These are the references and materials for my Write the Docs NA 2015 talk. Feel free to ask questions (or just say "Hi") by opening issues.
I've put together a list of pretty much everything associated with my talk at the conference including:
- a link to the video of me speaking (and a link to the rest of the talks)
- a link to the slides at speakerdeck.com (though honestly they're pretty unhelpful without the sound or speaker notes)
- a link to the speaker notes I wrote for my slides, displayed with the talk (though it's not a word-for-word transcript)
- a link to the 7.5 rules I speak about in my talk, listed on a single page so you don't have to click through the slides
- an explanation of the numbering of the rules
- my writer's bio (I was told I should have one, though I have no idea why you'd need it)
- the credits for the images I used and research I did (thank you Creative Commons licensing)
The title for my conference talk was:
The Making of Writing Black Belts: How Martial Arts Philosophy Forged an Ad-Hoc Writing Team that Writes Great Docs
and I submitted this abstract:
At Fastly, a San Francisco-based content delivery network startup company, I’ve learned that almost every one of my co-workers, regardless of their job function, is willing to write our company’s documentation. Whether they realize it or not, each one of them has ventured onto the path of becoming a “writing team black belt.”
In this talk I’ll discuss how my company has unwittingly followed the seven (and a half) rules I normally associate with becoming a great martial artist. I’ll discuss how we’ve been using these rules to forge an amazing ad-hoc documentation team with no formal department and no squad of strategically placed technical writers. I’ll talk about how my company has managed it despite the obstacles of startup life, including moving seven times and growing from less than 30 employees when I first joined to a throng of more than 150 a mere year and a half later. Finally, I’ll point out some of our successes, a few of our failures, and how each of the seven (and a half) rules has taught us what it means to write Fastly.
(Just in case, I've got a screenshot of the abstract as it appeared on the Write the Docs conference speakers page.)
In the spirit of full disclosure, the proposal for this talk was submitted in large part due to a late-night bout with insomnia. I am forever grateful to my coworkers for encouraging me to accept the 15-minute speaking time slot even though I had outlined a talk that would easily span 45 minutes. Or more. Possibly much more.
Most of the ideas in this talk are not mine to begin with. They are the direct result of my study as a martial artist under the tutelage of Sifu Robert Brown at the School of Martial Arts in Berkley, Michigan. If any of the concepts about martial arts or the philosophy behind it are inaccurate in any way whatsoever, it is I, not he, who should be held accountable for the misrepresentation.
I am not a master. I am but an egg.
