I'd Rather Be Writing Podcast Feed

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Sinopsis

A technical writing podcast about the latest trends and practices in the field of technical communication. Technical communication includes topics like technical writing (software help), information architecture, usability, API documentation, information design, web design, illustration, DITA, structured authoring, visual communication, and more. If youre a technical writer or interested in technical writing, this is the one of few podcasts in this niche. I also have a blog at http://idratherbewriting.com where the podcasts and other blog topics are published.

Episodios

  • AI Book Club recording and notes for The Singularity is Nearer, by Ray Kurzweil

    15/06/2025 Duración: 55min

    This is a recording of our AI Book Club session discussing Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Nearer podcast: When We Merge With AI. You can watch the recording on YouTube, listen to the audio file, read some summary notes, browse discussion questions, and even listen to a NotebookLM podcast (based on the summary). There are 5 people in this book club discussion, and we focus a lot on the topics of acceleration, especially as we see it happening in the workplace. We also weigh in on Kurzweil's techno utopianism and how persuaded we are by the arguments about AGI landing...

  • Notes and discussion for Suleyman's <i>The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future</i> + AI Book Club recording and transcript

    17/05/2025 Duración: 59min

    This post describes the key arguments and themes in The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future, by Mustafa Suleyman, for the AI Book Club: A Human in the Loop. This post not only breaks down the logic but also jumps off into some themes (beyond the book) that might be more tech-writer relevant, such as potential future job titles, areas of focus for tech writers to thrive now, questions for discussion, and more. It also contains the book club recording.

  • Notes and discussion for Jonathan Warner's <i>More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI</i>

    15/04/2025 Duración: 59min

    This post has notes and questions for discussion for More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI, published in February 2025 by Jonathan Warner. Warner's book, which explores what we lose when we outsource writing to AI, is the first book in the AI Book Club: A Human in the Loop.

  • Rethinking traditional approaches to release notes -- recording of WTD Australia presentation

    17/02/2025 Duración: 56min

    I gave a presentation to the Write the Docs Australia group on using AI to write release notes using file diffs, on Feb 16, 2025. Here's the recording, presentation description, and transcript.

  • My 2025 trends predictions

    05/01/2025 Duración: 21min

    It's that time of year again when we take to analyzing trends. If you know me, you're probably gearing up for a load of AI-optimistic predictions because, as I've noted in previous posts like Unpacking the issues from AI, I'm an AI optimist. However, my AI optimism isn't based on hype or the current tech zeitgeist. Rather, I'm an AI optimist because my daily experiences using AI for technical documentation, especially API docs, throughout 2024 has shown it to be invaluable.

  • [Podcast] GenAI and Document360: Conversation with Saravana Kumar

    06/10/2024 Duración: 49min

    This podcast explores GenAI in technical documentation scenarios, highlighting the AI features and capabilities provided in Document360. I talk with Saravana Kumar, CEO of Kovai.co, which makes Document360, about how AI is changing search functionality and reducing support costs in knowledge bases. We discuss practical applications of AI for technical writers, including automated tagging, SEO optimization, glossary creation, and more. Saravana shares about AI agent workflows, conversational search experiences, automating screenshot captures, and much more.

  • Podcast: Task decomposition and complex tree diagrams

    28/07/2024 Duración: 18min

    This tutorial will help you understand task decomposition by guiding you through the process of creating a complex tree diagram that's too sophisticated for an AI tool to create at once. Whether you're creating tree diagrams or not, it doesn't matter. This is just an example of how to break down complex information into smaller chunks and pass it into AI.

  • Podcast: Using long-token contexts to quality check an entire API doc set

    28/07/2024 Duración: 21min

    One of the advantages of recent Gen AI updates is the massive token input context. When you can pass in an entire set of documentation as an input, you have a much stronger possibility for powerful prompts. In this tutorial, I share some quality-control prompts you can use that deal with entire doc sets as inputs, as well as explain some of the challenges in passing in an entire doc set.

  • Podcast: Using file diffs for better release notes in reference docs

    28/07/2024 Duración: 17min

    You can use AI prompts when creating release notes for APIs by leveraging file diffs from regenerated reference documentation. The file diffs from version control tools provide a reliable, precise information source about what's changed in the release.

  • Podcast: Populating documentation templates using AI

    28/07/2024 Duración: 22min

    In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use AI to populate documentation templates with the source material you've gathered. For example, API overviews often follow a highly structured template. This technique can be a quick way to get an initial draft of documentation, which you can then edit and review with SMEs.

  • Podcast: Gathering source material for context input

    28/07/2024 Duración: 18min

    One of the most successful strategies for using AI is to pass in an abundance of source material that can augument and inform the AI's responses. In this tutorial, I cover strategies for gathering this material, including what types of documents to look for, optimal ordering, pitfalls to look out for such as outdated or slanted information, and more.

  • Podcast: Creating high-fidelity, thematically organized notes from engineering meetings using AI

    28/07/2024 Duración: 15min

    For AI tools to generate accurate information for documentation you're writing, you need to pass in source material. This usually means meeting with engineers and product managers to gather information about the product. In this tutorial, I share prompts for turning those meeting transcriptions into organized, readable meeting summaries. These cleaned up summaries can then function as input context for documentation-oriented prompts.

  • [Podcast] Uncovering and communicating the value of your tech comm teams' work, with Keren Brown

    30/05/2024 Duración: 47min

    In this podcast episode, I talk with Keren Brown, VP of Marketing and Value at Zoomin Software, about strategies for technical writers to demonstrate their value within their organizations, especially in light of recent layoffs in the tech industry. We discuss aligning documentation work with high-priority initiatives, quantifying the impact of technical writing, and making this work visible to executive leaders. Keren also shares insights on the changing landscape of technical writing skills in the age of AI and the role of translation in modern documentation workflows. Overall, this podcast will show you how to establish yourself as a highly...

  • [Podcast] Breaking ground: New API documentation course at UW, with Bob Watson

    05/01/2024 Duración: 53min

    In this podcast, I chat with Bob Watson about an upcoming API documentation course he'll be teaching at the University of Washington. Bob has extensive experience working as an API technical writer at big tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. The UW reached out to Bob to develop this new course offering. The 14-week evening course will cover fundamentals like understanding developer behaviors, working with various types of APIs, publishing workflows, as well as hands-on practice. A key component is having students create API documentation portfolios they can use to demonstrate their skills.

  • My 2024 technical writing trends and predictions

    01/01/2024 Duración: 28min

    I've been mulling over whether to write a trends post this year. There's so much uncertainty, it's hard to feel confident about how the tech writing profession will play out. But little trends-related ideas keep surfacing in the back of my mind, so I decided to write out some of my thoughts.

  • Podcast: Notes and themes from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig

    15/12/2023 Duración: 01h03min

    These are some notes and thoughts from reading Robert Pirsig's classic philosophical novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, published in 1974. My reading here focuses more on the technical writing aspects and themes from the book. Some themes include Classic versus Romantic modes of thought, the concept of Quality, our relationship with technology, doing your own maintenance, caring about the work, peace of mind, systems thinking, multiple paths through a problem, troubleshooting, being in-the-scene versus removed, the road trip, effortless action, going with the flow, traveling along the backroads, and presence in the moment. I also include some...

  • Webinar recording: Experiments and use cases for AI from a tech writer’s perspective

    13/12/2023 Duración: 01h02min

    I recently gave a webinar titled 'Experiments and use cases for AI from a tech writer’s perspective' on December 8, 2023. The webinar was sponsored by the STC Washington, DC - Baltimore Chapter. In this presentation, I shared some personal experiences in using AI for different writing-related use cases, explaining what I’ve found helpful. These use cases and takeaways were all experiential, based on my experiments with using AI both in the workplace for documentation-related scenarios and writing on my blog.

  • 30+ ways I’m using AI in everyday writing life as a technical writer, blogger, and curious human

    04/12/2023 Duración: 44min

    In this post, I provide over 30 real-life examples of how I'm using AI on a daily basis, not just for technical writing tasks but more broadly in life, including summarizing content, explaining concepts, answering questions, troubleshooting problems, and having engaging conversations for a variety of tasks and scenarios. In my view, AI use cases are ubiquitous, equivalent to the use cases for computers or the Internet in general.

  • Podcast: The evolution of podcasting, with Ed Marsh

    03/12/2023 Duración: 57min

    In this podcast, I talk with Ed Marsh about podcasting. You may have listened to Ed Marsh's Content Content podcast previously. As an experienced podcaster, Ed has a lot of insights and thoughts about podcasting. We discuss what initially drew him to start podcasting, the equipment and logistics involved in podcasting, different formats that engage listeners (from co-hosts to single person podcasts, and more), incorporating AI tools, why podcasters often go on hiatus, the ongoing appeal of podcasting, and more.

  • Podcast: Tech writing and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, with Dan Grabski

    18/11/2023 Duración: 42min

    In this episode, I chat with Dan Grabski, a senior content developer based in Portland, both about his recent WTD talk titled 'Zen and the Art of Manually Creating API Documentation' and Robert Pirsig's 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.' Dan explains the importance of focusing not just on technical details of implementations but also on integrating the people side &mdash; on understanding the perspectives of different users and stakeholders involved. Dan provides examples from his engineering background to illustrate how intuition develops from experience, how to avoid spectator mode through hands-on exploration of APIs, on carving out time...

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