Kate Mueller: [00:00:04] Welcome to The Not Boring Tech Writer, a podcast sponsored by KnowledgeOwl. Together, we hear from other writers to explore writing concepts and strategies, deepen our tech writing skills, get inspired, and connect with our distinctly not-boring tech writing community. If you are passionate about documentation, you belong here, no matter your job title or experience level. Welcome.

Kate Mueller: [00:00:29] Hello my lovely, not-boring tech writers. Today, I am so excited to welcome to the podcast a guest who originally appeared, I think season one, episode five, so we're going into our back catalog of guests. He's a founder of Write the Docs and one of my favorite documentarians to talk hiking with. Please join me in welcoming Eric Holscher back to the podcast. Eric, welcome.

Eric Holscher: [00:00:57] Thank you. Thank you for not mentioning how many years ago that was just so we can breeze through.

Kate Mueller: [00:01:03] My lips are sealed. We technically have three seasons. If people want to do the math to figure out how many years ago season one was, that's on them, not me. I'm a writer, not a mathematician.

Eric Holscher: [00:01:15] We’re at the point in life where everything starts having double digits in the number of years. I don't think we're quite there yet on the podcast though.

Kate Mueller: [00:01:20] So actually this year we are, but don't tell anyone. For folks who don't know you, Eric, I thought we might start with one of my traditional questions, which is: I know you are not officially a tech writer, but nonetheless, I would love to hear your tech writer villain origin story. How did you get into caring about documentation?

Eric Holscher: [00:01:43] Yeah, I think the thing I always go back to is this time in college, I was a computer science major, and I was doing my third year, and was on a family vacation around Thanksgiving in the US. I had this big project I was working on and I was like, "Oh no, I'm super far behind." It was basically learning Python and learning Django. And so I downloaded the PDF of the Django documentation and just brought that with me on my trip with the family. In the evenings, I'm out there reading through this 500-page PDF and learning so much and having my mind blown over and over again. I'm like, oh, that thing, and putting my old hat on Pearl that I'm used to doing. It's so easy! That experience of having the documentation really be what I needed it to be at that time and in a format that was available to me and was incredibly well written and comprehensive. I view that as how I learned Django, and Django is how I cared about documentation. The Python community is that whole narrative arc starts with getting into Python and making it accessible for me in that format.

Kate Mueller: [00:02:51] So as a reader first, so to speak, of documentation and finding value in that and then burgeoning passion. I think often once you've had one of those experiences where your life has been made better through documentation, it's so much easier to see the value that documentation brings, right?.

Eric Holscher: [00:03:13] I have a big background in open source as well and dogfooding and solving your own problems. I feel like dogfooding is a really weird analogy or turn of phrase, but basically using the stuff that you're working on, and starting as a user and seeing the value really builds that empathy for when you turn into the creator.

Kate Mueller: [00:03:35] Yes. Sidebar at KnowledgeOwl, instead of using the word dogfooding, we call it "drinking our own champagne", because it sounds slightly more palatable.

Eric Holscher: [00:03:44] Yeah, we have a little PR we just did in our guide the other day on not doing animal harm with our analogies and that's not quite there, but it's maybe doing self-harm.

Kate Mueller: [00:03:57] Yeah. Please don't go eat dog food, people. That's not what we mean here. And so what are you currently doing, Eric? I know you've been a developer in the past. I know you've been deeply involved in all kinds of projects. What's life look like for you right now?

Eric Holscher: [00:04:11] Yeah. My day to day is still on Read the Docs, which is a fun naming story. I don't know if we'll get to, but Write the Docs kind of came out of Read the Docs, but is fully separate very immediately, right? It was created as an event for Read the Docs people. And then it made first contact with the world, and then the world made it its own thing very quickly, so that's why the names are so confusing. But yeah, that's still what I'm doing. That was almost 15 years now. It started as an open source project, and now it's my day job for over ten years, documentation hosting for open source, for companies, that kind of stuff. That's what takes most of my time then. Of course, helping organize the Portland conference and Write the Docs and some of the other events that are happening is a background task at all times.

Kate Mueller: [00:05:01] Sometimes noisier of a background task than others.

Eric Holscher: [00:05:05] Very spiky. There's a peak stress time of year about a month before the event, I find.

Kate Mueller: [00:05:11] And we're getting close to it, in fact. We tried to wedge this in before peak stress would hit. It's coming. And actually, for folks who haven't heard of Write the Docs before, can you give me a little elevator pitch about it?

Eric Holscher: [00:05:26] It's really a community for people who care about documentation. And yeah, like you noted, my background, a lot of the original folks were software people. They were just trying to get better at it, trying to find other people who care. The lone tech writer feeling is a very common thing to software people who care about docs as well, and I think there's a lot of people in these various job roles that–this has turned it into less of an elevator pitch. I guess I started with the elevator.

Kate Mueller: [00:05:53] No, I like that. It's a long elevator ride. We'll imagine it's 400 floors.

Eric Holscher: [00:05:57] There we go.

Kate Mueller: [00:05:58] You can keep going.

Eric Holscher: [00:05:59] It's the world's slowest elevator. Welcome to the show. It's really about anybody who cares about documentation, regardless of your role. The tech writers and folks like that, I think it's really turned into more of their home community, right? So that's a place where they really feel at home. And I think that's the majority of folks these days, but then there's still additional groups of folks that really want to learn from them, learn more about it, care about it, and don't know where to find other people that can get nitty gritty in Markdown table formatting or whatever.

Kate Mueller: [06:32] It is so hard when you're the one person at an organization who's really excited about something, and there is something to be said for coming to something like Write the Docs where you are among a community of people who are just as passionate and just as geeking out about those things with a really wide range of experience. I've met obviously a bunch of other writers or documentarians, but also designers, marketing folks, developers. I think we've had some folks who came just because they were interested in maybe doing documentation and thought it would be a cool thing to check out. There's a really wide range.

Eric Holscher: [07:13] Like career transition folks. They're just like, "Hey, I'm in journalism. I'm in marketing or, and this is like an interest I have." Yeah, it's a wide range.

Kate Mueller: [07:21] Yeah. And I would say it's really welcoming to that wide range. There are some conferences you go to where if you're not the core group, you feel like I'm on the fringe, I'm on the edge, whatever that might be. And Write the Docs for me has always felt different from that, like the first year I attended in person was 2019. I had just started contracting with KnowledgeOwl. It was right after I finished thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, and I was very much in this place of like, “I don't know what I'm doing anymore…what do I want to be when I grow up? I have no idea.” I had taken this contract role, and I definitely wasn't identifying myself as a tech writer at that time, but I felt so much like I found my people when I came to Write the Docs, I was like, "These are all people who care very much about documentation, not necessarily like formally trained techcom people or whatever. Just a lot of people who see the value in documentation and want to build good documentation, and that I am totally here for, even if I have no idea what I'm doing with my life or where I'm going." And it was a really nice grounding thing for me to be like, "Hey, there's a space here, even if I have no idea what I want to call myself or what I might want to apply to." So this is my little plug for you. If you're excited about documentation, which you probably are, if you're listening to this podcast, it's definitely worth coming to check out the conference at some point, whether that's in-person in Portland or, let's see, you've got stuff in, is Berlin coming back this year?

Eric Holscher: [08:58] Officially in September.

Kate Mueller: [09:01] Nice. There are a couple options, and in years past there have been virtual conferences in places and in-person conferences in places. So there are often options that might fit your budget and travel preferences as well.

Eric Holscher: [09:15] Both of those will be hybrid. So yeah, they're remote as well as in-person.

Kate Mueller: [09:20] I'm going to call myself out here that I've been using both the phrase tech writer and documentarian. And I believe the history of documentarian in this context actually came through the process of Write the Docs being founded, but can you tell me a little bit more about this? Am I inventing that story?

Eric Holscher: [09:40] It was not me. I believe it was. It was founded by Troy Howard and Eric Redmond, who were folks in Portland that put on the first event. I think it was probably Troy that came up with that whole, it's like, “we need a word” kind of thing, right? We have a concept. But until we formalize it and crystallize it into something, then it's just like, you have to have this whole paragraph conversation, right? It's even tighter than an elevator pitch. We're just going to coin a new definition for documentarian.

Kate Mueller: [10:10] Naming things is so freaking hard.

Eric Holscher: [10:15] Yeah. We are not a convention of people who care about film and nature documentaries or anything, but that's the beauty of English, that we can borrow and redefine and grow words as we want.

Kate Mueller: [10:25] So for you is a documentarian just somebody who is passionate about documentation, regardless of role?

Eric Holscher: [10:31] Exactly. We have a definition on the website. We probably don't link to it or reference it as much as we should as it goes.

Kate Mueller: [10:40] I'll go look for it, and if it's there, I'll link to it in the show notes, if you really want to go read the official definition. And so do you identify as a documentarian?

Eric Holscher: [10:48] Yeah, definitely. I think that was really the identity that we were grappling with, like, what are we? Okay, I'm a software developer, that's what my job title says. But it's like there's this other identity that I'm holding that I don't have a name for or don't have a way to think about and feels very marginalized, I would say, in that world as well. And so it's one of those things where it's like, okay, like people think I'm weird for caring about documentation. And it's like, okay, how do we reframe this and try to build community around it, find people like us? That's the eternal quest of belonging, of humanity.

Kate Mueller: [11:29] Yes. And that quest to communicate something meaningful about yourself at the same time, right? I both want to belong to a community, but it would help if I didn't have to give a two-paragraph explanation of this piece of myself. Sometimes just having that little label is so much easier.

Eric Holscher: [11:47] In your LinkedIn bio or whatever.

Kate Mueller: [11:50] That's right. Easy to drop into a resume, cover letter, into an interview, whatever. Just so much easier and often that people don't understand documentarian in that context. So they might start out with, "Oh, so you make films," and you're like, "No, no, no, no. Let me give you the alternate definition of documentarian and we can go from there."

Eric Holscher: [12:08] Asterisks.

Kate Mueller: [12:09] So Write the Docs as a conference has been around since, I want to say 2013. Am I right on this?

Eric Holscher: [12:16] Yep.

Kate Mueller: [12:16] And you've been involved since very early days.

Eric Holscher: [12:19] Similar story there, where I actually organized the first one immediately before hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. So I quit my job, and at the beginning of the year the customary start date is around mid-April. I think I started on April 15th, and so the first Write the Docs was the beginning of April. We snuck it in there, did it in like three months. Really threw it together with a bunch of really lovely folks in Portland. And yeah, that was 2013.

Kate Mueller: [12:50] And how long did you take to hike the PCT?

Eric Holscher: [12:53] So I only made it 800 miles and ended up getting a stress fracture in my foot. So right in the middle of the Sierras, which is the best part. I literally walked my foot in half.

Kate Mueller: [13:05] Oh, when I was doing the AT, I met this gal that was in Maine too. She was so close to the end and she had developed stress fractures in both of her feet and just could not even contemplate continuing. And there was something really rough about-

Eric Holscher: [13:21] Once you're taking the good painkillers and you still can't walk, that's a sign. And I went to a doctor and they were like, "Usually they just don't show up on the X-rays. But like, here you go."

Kate Mueller: [13:30] “But yours is so bad. Look!”

Eric Holscher: [13:32] Yeah. “Good thing you hiked that extra 100 miles with a broken foot. If you want to not have issues in the future, you should probably stop.” And that's what really got me, right? It's like the long-term versus the short-term is important.

Kate Mueller: [13:47] Yeah, I stupidly made the opposite decision. I developed nerve issues, Morton's neuromas in both my feet and I should have stopped and I didn't. And because of that, my abilities to do long-distance hiking now are a lot more limited. So good on you for making good choices for your long term care and health and well-being.

Eric Holscher: [14:07] It was a little, not particularly doable.

Kate Mueller: [14:13] It's heartbreaking for sure. If you're going to quit, you want to quit because you chose to quit, not because your body chose to quit.

Eric Holscher: [14:19] Exactly, but have since done lots of like hundred-mile hikes, which it turns out is much more reasonable on your body.

Kate Mueller: [14:29] This is actually the advice I give to anybody who asks me about thru-hiking. I'm like, no, no, do section hiking. You'll like it better. You'll remember more of it. It'll feel a lot more meaningful. I mean, just as with other projects, like if you take like a huge documentation project and you just slog away at it every single day for months and months and months, the joy of that tends to disappear the longer the project goes on. But if you can break it into pieces that feel attainable, achievable, and then give yourself a break in between them, it's so much easier.

Eric Holscher: [15:02] It's a great transition. And I will continue with that in that the reason I think that you thru-hike and the reason that these ongoing projects at work can be sustainable or in the best case, it's when you really have a community and you have a supportive group and it's amazing. You have a trail family, they call it when you're hiking. And I mean, hopefully you have the trope of your coworkers being family is one I don't want to bring out, but hopefully you have supportive coworkers and that environment where you're able to finish those projects and take the structure and diversions that you need to get it through. But yeah, it really is all about who you're doing it with, I think is always the number one. You'll find the theme of community is a recurring one for me and all the things is it's really a huge value that I have. And unsurprisingly, where Write the Docs came.

Kate Mueller: [15:52] Well, and I think that's a human value, right? We're social creatures. The community aspect of so much of life is what makes or breaks things for us. Can you do a lot of stuff alone? Sure. But it's certainly a lot easier and often a lot more fun. This is not a let's force everybody to work on a group project together because that's not fun. But that feeling of like, "I am one of the members. I'm a member of a community and I can depend on the community for support, but I can also share my successes with the community and they'll be stoked about it with me. They can celebrate that with me," right? And so they'll carry you a bit, or you help carry others a bit when they're not in a great place. But then when you are in a great place, that lifts everybody up and we all get to benefit from that.

Eric Holscher: [16:42] The parallels are so relatable with thru-hiking. It's just so visible, right? It's very, it's food and water and walking. It really breaks those things down. But then in the work context, there's so much more complexity to it, but there are ways to support people, and I think that's really where those external communities come in as well. Like for me, in my early career, the Python community was really that for me, where it showed me the norm, showed me how to do things, had that mentorship relationship with people really brought me in and taught me how to be in that profession, and I was incredibly lucky that the Python community is one of the most empathetic, and in my opinion, the best, the Python and Django communities have a special place in my heart, like many people have Write the Docs in their heart, right? It's kind of a similar story where that's still where I consider my home professional community that I found a long time ago. And hopefully everyone can find that in their careers. And that's one of the things I always mention in the Write the Docs openings, right? What are we doing here? And it's like, we're here to learn. We're here to get better at our jobs. But really like the next level thing is building that connection, building that network. I feel like these are things we need new words for as well as they've been kind of taken over by-

Kate Mueller: [18:05] Co-opted by corporate America. I hate the word “network.” It feels very transactional in nature. Whereas what I feel like when I attend Write the Docs is not. I mean, am I networking? Sure. I am definitely expanding the network of humans that I know and I connect with. But I feel more like I'm just making new friends a lot of the time, and that's what I walk away from. I think the thing I told people after I went back in person last year because I'd been attending virtually for a while, was that it made me revisit the idea of myself as an introvert because I didn't feel introverted there, because I was among people that I enjoyed being around and I was like, “Oh, maybe I'm not actually an introvert. I just am very selective in the people I want to hang out with. And it turns out that a whole bunch of the folks at Write the Docs are my people, and I don't find it tiring to hang out with them. I find it energizing and inspiring and pretty, just generally awesome.” People working on very different things, people being very generous with their time and their knowledge and their passions.

Eric Holscher: [19:17] And it's nice to get a little bit of that infectious joy in a professional context, right. Because I do feel like a lot of people have found something like that. And hopefully you have something like that in your personal life, whether it's hiking, or horses, or whatever it is that fills you up. I think a lot of people really struggle in a professional context to not feel like it's just work, and how do you bridge that transition? I mean, I go back to open source as this really profound, I'm giving you something for free, you're giving me something for free gift economy. There's all these pretty magical underpinnings to that whole thing at a base level. And how do we build that into the Write the Docs community is something I've always thought about. I don't know how successful we've been. I think the events have a lot of that feeling to it. I always say your job is to make friends, have fun, and learn something. And we can have joy and fun in a professional context. We can have that infectious excitement for technology, for whatever it is, whatever people are excited about. It's always really neat to just receive somebody else's passion and give that back to them with acceptance and excitement and understanding. And I think that’s the real magic is how your excitement is received. And that's what I always really try to set the tone is like, we want you to be your nerdy self here and be excited about stuff. And like, if somebody is excited at you, don't shut them down.

Kate Mueller: [20:49] Yeah, because we're all trying to hold that space for nerdy excitement and because a lot of us are the lone person who's excited about documentation in the places that we work. So it's like the one space where you get to be among other people who are just as stoked about that. And I feel like some of the choices in terms of how the conference itself has been structured really reflect that because you have the main stage talks that people have to write proposals for and do a bunch of planning in advance, and those are things that are scheduled and everybody knows about. But then there's also, I mean, there's some of the less formal social constructs around the hike, for example, you've got Writing Day that's been historically modeled after like hackathon sprint type of things. And then even during the two main conference days, there's lightning talks, there's unconference sessions. So there are a lot of different ways for people to share their geeky excitement that aren't “Let me get up on the main stage and give a prepared talk."

Eric Holscher: [21:55] Yeah. No, definitely. And I always like to say the hallway track is the second track, and the unconference is really a formalization of a hallway track, but there's still there's still a hallway track. I mean, obviously Rev[olution] Hall has nothing if not hallways.

Kate Mueller: [22:10] Yes, many hallways, lots of places you can accidentally run into people and strike up conversations and make connections. The unconferences for me, it was the first time I'd ever attended a conference that had something like unconferences. So for folks who aren't familiar, I guess we should probably explain this a little bit. Do you want to give us the rundown on unconferences, Eric?

Eric Holscher: [22:33] Yeah, yeah. So unconference, basically, we have a secondary room that has numbered tables and we have just a big board in the room, and you can just take a post-it note and you can write a topic on a board and just put it in a time slot. And they correspond to the main talks on the stage. So basically when there's a talk on the stage, there's a discussion happening in the unconference. And so it's a way for people to day-of organize what they're excited about, what they want to talk about. So I think it keeps things very topical, which is really useful. We don't have to schedule it months in advance, like the CFP. If something gets released the week before, you can go in and talk about it, but then it's also user driven. It's really neat that people can talk about what they're excited about and they can find other people. And I think that's the real value I see in it is that sorting mechanism, right? Where it's like, how do I find the other people that care about the thing that I care about? And I can just go and talk to people in the hallway randomly, but the unconference is really this great way of funneling that where you're like, "Oh, well, at 2:00 there's a table for people who really care about analytics."

Kate Mueller: [23:37] My first year, I went to an unconference session on ways to customize VS code and people shared like, "Here's my favorite plugins", or my favorite whatever. And I took so many good ideas from that. And at the time, I was the only one on the team who used VS code. So it's not like I had anybody else that I worked with to share that, but I left with a huge list of notes of like, check this out, check that out. And a couple people that I connected with in it. And that's the kind of thing that happens in an unconference session, or it'll be something like somebody brought up this thing in their main session talk. It was just an aside, and I'm really excited about that idea. Let me post something in unconference, and maybe I can get a group of people to talk about it. And those are the kind of organic flows you get with unconference that you would not get with just scheduled conferences.

Eric Holscher: [24:29] The classic happy case is: Person comes to the event super nervous. And then they're like, "Okay, I want to do a lightning talk on this topic, but I'm scared." And they go to dinner with somebody and somebody's like, "No, you got to do it. Let me help you. I'll kind of convince them to do it." And then they go up and they give the lightning talk. It's their first ever talk. And then at the end, like ten people come up and be like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, oh, I'd love this. It's like, you should do it unconference. And then it's like, okay, well, 4 p.m. today, we'll be downstairs talking about my thing. And that's the happy case. And it happens every year. Or there's a Writing Day and you meet somebody and they're like, let's do it. It gives that energy and outlet when you meet somebody and they're like, “I want to talk more about this. How do we make that happen?”

Kate Mueller: [25:19] And the lightning talks are a great way to get some experience giving a talk without having to do a huge main stage talk, as well.

Eric Holscher: [25:27] That's where I started.

Kate Mueller: [25:28] I did one last year. I had a blast doing it. I had a lot of fun. It's just like a nice way to dabble your feet into a main stage talk or to just test an idea. Does the way that I'm thinking about this problem or this issue, does that resonate for people? Is there potentially a larger talk there? You can do a lightning talk and see what happens and see how people respond.

Eric Holscher: [25:54] It's one of my favorite things every year. Like it's always super fun and there's always a couple silly ones. And just giving people that opportunity to be like, I'm the kind of person that can get on stage in front of a room of hundreds of people, I think is a really powerful thing, that is a capability that we control. And I think it's profound that we open that up to the community and really build that as an onboarding for people to change their conceptualization of their professional reality, right? I mentioned it earlier, but my first ever talk was a lightning talk at the first DjangoCon I went to and somebody, I'm sure, like goaded me, you know, like, "I have this project.”

Kate Mueller: [26:39] You got it. You got it, Eric!

Eric Holscher: [26:41] That's maybe my conference organizer villain origin story.

Kate Mueller: [26:49] That's actually a question I should have asked you, was your conference organizer villain origin story. Do you think it's because you went to DjangoCon or PyCon and had a really good experience there?

Eric Holscher: [27:00] Yeah, I mean, definitely, I think that's always been my city on a hill when I look at what is Write the Docs trying to be? And if the Python community is, if we’re ever one tenth as successful, they have meetups in every continent around. I mean, it's just so pervasive. It's really amazing. I was just randomly in Taiwan at one point a number of years ago and there's a Python meetup in the little town that I'm in and I go and I'm just like, I'm connecting with people over this thing in the middle of the whole other side of the world. And we're able to have this shared interest and really build a connection over it. And I think that's just so powerful. And so, yeah, I really think that's the standard I hold myself to, I guess I would say, is that Python and Django communities, I think have really led the way on a lot of this stuff around codes of conduct and different inclusivity and just ways of the event being what it should be. And that's what it was for me, and I want to provide that for other people.

Kate Mueller: [28:05] Yeah, it's nice paying it forward to build community, to sustain community.

Eric Holscher: [28:11] But really, my origin story is hanging out at a bar and complaining to Troy about there not being a documentation community and him being like, "I built us a conference." So I think like all things, you have to get thrown into it a little bit where it's like, oh, it has a website now. So that must be real.

Kate Mueller: [28:30] Oh, it's real now. There's a website. And I think that's a great note for us to take a break on. So we will take a break and we will be right back.

Kate Mueller: [28:40] This episode is sponsored by KnowledgeOwl, your team's next knowledge base solution. You don't have to be a technical wizard to use KnowledgeOwl. Our intuitive, robust features empower teammates of all feathers to spend more time on content and less time on administration. Learn more and sign up for a free 30-day trial at knowledgeowl.com.

Kate Mueller: [29:03] And we're back. Now, how has the conference changed since 2013? I mean, did you start out with lightning talks and unconference and all those things, or did they evolve naturally over the course of time?

Eric Holscher: [29:16] I'm sure we started out with lightning talks. I'd have to go back and look at the schedule, but I feel that's my foundation. That story I just told, right? So it was a huge part of it. I think the Writing Day, I think we added a couple years in, just trying to again, yet another attempt at solving that problem of how do we build an open source community for documentarians? I think that's something we're still trying to figure out is, what is that creator? What is that contribution community? I mean, I think this is a great example, this podcast, is not quite coming out of the Write the Docs community, but it feels very much of the community.

Kate Mueller: [29:54] Definitely community-adjacent for sure.

Eric Holscher: [29:57] Yeah. And how do we build more, where's the documentation tool that's getting created in our Slack. I think there's a lot of those conversations happening, but it just doesn't feel like we've quite cracked the code of how do we build that creative community aspect. But that's really where Writing Day, it's like, “Hey, instead of just learning, what happens if we're doing and talking and showing and it's a lot more hands-on?” But yeah, I think a lot of the structure was pretty early and again, just 100% ripped off from Python events.

Kate Mueller: [30:35] Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

Eric Holscher: [30:39] A fun little reciprocal thing is, I actually was one of the founders of PyCascades, which was a Pacific Northwest Python conference that we then ran in the style of Write the Docs.

Kate Mueller: [30:50] Nice.

Eric Holscher: [30:51] I'm not involved anymore, but I co-chaired the one in Portland in 2020, I think, like February, snuck it in there. But yeah, it was definitely one of those things where it was really inspiring to be able to take what I learned with Write the Docs and then put on an event for the Python community that I thought was incredibly high quality and that same, same structure with the unconference and everything. And I think it was really well-received. And that was a fun, full circle moment for me.

Kate Mueller: [31:24] Oh that's lovely. And do you feel that the community itself has evolved over that time alongside the conference? You mentioned that it feels like there's maybe a bit more people who are officially tech writers in some capacity now, but are there other changes that have come through?

Eric Holscher: [31:45] Yeah, from my side of things, when we came back from Covid in-person, we actually got an event producer, Katie, who's amazing, and that was the biggest change for me personally. That yearly spike of stress is much lower magnitude these days. And she's wonderful. And I think operationally, the event has just gotten way better with signage and catering and just all the details that people don't notice unless they break, tend to break less.

Kate Mueller: [32:15] Yes.

Eric Holscher: [32:16] So that's been really nice. But in terms of the actual makeup, I do think we started with a much larger programmer influence just because of the background. And if you look at the talks, I think like the first year, probably half the talks were programmers. And it is definitely that drift towards more tech writers. I think it's a natural change. But yeah, I don't know, it was interesting. There was like a number of years there where it was like every major tech company would come once a year and say, “Hey, we adopted docs as code” and here is Twitter one year, and then Google one year, and then Microsoft, and I was like, “Oh man, this is impact. Like, this is really cool. Like we're changing these huge organizations. We're changing the way this industry is working.” And so now I think that's maybe one of my existential crises is like, now what? We came, we saw, we conquered a little bit.

Kate Mueller: [33:12] We at least shifted the conversation.

Eric Holscher: [33:14] We changed our perspective. We really brought people together. I think that's one of my big questions, I think navigating AI obviously is the unavoidable external force that is the current, whether you like it or not. That is going to be the conversation that we will be having regardless. And so I think that's gonna probably be the big focus of the next couple of years, right, is like, how do we redefine the role? How do we navigate this with a minimal amount of human pain and suffering?

Kate Mueller: [33:51] And how do we as humans get to still stay passionate about documentation? And in a world where everybody seems to want AI to do everything, even if it's not well designed for the particular use case. I talked to some folks whose companies are like, you will use AI for this. And they're like, “How? Have you tried using AI for that?” I mean, not that there aren't really great use cases for it, but I think there's also, it is a bit of an enthusiasm bubble right now, and finding a way forward through that if you're passionate about documentation is tricky, just as I'm sure it is for developers, because it now seems like the junior developer role may or may not be being subsumed by AI.

Eric Holscher: [34:36] Maybe I'll put a little point of optimism here in that I think software development is actually much more at risk because the outcomes are much more testable, right? When you're like, does this code compile? Does this code pass this test? There's really objective metrics. And that's something that computers and AI is incredibly good at. Like it's scary good to be like, "Hey, here's like 500 tests. Make a piece of software that passes all of them" is a very tractable solution. Whereas "Here's a bunch of words, make them understandable" is a thing that does not have an objective test. And I think that's really where the value of the human will still come in. And I think that it was really easy for computers to write mediocre text and everyone was like, "Oh, tech writers are done, that's all their job is, right? Is just taking some code and turning it into mediocre, because that's what I do when I write docs, right? Isn't that the job?" And then it's an interesting transition now. I think it's actually the developers who have a little bit more of an existential crisis. And I think it really is that depth of understanding, explainability, and preciseness in text is becoming even more valuable. If only there was a set of people who had that skill set.

Kate Mueller: [36:04] If only. I mean, what kind of weird geeky nerds would those people be? We would be those geeky nerds, for sure.

Eric Holscher: [36:14] I would not be surprised if at the end of all of this, it becomes the reign of the writer in a number of contexts. But I think that's really still the core thing, right, is understanding how systems work and being able to explain it in words. I've always said that's a core part of a job, whether it's an email, a pull request, a code comment, or source code itself. You have to understand the system and you have to be able to explain it. And yeah, I think that's still something that's incredibly important and valuable and it's becoming more the main thing that matters.

Kate Mueller: [36:51] Yeah, it's an interesting take. That does make me feel slightly more optimistic, Eric. So thank you for that. But it is one of the things, I feel like I’ve been a freaking broken record about this. When people ask me if I think that tech writers will be replaced by AI and I'm like, you can't program empathy. And it often takes a deep understanding of both the thing you're trying to explain and the humans you're trying to explain it to, to know the best way to do that explanation. And I don't know that there's a way that you could actually just provide that as prompt context fully and have it actually work. Simple how-to docs, as Manny’s stuff with docs as tests has shown, there certainly are ways to objectively test if that documentation is doing what it says it's doing. But if you get into stuff that's conceptual overviews or tutorials where you're trying to figure out how to really explain a thing or teach somebody how to do a thing. And I think there's still tremendous value to having the creativity of a human underlying a lot of that, figuring out which bits to put in, what sequence to put them in, what's a really good example for us to work through this? Maybe that might be a thing I would ask AI to help with, but ultimately, I still feel like I'd be the person coming up with a lot of that.

Eric Holscher: [38:15] And what analogies do you use? What I mean, it's such an abstract problem space, right? Where it's like, what is the mental state of the person reading this? And what is the relatable example to use or what is the cultural context that will make sense? Or whatever it is. There's a lot of skill still there. And I mean maybe the second branch will be just believing that the computers are alive and then understanding the mental state of the computers.

Kate Mueller: [38:48] If we get to that point, I will definitely have to find a new career, that's for sure. I don't think I can quite extend my empathy that far, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. And I will point out, since I'm involved with Write the Docs this year, I'm actual staff helping with Writing Day. We are trying a little bit different format with Writing Day this year too, in that we've always had that sort of propose a project, lead a project, get people involved, but we're also doing a little bit of a skill-based track as well, where people who haven't used Git before can use it. We're going to potentially have some resume/portfolio review and some other things. Those secondary skills that often hamper people being able to pivot into the career or to move up. So I think this is a place that we're departing a little bit from the historical models of the conferences you based Writing Day on. But I think it's an interesting experiment to see, is this something the community needs? Do we need to provide some additional resources here? Maybe we won't get it right this year, but maybe the format itself will be something people like, and that might be something that we can pursue more in future years.

Eric Holscher: [40:00] I think we have to keep iterating on that stuff and keep thinking about what is it that people need because it changes. And yeah, that's a great example of things I don't even really consider a structural change, but are a structural change.

Kate Mueller: [40:14] Yeah, for sure. And just one of those other ways that we're continuing to try to think about how has the community evolved? How has the community's needs evolved? How do we continue to be what the community needs us to be?

Eric Holscher: [40:30] And it's just exciting to have people that are excited to change things and build that space that people need. I think career is a classic thing that it's incredibly hard to get good advice on on the internet. And that's somewhere that everybody in the room has an experience there. And that's a classic way to share. And so yeah, the resume reviews, that kind of stuff is a really concrete way to give that industry experience back to someone in a way that will be really impactful for them.

Kate Mueller: [41:07] I think sometimes that that feels like the missing piece for folks. And so it'll be interesting to see how well-received some of that is. I'm excited about it, but I was like, Eric, could we try this with Writing Day? And you were like, yes, we could try something like that. Let's explore it.

Eric Holscher: [41:26] I think we've had those things happen organically over the years. And it's, what's really changed is our framing and how we talk about it, right? And it's not just you have to have a project that's open source and people are writing documentation, but it's like, hey, we're all in a room and we're doing stuff together. And as long as we're doing that, then it's successful, right?

Kate Mueller: [41:49] Particularly post-2020. There's just power to being in the room with other people and doing things together.

Eric Holscher: [41:57] I am confident you are not a computer when I talk to you.

Kate Mueller: [42:00] Yes. And I don't have to look at a screen to interact with you. And there's something about just the energy of being in a space with other people who are working on similar things or excited about similar things. No matter how much you choose to participate or not participate.

Eric Holscher: [42:17] I'm excited every year, especially living in a world where my job is mostly software. I do think events are a really powerful way to actually manifest something in the physical world, not just ones and zeros. It's a very fleeting manifestation, but there at least will be photos.

Kate Mueller: [42:37] Yes, photos and people will end up writing blog posts about it and sharing things. I still have folks who will occasionally reach out to me and be like, “Hey, I watched your recorded talk on thru-hiking and how that can apply to big documentation projects from several years ago. And it's just so good. I've sent it to coworkers.” You actually feel like you did something that made a little bit of a difference.

Eric Holscher: [43:04] Yeah. And I think that's maybe another thing to note is we really have defaulted to open with everything that we do. Whereas like so many of these events, it's like, oh, pay $150 and you can have access to these talk recordings. And if you share them with anyone, we will come for you.

Kate Mueller: [43:23] Yes. And that to me is one of the differences. I think maybe the difference for me is that it feels like a lot of those resources are being shared to benefit the community, not necessarily to make a profit. I mean, obviously, you do need a certain amount of money coming in to continue to run the conference, all of that stuff. Especially having Katie and somebody who's actually thinking about a lot of those logistics and handling them and managing the work that you do, which is still fairly significant and helping to cover costs for staff who come to the conference to help and all those fun things. Like there's a lot of stuff that helps keep it running, but it never feels to me like it's a money grab. It feels like, “Hey, we need this to keep the conference going, but at the end of the day, this is still a community function providing resources to the community.”

Eric Holscher: [44:22] Yeah. And I think a big part of that is definitely just our core values as well of not putting sponsors on stage outside of their little sponsor introductions. They don't get to talk, they don't–all these things that I think more events are getting to, where it's like, yes, the event is better if you don't have people doing sales pitches as talks. But yeah, I think just really the origin story and what we care about and the way the event's structured are one thing, but then yeah, those hard and fast rules that we really have, I think, and we'll see. We actually have the most sponsor booths we'll ever have had this year. And I'm actually a little curious how that changes things. It's still a very formalized contract where the sponsors get booths and they have a place, but we're definitely experimenting a little bit more with how do we get a win-win with sponsors? Because historically, it's just been you get a booth and you give us money and it's great. And it's like, is there more we could be doing? A lot of these companies have products that people are using, right? I think a lot of the toolmakers that are here. I think there is like a place where it's like, oh, I'm a user of Gitbook or Mintlify or whatever. And I would love to talk to the people who made the tool, right? That's actually really valuable for me. That's something I take for granted in the open source world that the creators of these tools are accessible, but that's something that we can also provide and trying to figure out what does that look like and how do we create value there that doesn't feel extractive, but feels like a win for attendees as well?

Kate Mueller: [45:57] That's one of the areas. I mean, full disclosure, this podcast is sponsored by KnowledgeOwl. I contract with KnowledgeOwl. They also are sponsor of Write the Docs, but it is one of those areas that I've been watching to see how it evolves, because if there's a space for us to be providing more support to our users, for example, who might be attending the conference, it would be great to do some of that. Not in a sales pitchy way, but in a, hey, if you're already using the tool, could we take this opportunity of us being in person to provide you better support on X.

Eric Holscher: [46:35] People will tell you how they really feel about your product.

Kate Mueller: [46:40] Face to face. Tell me what you hate about this and/or love about this, but also to be able to talk to folks who actually build the thing you use is a big deal in the paid software community for sure.

Eric Holscher: [46:55] I'm so open source pilled that I'm just like, I go to PyCon and the people that work on Sphinx are going to be there. And I can spend a day and they will help me build a feature for the thing that I use that I want. And that is not an experience that you get to have with a company necessarily, but I think that's what the Writing Day could be, right? Where you're like, “Hey, I'm going to sit here with an engineer and work on this thing that they're open sourcing or that they're talking about.” I think there's space for that to be a win-win, but I think it's a very slippery slope. And I think that's what we've really been hesitant, but trying to figure out what that looks like.

Kate Mueller: [47:41] So you've been involved with the conference and the community really building both of those, supporting both of those for over a decade now. Have you learned anything out of that that you would provide as guidance to others who might be considering taking on a similar effort?

Eric Holscher: [48:02] I think it really is keeping that community focus, right? You go to a lot of events and they're run by a company. And that's how we started, right? I was like, Oh, Read the Docs is going to put on an event for users where we talk about ourselves and 80% of the speakers are our employees. And that's a thing, it's great, it makes sense in certain contexts. But really when you're trying to build something that has a community feel to it, that feels like a home for people rather than a day at the office or whatever. I think really keeping that in mind in all of your decision making, right where it's like, how do we engage with sponsors? How do we engage with the talks we put on stage? What do we allow sponsors to do in our various spaces? And like, how do you suss out whether a talk is a sales pitch? We've had a long standing no talks about specific tools at the conference, just because 80% of the time it turns into something akin to a sales pitch. And even if it's an open source thing, it's just something you built, whatever it is, right? A sales pitch doesn't have to be for money. It can just be for attention or focus. So how do you build a space where the excitement of something feels genuine and towards making everything better versus trying to extract value, I think is a very hard thing to navigate. But I think once you build community norms around it, it becomes self-reinforcing in a lot of ways.

Kate Mueller: [49:39] And it seems like Write the Docs historically has been very centered in values and therefore had that sort of value framework to evaluate, does this decision feel aligned with what we're trying to do? Which is a very different feeling than a company putting on a conference that is maybe like a power user group, but it feels like it's an arm of marketing in some way, which is different than a, “hey, this is a grassroots effort being inspired by this set of values or beliefs.” And then over time, you have to pay attention to how those evolve and hope that you're still staying true to them along the way. But that feels like something that separates my experience of Write the Docs from my experience with some other conferences that do not feel like they have that grounding in how you make decisions about, okay, what talks do we have? Or how do we format this? It does seem like that value-driven perspective has really helped you maintain consistency, at least.

Eric Holscher: [50:48] Well, that's good to hear. And yeah, I think there's many ways to do these things. And some events are for the sponsors and it's a big expo hall and it's where you go to learn more about whatever tools they're making. It's really about what you're building and making sure you're building what you want to be. And I think it's being intentional to your point, we had those values to start. We had some really good examples to build from. And then it's like, well, just start, start it in motion in the right direction and don't screw it up.

Kate Mueller: [51:20] When did the shift in how you thought about it went from it being an offshoot of Read the Docs to it being a standalone thing?

Eric Holscher: [51:30] Oh, like immediately.

Kate Mueller: [51:31] Immediately.

Eric Holscher: [51:32] Like literally like we announced it and it was on Hacker News and Reddit or whatever. And everyone was like, oh, it's going to be this. Talks got submitted. It really was straight away. And I think Troy probably already viewed it that way. And so it wasn't fully branded with “Hosted by Read the Docs.” I think the name was the callback. And so, yeah, I think a little bit of it is his default worldview of being radically open, very Portland in that regard. It just happened and we just went with it.

Kate Mueller: [52:15] Ran with it basically.

Eric Holscher: [52:17] I mean, when you find product-market fit, and the world is telling you what it wants your thing to be, you should probably just make it that instead of fighting them.

Kate Mueller: [52:27] But that also takes a level of humility to say, oh, it seems like this is what people want us to do. Maybe let's do that instead of let me try to force this idea of what I think it should be. I do think it takes a bit of humility to say that.

Eric Holscher: [52:48] I think we're still fighting the natural tendency of the community to become only for tech writers. I think that's something where we are just like trying to exert pressure and having varying levels of success. Just because I do think these things tend to have gravity to them, right? And you're like, “Oh, I'm a writer and I want to invite all my writer friends because we're the ones that really get that home community value out of it.” And so I think trying to think of ways to try to keep it more expansive, at least in perspective of the talks that we're giving. Who the people are in the room is a little bit harder because we don't control that, but at least the places we control, we're still trying to make it broadly applicable. And that does have trade-offs, right? Some people will definitely want more depth. Some people want 100 talks and four tracks. And they're like, I want to have a whole docs as code track. I want an API docs track, I want whatever. And it's like, well, that's not what this is. But I think there's definitely an API the docs, there have been some other spin-offs, and I'm sure there'll be some kind of AI event around docs here at some point.

Kate Mueller: [53:57] I'm waiting for AI the Docs, I'm sure that's coming at some point.

Eric Holscher: [54:00] But yeah, I think it's one of those things. We've really kept it broad. We've kept it more high level to be approachable. Like it's not just for tech writing practitioners and getting fully deep into their problems. And that doesn't solve everybody's problem, right? Some people really want that depth and digging really into it. And that's definitely a trade off. And we've gotten that feedback over the years. And we've thought about doing specialized events like Support driven is another community I really like and look to. And they do like a Manager Summit where it's like they build out these specialized events where they can tailor the content to be a little more specialized or specific. But I'm just mostly just trying not to kill myself doing like 2 or 3 events a year.

Kate Mueller: [54:50] I feel like that's a space that if there were a couple folks who were really, really excited about it, that they could tackle that. It doesn't have to be you, for example. I mean, this is the beauty of community, right? That if there's a small group of folks who really, really want that thing, build the thing. Don't necessarily just demand other people to build the thing you want. Sometimes you have to help build the world you want to live in.

Eric Holscher: [55:16] Yeah, that's maybe a good high-level piece of advice, right? It's something I pretty strongly believe in as well.

Kate Mueller: [55:23] And actually, that's a great segue. So I already asked you for a little bit of lessons learned about conference organizing and other things, but what is a great high-level piece of advice that you would like to share with our listeners?

Eric Holscher: [55:36] I thought about this and I was like, I don't know if I have like a super pithy, like relatable one, but the one that really stuck in my head was there's this old reggae song and it really talked about, you have to have the cloudy days to enjoy the sunny days, right? And I think it's really just one of those things that's knowing there's going to be periods in life and career and weather and everything, right, where sometimes it's impossible. And I've had a lot of those in all the various projects I've had where it's like, what am I doing?

Kate Mueller: [56:08] This is a terrible choice. How did I get here? Why am I still doing this? This is awful. That describes half of thru-hiking, frankly.

Eric Holscher: [56:16] I was going to say hiking, business, lots of, lots of event planning. But then it's like it really makes the payoff even better, right? And knowing that you put in the work and it's just one of those things that it's like every day is not amazing. But when you step back and look at the outcome, I think it can be amazing. And I think it applies to mental health just as much as physical health, as much as career success. So I think that's always a good way to have that perspective where everything's not going to work out the first time. And as long as you're going in the right direction, as long as you're walking north or working towards your community values and you're going to screw it up, I'm sure we'll do something with sponsors this year that'll piss somebody off because we're trying new stuff, and trying new stuff always pisses somebody off. And it's like, okay, well, let's look. How do we triangulate to the right outcome? And that's part of the reality of existence.

Kate Mueller: [57:11] Also, if it was sunshine and roses all the time, you wouldn't appreciate the sunshine and roses because you'd expect them to be there.

Eric Holscher: [57:19] We can't all live in San Diego.

Kate Mueller: [57:20] If you have those gloomy, horrible, oh, it's raining, it's foggy, it's miserable, whatever. Then when you have the sunshine and roses, you're like, “Oh, this is so much better than that. I appreciate this so much more. I don't have wet feet. It's amazing.”

Eric Holscher: [57:35] That's what those of us that live in places with seasons tell ourselves anyway.

Kate Mueller: [57:39] Yes, that is what we tell ourselves. That's how we rationalize it, for sure.

Eric Holscher: [57:44] Though you look at the real estate prices in San Diego and you think maybe, maybe this is a rationalization.

Kate Mueller: [57:51] And I guess for me, I always like to ask people if there are resources you really love that you want to share. They don't have to have anything to do with writing, but they often do because most of the folks that I have on here are very passionate about writing, but is there anything for you that has been formative in how you think about the world, or how you think about the work you're doing?

Eric Holscher: [58:12] I feel like one callout just on the on the conversation here is definitely the Write the Docs topic index, which is something we create and maintain and do a poor job of promoting, and I feel like is this like massive latent unlockable value that we've never figured out how to talk about. It's an index of everything we've ever talked about on every talk, at every conference, and every newsletter, which in the newsletter is a summary of conversations in Slack. So it's a distillation of community thinking on a topic at a time. And so we have it all broken down by every possible tech writer topic. It's like this really cool index, but it's just hidden on our website and we never promote it and it doesn't get any traffic. And it makes me sad. There's definitely another way to access that that I think would be really interesting.

Kate Mueller: [59:06] We can drop a link in the show notes to. If you want to lose yourself in the topic index, we will help point you there.

Eric Holscher: [59:14] I don't know if I have a great resource outside of that. I feel like there's a lot of things I used to use and that have degraded in value, let's call it, over time. Doing some traveling right now and just seeing the downfall of Lonely Planet as an organization getting bought by private equity. And it's one of those things where it's a little sad how institutions can fade. And I think that's the decay that we're all fighting against. And so I think I might just leave it at the Write the Docs topic index, it is a good place.

Kate Mueller: [59:54] I follow Ari Weinzweig, who's one of the founders of Zingerman's Community of Businesses, and he does a weekly newsletter. And one of the things he's been talking a lot about lately is that you really have to support the institutions that are doing the things that you care about. And as we watch some beloved institutions be dismantled, whether that's because they got bought out by somebody or because they're an extension of the government and their funding got cut or whatever that might be. I mean, we are very much in a time of institutional upheaval. I think that is a little bit of a nudge to say, hey, are there institutions whose work you really value or who are resources that are really great for you? Maybe consider seeing if they need a volunteer, or donate some time or some money to them to try to keep them going. Maybe this is my little plug also that a big part of Write the Docs conferences and other things are volunteers. So if you want to get involved in the community, there are lots of ways you can help support. Is Write the Docs a huge institution? Is the fate of the Western world on our shoulders? No, not at all. But we do have to contribute to keep the good things going.

Eric Holscher: [01:01:11] So maybe that's another good high-level piece of advice, right? It's like you gotta support the things you want to exist.

Kate Mueller: [01:01:20] Yeah. Because all of those things take time, energy, effort, money, whatever it might be. And if it's really awesome, if you're not supporting, what's going to happen to it?

Eric Holscher: [01:01:31] Maybe that's one of my other tragedies in my mind, is we've never figured out how to do a membership or anything for Write the Docs, where it's like, if people just wanted to give us money, I don't actually know if there's a way for them to do that.

Kate Mueller: [01:01:46] It feels like a solvable problem. That does feel like a way we could come up with something there.

Eric Holscher: [01:01:51] Get a virtual ticket to the conference or something, right? I mean, it's not an insurmountable problem, but just one of those things that I've thought about for a number of years where a lot of these, STC, rest in peace, had a big membership program. That's like a classic way that these types of organizations work, and we've just never been able to figure out a way to do it that felt right. We're primarily an events organization. That's the main thing. That's where all the money comes from for all our other operations. And so it's a little bit hard to be like, okay, what does the membership get you that's not just like a ticket to the conference?

Kate Mueller: [01:02:27] That doesn't just give you access to the events. What else do you get beyond that? Yeah, it's a tricky problem.

Eric Holscher: [01:02:33] Do we get a private member Slack channel when one of our core values is openness and transparency? And it's like, okay, well, yeah, it really turns into a patronage model more than a membership model. And then yeah, it's a whole. Anyway, I could have a whole different business podcast on that, but if anybody has ideas, I'll accept input.

Kate Mueller: [01:02:51] No, I appreciate it because I think these are the things that folks don't always think about. Just attending the events or thinking about it. Like I think about this with the podcast right now, we're entirely sponsored by KnowledgeOwl, trying to find ways to make sure that we stay sustainable moving forward, that don't feel what I would say that don't feel gross, right? Like that still feel true to what we're trying to do that isn't going to make us beholden to anyone who wants to make us do stuff that doesn't feel like it's organic and natural to us. And I think that's something that any organization or entity struggles with to some extent.

Eric Holscher: [01:03:26] Sure, it's much easier just to sell your soul and stop caring.

Kate Mueller: [01:03:30] Easier, but so much less fun.

Eric Holscher: [01:03:34] You got to be fighting entropy somewhere, so.

Kate Mueller: [01:03:36] That's right, that's right. This has been great. Thank you so much for being here. If people have listened to this and they aren't already connected with you and they want to do that, they want to reach out, talk to you about anything you brought up here. What would be the best ways for them to do that?

Eric Holscher: [01:03:53] I have a personal site with a blog that gets written on occasionally. You can find the old Pac-Man rule archive there if you Google for it. But yeah, that has all the links to my socials and all that kind of stuff. So just Google my name.

Kate Mueller: [01:04:08] We will link to that in the show notes.

Eric Holscher: [01:04:09] I'm also lucky enough to have a very unique last name, so I'm easy to find on the internet.

Kate Mueller: [01:04:17] And if you're in Write the Docs Slack, Eric is definitely in there. So you could probably drop him a message there too. Of all places.

Eric Holscher: [01:04:25] All the channels.

Kate Mueller: [01:04:28] So in 2013, would you have ever predicted that 13 years later you'd still be doing Write the Docs stuff?

Eric Holscher: [01:04:38] I mean, definitely not. Back then it was all volunteer and we were winging it. I think if we hadn't brought in an event producer and really kind of professionalized the operations a little bit more, I was on the verge of burning out for sure in 2018, 2019. And so it was really one of those things where it's like, all right, we have to raise ticket prices a little bit. We try to keep them low, but we really need to make this sustainable. And if I ever want to not be the chair, this is not a job I can ask somebody else to do as a volunteer or even with a small stipend or whatever. This needs to be an approachable role if I ever want to not have this job, which is very motivating to me, I will say. And I accidentally made the job better for me at the same time.

Kate Mueller: [01:05:30] One of my parents' friends used to say, “It does you good and helps you too, besides the benefits you get out of it.” So that probably had a whole bunch of advantages. Well, thank you for making time for this interview since I know we are getting perilously close to the month of stress leading up to Write the Docs. And so I am extra appreciative of your time and all of your experience and knowledge. So thank you for your generosity.

Eric Holscher: [01:05:57] Yeah, definitely. And thanks for hosting and doing the podcast. It was fun to see it get rebirthed.

Kate Mueller: [01:06:04] It's been an adventure. Do you just show up and do a thing you're excited about? And other people are also excited about it and it develops this momentum. And certainly that does not always happen. But when it does happen, it's an exciting thing. So yeah, we will share links. If you're not familiar with Write the Docs, we'll also share some links out to that stuff in the show notes so you can dive into the community if you are new to it. And Eric, I will let you go back to your regularly scheduled life at this point.

Eric Holscher: [01:06:36] Good talking with you.

Kate Mueller: [01:06:43] The Not-Boring Tech Writer is co-produced by our podcast Head of Operations, Chad Timblin, and me.

Post-production is handled by the lovely humans at Astronomic Audio, with editing by Dillon, transcription by Madi, and general post-production support by Been and Alex.

Our theme song is by Brightside Studio.

Our artwork is by Bill Netherlands.

You can order The Not-Boring Tech Writer t-shirts, stickers, mugs, and other merch from the “Merch” tab on thenotboringtechwriter.com.

You can check out KnowledgeOwl's products at knowledgeowl.com.

And if you want to work with me on docs, knowledge management, coaching, or revamping an existing knowledge base, go to knowledgewithsass.com. Until next time, I'm Kate Mueller, and you are the not-boring tech writer.