Write the Docs Portland 2023
2023-05-07..2023-05-09
Portland, United States
[Write the Docs Portland 2018, Write the Docs Portland 2020, Write the Docs Portland 2021, Write the Docs Portland 2022, Write the Docs Portland 2023, Write the Docs Portland 2024, Write the Docs Portland 2025, Write the Docs Portland 2026]
as the organisers put it
Conference videos, photos, and info to keep in touch- May 18, 2023, Welcome to Write the Docs Portland 2023- May 01, 2023, Write the Docs <3’s open source- April 05, 2023, Announcing Full Schedu...
who it's for
technical writers, content designers, docs engineers, knowledge managers, product managers, support managers
topics
docs-like-code migrations; OpenAPI generation and linting; automated API documentation pipelines; help center workflows with Intercom; content layer architecture; data-driven content maintenance; procedure and SOP writing; multimedia principles for visuals; trauma-informed documentation practices; AI-assisted drafting with ChatGPT and Bard; style guide corpus analysis; sketchnoting for technical content
| title | author | length |
|---|---|---|
| Conference introduction | Eric holster | 25m |
Brief announcement covers a land acknowledgment naming local tribes, a move to a new venue with a patio and roof deck and more windows, and concrete logistics… | ||
| Is it (layer) cake: Thinking in content levels | Ryan Young | 36m |
Argues that docs need three concrete layers — orientation decision implementation — and shows a working stack: high-level landing pages, a new middle decision… | ||
| From resistance to adoption: navigating the challenges of docs-like-code | Adam Altman | 40m |
Concrete, step‑by‑step playbook: the ABCs: assess build convince framework, a migration workflow using markdown, git, a static site generator and a Node… | ||
| Myths, Mistakes, and Missed Opportunities | Linda Ikechukwu | 38m |
A year of interviewing about ten seasoned technical content creators produces specific, repeatable tactics not vague inspiration: a documented claim that apply… | ||
| Release-ready Docs: How a 2-person team keeps a help center consistently accurate | Daniel Murphey | 40m |
A two‑person docs team claims a help center stays Day‑One accurate within 24 hours of release by scoping and editing 20–50 articles in a normal monthly… | ||
| Did You Read the SOP? Procedure Writing for the Laboratory | Sarah Greene | 39m |
Claim: well written SOPs cut troubleshooting time and make rare or complex tasks repeatable after a machine upgrade. Evidence: a departmental survey finds less… | ||
| Zen And The Art Of Automanually Creating API Documentation - An Inquiry Into Process | Dan Grabski | 38m |
Claims an automanual workflow: start with manual documentation to learn edge cases, generate OpenAPI spec files from code, add linting and scripts, then… | ||
| The visuals your users never saw…wait that’s most of them | Caitlin Davey | 31m |
Claims that most documentation images go unread and that seductive detail (irrelevant, pretty images) reduces problem solving, and recommends concrete fixes… | ||
| The Descriptivist Manifesto | Ed Cormany | 40m |
Argues for a descriptive approach to docs by measuring actual usage and converting patterns into policy: uses Google Ngrams for collocation checks, searches a… | ||
| Doing Data-Driven Content Maintenance | Alex Garnett, Lauren Kiss | 33m |
An automatic script runs against Looker to flag high‑traffic articles not updated in 18 months, items get filed in Jira, and edits split into opportunistic… | ||
| Navigating the Future of Technical Writing in a Rapidly Evolving Tech Landscape | Scott Truelove | 39m |
Claims that AI boosts writer productivity by generating drafts and persona‑targeted text and that prompts are the key to useful output. Tools tested include… | ||
| Trauma-Informed Documentation: Taking empathy & inclusive language to the next leve | Ashleigh Rentz | 37m |
Defines trauma types and gives concrete numbers (APA ~7% lifetime PTSD, COVID ~7M confirmed ~22M estimated, HIV/AIDS ~40M deaths) and personal examples… | ||
| GREAT BIG ENGINEERING ORG; itty bitty docs team | Kari Halsted | 31m |
Tells how a 12-person docs team keeps up with a 2,000+ engineer org: content lives as code in GitHub and markdown, generated by a static-site build, with… | ||
| Winning Over Coworkers, Collaborators, and Customers to a New Knowledge Exp. | Jennifer A Swallow | 35m |
Built a crowdsourced digital self-service guide, Splunk Lantern, launched May 2020 and now serving tens of thousands monthly; uses Slack, Zoom, Airtable intake… | ||
| Conference closing | 11m | |
Organizers confirm video recordings post to the website in a few weeks, a short feedback survey lands by next week, and the 2022 salary survey is available for… | ||
| Why :pray: emoji ain't :high-five: | Jewel Darger-Sacher | 06m |
Claim: the folded‑hands emoji is ambiguous not a high five and causes real miscommunication. Evidence: platform renderings differ (Windows vs Android vs iOS)… | ||
| Sketchnoting: Engaging both brains | Dennis Dawson | 05m |
Claims that engages left and right brain and that quick pictorial cues boost retention, with the concrete habit of dividing pages into three-section (sometimes… | ||
| Because Data | Joe Meerson | 03m |
A five‑part framework names what and where, why, how, who, and a final so what and claims data literally accumulates with every user action so data surrounds… | ||
| Tech writing internships | Ashley Gordon | 05m |
Argues for paid internships with concrete budgeting: $15/hr for 40 hours/week over three months ≈ $7,200, cheaper than a contractor but high impact. Gives… | ||
| Lego your docs | Matthew Shaver | 03m |
Build a clear end state and show it — the box image and the finished Disney Castle promise what following the steps will produce, and the presenter shows that… | ||
| No pitch hot | Heidi Waterhouse | 05m |
A clear claim: a pitch wins only by shrinking the gap between how much the pitcher cares and what the listener wants. Concrete tools: watch cues like glazed… | ||
| The applicability trap | John Mogilewsky | 05m |
Component content systems that use transclusion and partial transclusion hide a poison pill: heavy conditional overhead can exceed any savings from… | ||
| CARs - Stretches for Writers | Julia Atash | 05m |
Defines controlled articular rotations (CARs) and walks through a brief wrist-and-elbow routine: forearm held at a 90-degree angle, palms up then down, making… | ||
| People are never logical | Ryan Macklin | 05m |
Claim: humans do not split cleanly into “logical” versus “emotional”; both arise from the same neurochemical processes. Evidence cites amygdala and adrenaline… | ||
| Bridge building | Krista Burdine | 05m |
Rocky Linux frames bridge building as concrete work: a 2‑year‑old project running a writing day and ongoing documentation review that strips gendered and… | ||
| Aikido Communications | Laura Vass | 05m |
Claim: short, repeated Aikido training converts visceral fear into controllable responses. Practice uses one hour on a mat with partners repeatedly attacking… | ||
| nothing matches | ||