The Cherryleaf Podcast

131. Diana Logan on GitLab and Hackathons

We talk to Diana Logan, Manager, Technical Writing at GitLab, about Gitlab’s approach to documentation and code.
We discuss:
Working in an “Docs as Code” environment
The upcoming GitLab Docs hackathon
Working for a fully remote, asynchronous organisation 
We've posted a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog.
 
More information:
GitLab Docs Hackathon 23 - 27 January, 2023
Five fast facts about docs as code at GitLab
How to update GitLab documentation
About Cherryleaf:
Cherryleaf

130. Trends in technical communication for 2023 and beyond

It’s that time of year for us to gaze into our crystal ball and share your and our predictions for the future of technical communication for 2023 and beyond.
Thread on LinkedIn
Thread on Twitter
We've posted a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog. 
About Cherryleaf:
Cherryleaf

129. Your first 90 days as a Documentation Manager

We asked on Social Media
Someone joins as/becomes a manager of technical writing team.
What would you advise they do in their first 90-100 days?
In this episode, we go through the responses we received.
We'll post a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog. 
About Cherryleaf:
Cherryleaf
 
The five pillars of content strategy:
https://www.scroll.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Five-Pillars-Approach-toolkit.pdf

128. Optimising Technical Documentation for Search

We look at optimising technical documentation for Search Engines.
We'll post a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog. 
About Cherryleaf:
Cherryleaf
Links:
Podcast 62 Looking back on the presentations at The Evolution of TC 2019 conference
99 Percent Invisible: Search and ye might find

127. Creating Playbooks

We look at playbooks. We ask: what are they, and why create them?
We also discuss our approach for creating playbooks, and the different ways to publish them. 
We'll post a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog. 
About Cherryleaf:
Cherryleaf
Links:
https://trainual.com/manual/what-is-a-business-playbook-and-how-to-use-it-to-scale
https://sterlingwoods.com/blog/business-playbook/
https://www.tensorflow.org/community/sig_playbook?hl=en
https://docs.apigee.com/api-platform/troubleshoot/troubleshooting-introduction?hl=en
https://developers.google.com/business-communications/business-messages/files/bm-brand-playbook.pdf?hl=en

126. Retrospectives for documentation projects

We look at the value of retrospectives at the end of a documentation project, and how you can run one. 
We'll post a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog. 
About Cherryleaf:
Cherryleaf
 
 

125. Who we, and others, are hiring

We look at the types of skills we, and others, are looking for, when taking on freelance and permanent technical communicators. 
We'll post a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog. 
About Cherryleaf:
Cherryleaf
 

124. Technical writing timesavers

We asked:
Does anyone have any techcomm timesaver tips they'd like to share?
 
This is what you told us...
 
We'll post a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog. 
About Cherryleaf:
Cherryleaf
 

123. Document quality checklists

We look at different ways to measure and check the quality of the content we produce.
References:
Developing Quality Technical Information (DQTI), Hargis, IBM, 1997
Peter Morville’s User Experience Honeycomb
Ilene Burnstein, Practical Software Testing
Teste e Qualidade de Software Software Reviews and Other Static Software Analysis. Rodrigo Back Almada. https://slideplayer.com/slide/14604162/
We'll post a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog. 
About Cherryleaf:
Cherryleaf
Our new training bundles:
Cherryleaf Technical Communication Courses

122. Github for Technical Writing

We look at GitHub and how technical communicators are using GitHub for creating documentation.
 
Our new training bundles:
Cherryleaf Technical Communication Courses
Video:
Creative writing with GitHub copilot
Hands on - AI pair programming with GitHub Copilot