Introducing The Not-Boring Tech Writer Reboot
01/09/25 • 13 min
📣 Special announcement: The Not-Boring Tech Writer team (Kate and Chad) will be at Write the Docs Portland in May. Thanks to KnowledgeOwl's sponsorship, they’ll be wearing KnowledgeOwl and The Not-Boring Tech Writer t-shirts and giving out The Not-Boring Tech Writer stickers. If you're attending WTD Portland this year, please say hi to Kate and Chad, let them know what you think of the show, and swing by the conference swag table to grab some free stickers so you can flaunt your not-boring tech writer status with the world!
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Meet our new host Kate Mueller and get the inside scoop on how The Not-Boring Tech Writer (TNBTW) will work moving forward.
Kate Mueller is the Documentation Goddess of KnowledgeOwl, a seasoned technical writer and owner of knowledgewithsass, a knowledge management coaching service. She’s written and maintained documentation for companies in broadcasting, financial services, IT, and software for 15+ years. She’ll be hosting TNBTW moving forward.
In this episode, Kate discusses her vision for TNBTW: a podcast dedicated to everyone who is writing technical documentation, including those who may not feel comfortable calling themselves tech writers. Whether you create product documentation, support documentation, READMEs, or any other technical content—and whether you deal with imposter syndrome, lack formal training, or find yourself somewhere in the gray area between technical communications and general writing—the TNBTW reboot might be your new favorite podcast. Kate talks about her own imposter syndrome using the tech writer label and recounts her tech writer villain origin story.
We plan to release two episodes per month: one episode will maintain the traditional TNBTW format of interviewing a guest and focusing on useful skills or tools that can help you improve your tech writing skills; the other episode will be a behind-the-scenes look into what Kate’s working on, struggling with, or thinking about in her daily tech writing life.
—
Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:
We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:
Contact Kate Mueller:
Contact KnowledgeOwl:
—
Transcript
Kate 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.
In today's episode, we relaunch the podcast and introduce you to our new (and hopefully not-boring) host. Spoiler, I'm neither Jacob nor Jared. My name is Kate Mueller. Hi, nice to meet you. When KnowledgeOwl decided to relaunch The Not-Boring Tech Writer, they asked me to serve as the host and my first thought was immediate panic. Am I a real enough tech writer to host this show? I feel more like a 'Pinocchio' tech writer. What if everybody figures it out? I'm not formally trained in technical communication or technical writing, and I do have formal training in both writing, generally at an information management, but I've never been super confident or comfortable with the title of tech writer. I've been doing technical writing for at least the last 15 years. I started with documenting databases I designed and built for coworkers to give them instructions on how to use them. Then I moved into user guides for third party software my company used, and eventually ended up writing support documentation for the software companies I worked for. I've helped write app copy and microcopy in two software products. I've written release notes and product newsletters and 'Getting Started' guides, and I've taken thousands of screenshots. Working at KnowledgeOwl, I've brainstormed and advised customers on all kinds of things, including information architecture, content best practices, authoring and auditing processes, and getting buy-in and managing new knowl...
📣 Special announcement: The Not-Boring Tech Writer team (Kate and Chad) will be at Write the Docs Portland in May. Thanks to KnowledgeOwl's sponsorship, they’ll be wearing KnowledgeOwl and The Not-Boring Tech Writer t-shirts and giving out The Not-Boring Tech Writer stickers. If you're attending WTD Portland this year, please say hi to Kate and Chad, let them know what you think of the show, and swing by the conference swag table to grab some free stickers so you can flaunt your not-boring tech writer status with the world!
_____________________________________________
Meet our new host Kate Mueller and get the inside scoop on how The Not-Boring Tech Writer (TNBTW) will work moving forward.
Kate Mueller is the Documentation Goddess of KnowledgeOwl, a seasoned technical writer and owner of knowledgewithsass, a knowledge management coaching service. She’s written and maintained documentation for companies in broadcasting, financial services, IT, and software for 15+ years. She’ll be hosting TNBTW moving forward.
In this episode, Kate discusses her vision for TNBTW: a podcast dedicated to everyone who is writing technical documentation, including those who may not feel comfortable calling themselves tech writers. Whether you create product documentation, support documentation, READMEs, or any other technical content—and whether you deal with imposter syndrome, lack formal training, or find yourself somewhere in the gray area between technical communications and general writing—the TNBTW reboot might be your new favorite podcast. Kate talks about her own imposter syndrome using the tech writer label and recounts her tech writer villain origin story.
We plan to release two episodes per month: one episode will maintain the traditional TNBTW format of interviewing a guest and focusing on useful skills or tools that can help you improve your tech writing skills; the other episode will be a behind-the-scenes look into what Kate’s working on, struggling with, or thinking about in her daily tech writing life.
—
Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:
We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:
Contact Kate Mueller:
Contact KnowledgeOwl:
—
Transcript
Kate 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.
In today's episode, we relaunch the podcast and introduce you to our new (and hopefully not-boring) host. Spoiler, I'm neither Jacob nor Jared. My name is Kate Mueller. Hi, nice to meet you. When KnowledgeOwl decided to relaunch The Not-Boring Tech Writer, they asked me to serve as the host and my first thought was immediate panic. Am I a real enough tech writer to host this show? I feel more like a 'Pinocchio' tech writer. What if everybody figures it out? I'm not formally trained in technical communication or technical writing, and I do have formal training in both writing, generally at an information management, but I've never been super confident or comfortable with the title of tech writer. I've been doing technical writing for at least the last 15 years. I started with documenting databases I designed and built for coworkers to give them instructions on how to use them. Then I moved into user guides for third party software my company used, and eventually ended up writing support documentation for the software companies I worked for. I've helped write app copy and microcopy in two software products. I've written release notes and product newsletters and 'Getting Started' guides, and I've taken thousands of screenshots. Working at KnowledgeOwl, I've brainstormed and advised customers on all kinds of things, including information architecture, content best practices, authoring and auditing processes, and getting buy-in and managing new knowl...
Previous Episode
Tech Writer Advocacy and Managing Write the Docs with Swapnil Ogale
📣 Special announcement: The Not-Boring Tech Writer team (Kate and Chad) will be at Write the Docs Portland in May. Thanks to KnowledgeOwl's sponsorship, they’ll be wearing KnowledgeOwl and The Not-Boring Tech Writer t-shirts and giving out The Not-Boring Tech Writer stickers. If you're attending WTD Portland this year, please say hi to Kate and Chad, let them know what you think of the show, and swing by the conference swag table to grab some free stickers so you can flaunt your not-boring tech writer status with the world!
_____________________________________________
In this episode I’m talking to Swapnil Ogale, a Technical Writer Advocate for Redocly based in Melbourne, Australia, who is also a Community and Conference Manager for Write the Docs. He gives us the inside scoop on arranging Write the Docs events conferences both in-person and online, and talks to us about the importance of advocacy for technical writers.
Next Episode
Developer collaboration with Lorna Mitchell
📣 Special announcement: The Not-Boring Tech Writer team (Kate and Chad) will be at Write the Docs Portland in May. Thanks to KnowledgeOwl's sponsorship, they’ll be wearing KnowledgeOwl and The Not-Boring Tech Writer t-shirts and giving out The Not-Boring Tech Writer stickers. If you're attending WTD Portland this year, please say hi to Kate and Chad, let them know what you think of the show, and swing by the conference swag table to grab some free stickers so you can flaunt your not-boring tech writer status with the world!
_____________________________________________
In this episode, I’m talking with Lorna Mitchell, a technology leader, published author, tech blogger, and developer experience expert who is passionate about APIs and developer tools. We talk about why developers writing docs is good for both your devs and your docs, the best ways to build successful collaboration with developers, and more!
Lorna and I discuss her background as a developer who started doing documentation for her own resources and gradually moved into developer relations, developer advocacy, and developer experience. We chat about the wide range of writing she’s tackled–including books, readmes, and her blog–and why developers need to write to improve their skills.
We also discuss strategies tech writers can use to facilitate good collaboration with developers, including treating their role more as editors rather than writers; having a clearly-defined process with discrete, well-scoped requests for contributions; creating content type templates to streamline contributions; and having a second, shorter style guide for developers.
About Lorna Mitchell:
Lorna is based in Yorkshire, UK; she is a technology leader and developer experience expert who is passionate about APIs and developer tools. She is also a published author and regular blogger, sharing her insights on a variety of tech-related topics. Lorna serves on the OpenUK board, is on the Technical Steering Committee for OpenAPI specification, and maintains open source projects.
Resources discussed in this episode:
- Lorna’s developer style guide
- Diátaxis for content types
- Write the Docs’ Docs as Code resources
- Tanya Reilly’s Being Glue
—
Contact The Not-Boring Tech Writer team:
We love hearing your ideas for episode topics, guests, or general feedback:
Contact Kate Mueller:
Contact Lorna Mitchell:
Contact KnowledgeOwl:
—
Transcript:
Kate 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. Hi, I'm Kate Mueller. In today's episode, I talk with Lorna Mitchell. Lorna is a technology leader, published author, tech blogger, and developer experience expert who is passionate about APIs and developer tools. We talk about why developers writing docs is good for both your devs and your docs, and the best ways to build successful collaboration with developers. Welcome everyone! My guest today is a woman who I first discovered through a 'write the docs' talk, who made open API and API documentation actually makes sense and seem like a reasonable form of documentation. And as somebody with no background in API stuff, I figured, you know, if I need to interview somebody who qualifies as not boring, anyone who can make API docs feel not boring feels like someone I should have on the show. So I'm very delighted to welcome Lorna Mitchell to the show today. Hi, Lorna. Welcome.
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