking about Writing Day

Our pre-conference Writing Day will happen on Sunday, and it is much more fun when folks come with their own projects in mind!

If you have a project or are part of a community that you think would benefit from a writing sprint, start brainstorming now about what you might want to focus on. If you’d like us to include your project on the Writing Day page, drop us an email at prague@writethedocs.org. Or just show up on Sunday ready to introduce your project!

Shirts still on sale

The Write the Docs Prague 2021 Pop-Up Shop is open! We have loose and fitted options from different fabrics, and you can choose exactly the size and cut you want.

The campaign will run in 3-day batches until November 30th. Shipping is available from the USA or Europe. However, due to the global shipping situation, we recommend you order your shirt at least 2-3 weeks in advance if you want to wear your new shirt during the conference.

All conference events and activities

Lightning Talks. We’ll have lightning talks each day after lunch. These are 5 minute presentations and a lot of fun. They can be about anything you want, this is your chance to share something you are passionate about with the audience. Slides are not required.
Unconference. We’ll be running the Unconference all day Monday and on Tuesday afternoon. Want to chat with like-minded folks about a specific thing? This is the place.
Job Fair. As with the previous few years, on Tuesday morning we’ll have a job fair where you can find your next documentarian friendly job.
Social event. On Monday night, the main stage will be closed and the focus will be on attendee-created sessions. You’re welcome to create sessions for board games, trivia quizzes, karaoke, or any other social activity that you want to share with your fellow documentarians.
Conference Help Desk. If you have any questions about navigating the virtual event, we’ll be running the Write the Docs Helpdesk booth, where you can chat with one of the organizers and the Welcome Wagon team.

The Schedule page has the latest and most complete information about all our events. This is where we will also update any changes/cancellations if they should occur.

Thanks to our sponsors

We are so grateful to have our sponsors help in bringing these events to life every year. Thanks sincerely to the following companies for supporting the Write the Docs community:

Red Hat

people text

KnowledgeOwl

JetBrains

Open Web Docs

Aiven

MDN Web Docs

Head over to our sponsorship prospectus for details on how your company can get involved! We have several types of sponsorship available, including tables at the job fair that we’ll be hosting on Tuesday.

Thanks so much for all your support and enthusiasm so far – we’re so excited to see you all next month!

The Write the Docs team

Write the Docs Newsletter – September 2021

2021-09-07T00:00:00Z

Cancelling WTD Australia and India 2021 conference

2021-08-25T00:00:00Z

G’day folks. We’re writing to let you know that we have decided to cancel our WTD Australia and India conference for 2021. This has been an extremely difficult decision, but we recognise the immense mental fatigue that the pandemic in general and lockdowns specifically have caused in Australia and India this year.

While the community engagement and support have been fantastic across our remote meetup events and last year’s conference, we all felt stressed and burnt-out at various times during the last couple of years. Keeping in mind the long(er)-term health of the community, we have decided to do something else in place of the conference, in a smaller scope that will be more manageable to the organizing team while still providing some continuity to the community.

Here’s what we will do instead.

Super meetup

In place of a full 2-day conference, we will select 4 talks (from the CFP process, pending confirmation from the speakers) and invite these documentarians to present their talks at a super 2-hour meetup (date TBA). We value the time and effort our documentarians put in to submit talk proposals and wanted to use this time to share their experience and knowledge.

This meetup event will be a free and open event without prior registration, so you can join in from anywhere. We will try and keep this in a timezone convenient for both our WTD Australia and India communities.
We will be using the WTD Australia and India Meetup groups to announce the date for this, along with the relevant WTD Slack channels and other social media.

Time to recover

2021 has been a great year with our remote meetup events in Australia. We hope you take this time to recover and refresh yourselves mentally and physically. We will be back in 2022 with the conference (onsite hopefully!).

Some conference housekeeping

If you already registered a ticket for the conference, we will refund these promptly and in full, without cancellation fees.
If you had blocked these dates in your calendar, we will try and organise the super meetup on one of these days, so that you do not have to take additional time off from work.
For those who submitted a talk proposal, we thank you greatly and invite you to resubmit your talks for our conferences (Portland, Prague, Australia/India) next year. If we have selected your talk for the super meetup, we will contact you within the next two weeks.
We will be closing the CFP process before the weekend, cancel future ticket sales, and publish this announcement on the conference website, along with the relevant Write the Docs Slack channels and other social media.

Other conferences and activities

This announcement does not affect any of our other conferences and activities. Our Prague 2021 virtual conference will still take place as planned. Tickets are currently on sale, and we plan to announce the schedule soon.

Stay safe and we hope to see you next year!

Call for Proposals Extended

2021-08-16T00:00:00Z

Greetings fellow documentarians!

The conference is now just under four months away, and we hope you’re already planning for this year’s remote installment of Write the Docs Australia and India conference.

New deadline to submit your proposal is 31st Aug

We added two extra weeks to the deadline because there are enough things to worry about this year, and we wanted to give as many of you the opportunity to prepare your submissions. Make sure to get your talk in before the new deadline; we already have a lot of great proposals coming in, but we wanted to give everyone a chance to submit their ideas.

Check out the Call for Proposals page for tips and examples to help inspire you. And if you’ve got an idea but aren’t sure what to do with it, feel free to ask for feedback on Slack. Your fellow documentarians will be happy to help!

We will send out the decision emails to all who submitted by mid-September, and the final talks will be published by early October.

Announcing speakers

2021-07-30T00:00:00Z

Hello, documentarians! Today we’re happy to announce the full list of talks and speakers for the 2021 Prague virtual conference.

Every year talk selection gets more and more difficult as we get a larger, stronger batch of submissions. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to send us a pitch – we literally wouldn’t have an event without you!

Full speaker line-up

Every year, we look to bring a wide range of voices to the Write the Docs stage. Because being a documentarian can mean different things to different people, we aim for a line-up that spans a good mix of practical, philosophical, and technical topics – with the odd whimsical one thrown in for good measure.

We’re really excited about the presentations we’ve got this year – we hope you are too!

Lana Brindley (she/her) – More than words: Reviewing and updating your information architecture

Karen Sawrey – Hustling for Fun and Profit as a Technical Writer: A Freelancing Starter Kit

Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti – When documenting is designing: How to assist API design as a technical writer

Jenn Leaver – Docs leadership: How to become a stronger leader for your team

Anita Diamond – Cognitive Ergonomics in Technical Writing - Lessons from the Field

Lukas Reußner – Hitchhiker’s Guide to Documentation Tools and Processes

Felicity Brand – How to write a book for (and with) an open source community

Anna Korinna Németh-Szabó – Alchemy in Adversity (How to become better and more resilient tech writers in a turbulent work environment)

Victor Sluiter – Adventures in setting up a knowledge system for a research group

Kate Santo – From travel content to technical content: my journey

Kevin Hwang – Customer Feedback is the Fuel in our Engine

Ryan Macklin (he/they) – So you need to give bad news to users…

Kat Stoica Ostenfeld – How I use applied linguistics to be a better technical writer

Head over to the Speakers page to see the full abstracts. We hope that there’s something there for everyone to enjoy, and also something that will broaden your horizons a bit.

Tickets are going fast!

If you don’t have your ticket yet, now’s a great time to snap one up. Conference tickets have sold out for the last several years, and they go faster along with the speaker announcement, so if you’re planning to attend, don’t leave it to the last minute.

Buy your tickets here!

Our Opportunity Grant program is still open until August 15th. If buying a ticket is difficult for you, please don’t hesitate to apply to the grant program.

Meetup organizer discount: As a thanks to our meetup organizers, we’re happy to offer you a 50% discount on your tickets. Please email us at prague@writethedocs.org, tell us which meetup you organize, and we will send you registration instructions.

Thanks to our sponsors

We are so grateful to have our sponsors help in bringing these events to life every year. Thanks sincerely to the following companies for supporting the Write the Docs community:

Red Hat

people text

KnowledgeOwl

JetBrains

Open Web Docs

Aiven

MDN Web Docs

And that’s the latest on the Prague conference. We hope you’re all getting as excited as we are! Stay tuned for more details.

The Write the Docs Team

Blog - Posts by Write the Docs Team

Write the Docs Newsletter – December 2021

The work documentation really requires (it’s not all writing!)

Deciding what to work on next

Answers to “Why are good docs important?”

Standards in documentation tooling

What we’re reading and watching

From our sponsors

Featured job posts

Virtual events coming up

Write the Docs Newsletter – November 2021

Managing when your manager lacks docs experience

Options for single-sourcing

Documentation gets respect (or at least attention)

What we’re reading and listening to

From our sponsors

Featured job posts

Virtual events coming up

Conference highlights and thanks to the community!

Conference recap

Talk videos

Shirts still on sale

Code of Conduct transparency report

Keep in touch

Thanks again to our sponsors

Until next time

Write the Docs Newsletter – October 2021

Docs review strategies for lone writers

Equipment you find useful for working remotely

What’s in a documentarian resume anyway?

What we’re reading and listening to

Featured job posts

Virtual events coming up

Get Ready for the Conference!

Tickets sales closing on Thursday, September 30th

Welcome Wagon guide and orientation sessions

All our events and activities

Thanks so much to all our sponsors

Announcing Full Schedule

Conference platform

Full presentation schedule

Start thinking about Writing Day

Shirts still on sale

All conference events and activities

Thanks to our sponsors

Write the Docs Newsletter – September 2021

Avoiding the dreaded “wall of text”

Where are all the junior positions?

The basics you need to document an API

Documenting hardware: different from software?

What we’re reading and learning

From our sponsor

Featured job posts

Virtual events coming up

Cancelling WTD Australia and India 2021 conference

Super meetup

Time to recover

Some conference housekeeping

Other conferences and activities

Call for Proposals Extended

New deadline to submit your proposal is 31st Aug

We’ll have more to share soon

Announcing speakers

Full speaker line-up

Tickets are going fast!

Thanks to our sponsors