The Cherryleaf Podcast

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 2024 and beyond.   We've posted a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog.  About Cherryleaf: Cherryleaf   Microsoft's Akash Dubey has created a YouTube playlist that contains a series of interviews with people from Microsoft, Meta, Across Systems, and Cherryleaf,...

In this episode, we look at what Techcomm problems can generative AI solve. Technical writers today face numerous challenges that can hinder productivity and impact content quality. From managing high volumes of documentation to keeping pace with rapid product changes, it takes great effort to produce and maintain helpful, accurate, and engaging technical content. This is where AI comes in. In thi...

We talk to Kristof Van Tomme, CEO of Pronovix , about the role of API and developer portals in Generative AI systems. We discuss how organisations can prepare for AI. We talk about what documentation infrastructure organisations should have in place to be able to use AI safely from an information perspective. We also discuss whether developer portals will become even more important. We will publis...

We talk to Daniel Foster, Director of Strategy at TechSmith,  about the contentious relationship between technical writers and video content. A growing trend among technical writers is the integration of video content alongside traditional documentation and visuals, offering a dynamic and immersive medium to enhance user understanding and engagement. However, writers generally prefer words because...

We reflect on the lesson learnt so far as a result of developing our upcoming elearning course on using Generative AI in technical communication. We will publish a transcript on the Cherryleaf blog.  About Cherryleaf: Cherryleaf

As part of our research into using generative AI in technical communications, we ran a survey to discover the questions that technical communicators are asking. In this episode, we review those questions and identify some common themes.  About Cherryleaf: Cherryleaf

When people talk about AI, chatbots, and tools like ChatGPT, all the new terminology can make it hard to understand how it all works. In this episode, we're going to look at the definitions of some of the words that you might hear.   Register for our webinar Using AI in techcomm: What you asked, and the answers   Thursday 29th June 2023 As a way of bridging the gap between the potential of Artific...

In this episode, we talk about writing procedures that are needed for regulatory compliance. By this we mean organisations that might be investigated by a regulatory body. We describe the different approaches to creating the content.  We'll post a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog.   About Cherryleaf: Cherryleaf    

We wanted to talk about some ideas that we've taken from Google on how to present elearning video content. And to share them in case you are also involved in e-learning, and you wanted to copy these ideas as well.     We examine one of Google's videos from its UX Design course. These courses are on YouTube, so it’s possible to view them without having to sign up to a course.     Link to the video:...

It's been about three months since ChatGPT was launched. And we thought it would be good to look at really the status of what ChatGPT might mean for the future of technical communication. And we did a blog and we did some experiments back in December, as have others, and people have reflected on the pros and cons of it. And we thought it would be good to take a look at it today. -- We'll post a tr...

In January 2023, there's been quite a few layoffs in the tech sector. It's reported that Google has laid off 12,000 people, Microsoft 11,000, Amazon 18,000, Salesforce 8000. And there's also been layoffs at Meta, Cisco, Spotify, and other organisations. In this episode, we're going to look at dealing with being laid off or being made redundant. We'll post a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog.   Abo...

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...

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

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-toolk...

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

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...

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    

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  

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  

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'l...

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

In this episode, we look at the skills needed for developing a developer portal. We also talk about our new e-learning course " Creating API documentation and developer portals ", and Google's recommendations for the content needed on a developer portal.  We'll post a transcript to the Cherryleaf Blog.  About Cherryleaf: Cherryleaf

Happy New Year. We posted this question on social media:   What lessons have you learnt over the last 12 months? Working from home, wins, losses, mindset, managing the pandemic etc.   In this episode, we go through the responses, and reflect on what was said.    About Cherryleaf: Cherryleaf   Pexels image: Julia M Cameron

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 2022 and beyond.  Thread on LinkedIn Thread on Twitter   About Cherryleaf: Cherryleaf Image: Tuesday Temptation on Unsplash. 

Cherryleaf's Ginny Critcher and Ellis Pratt discuss using the Redocly platform to create a developer portal and API documentation.  More information: Redocly What is your developer portal’s KPI score? Cherryleaf