Advertise on podcast: Behind the Docs

Ren sits down with Mark Pepper — information architect, knowledge engineer, and founder of Crimson Sage Softworks — to talk about a career that started in journalism and music before landing in structured authoring and taxonomy work. Mark shares how he built a full content operations framework (audits, channel modeling, taxonomy, metadata, reuse, governance) from 25+ years of consulting, and how he's now turning that framework into AI agents — starting with a content audit agent built as a Claude skill. The conversation moves from practical pitfalls in content management to a bigger idea: that content practices haven't changed much since 19th-century newspapers, they've just gotten new tools. In this episode: Mark's winding path from musician to soldier to journalist to tech writer to independent information architectWhy journalism skills — research and interviewing — transfer directly into tech writing and SME interviewsThe content ecosystem framework Mark built: content audits, channel modeling, taxonomy design, metadata, reuse models, workflows, and content standards, all under a governance umbrellaThe two most common pitfalls companies hit: "buy a tool and it solves everything," and cherry-picking which parts of the framework to implementHow Mark is building AI agents for tedious framework steps, starting with a content audit agent (built by feeding his own process documentation into Claude and asking it to generate a skill)The "new Gutenberg" analogy: how the writer → editor → layout → publisher workflow of old-school publishing maps onto structured content today, with a detour through the messy desktop-publishing era in betweenWhy standardization (DITA, DocBook, S1000D, and now AI tools like Claude, OpenAI, Gemini) tends to emerge in any maturing fieldDesigning content around user relevance, not just reuse — including an early example of device-aware, dynamically assembled help contentRapid-fire: what makes documentation great, what good docs look like in practice, best career advice, and the hill Mark will die on (write for the user, not the writer) Resources & links: Mark Pepper on LinkedInCrimson Sage Softworks

WTFM is out today! 📚 Today’s episode of Behind the Docs is a special one because it lands on the official release day of CT Smith’s first book, WTFM: A Practical Guide for Standing Up Docs at a Startup. In this episode of Behind the Docs, Ren Taylor talks with technical writer and documentation leader CT Smith about her path into technical writing, the thinking behind her new book, and what it really takes to build documentation that works. CT wrote WFTM for people who find themselves responsible for documentation before they’re ready—or able—to hire a dedicated technical writer. The book focuses on making smart decisions early so teams can avoid creating documentation problems that become harder to solve as the company grows. The conversation covers CT’s path into tech writing, the value her philosophy background brings to her work, and why she believes documentation should be treated as a specialized craft. Ren and CT also discuss working effectively with marketing, using AI in documentation workflows, and where humans still need to stay firmly in the loop. In this episodeHow CT went from studying philosophy and working at Waffle House to becoming a technical writerHow to build relevant experience when you don’t have a traditional technical writing backgroundWhy CT wrote WTFM and who she wrote it forThe importance of setting up documentation well before a company needs a dedicated docs teamWhy documentation and marketing teams should work together, and where their goals differHow CT uses AI to automate parts of her documentation workflowWhy AI should support, rather than replace, human judgment and empathyThe characteristics CT looks for in genuinely good documentationHow to make the business case for technical writingWhy CT believes technical writers are important, and why the profession may be headed for a renaissance About the bookWTFM is available September 1 in EPUB, paperback, and online. CT has also created an interactive calculator and additional resources to accompany the book, which you can find on her website! Guest: CT Smith CT's website: https://docsgoblin.com/ The Global English Style Guide: https://books.google.vu/books?id=r0AiqqRBPF0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Host: Ren Taylor

A different kind of guest this episode: Ren talks with Rahul Garg, a project management professional who's spent his career in telecom and fintech coordinating between developers, testers, quality teams, and senior stakeholders. Rahul isn't a technical writer, but his approach to communication, audience-tailoring, and building a team newsletter has striking overlap with what technical writers do every day. Rahul breaks down why he sees himself as "the bridge" between isolated stakeholder groups, how ambiguous words like "done" or "highlight" can derail a project if teams aren't aligned on meaning, and how he turned a messy, jargon-heavy team newsletter into a concise, consistent communication tool that became a single source of truth for his project. In this episodeRahul's background in telecom and fintech project management, and how his role evolved from "managing work" to helping people understand what they're doing and whyWhy he calls himself a bridge between stakeholders working in isolation, and how he tailors content differently for developers, testers, quality teams, and senior leadershipThe importance of defining shared vocabulary on a project (what does "done" actually mean?) before work even startsBuilding a communication plan for distributed, cross-timezone teams, and using handoff notes to bridge gaps when no meeting time overlapsHow Rahul launched a team newsletter, why the first version flopped (too long, too jargon-heavy, almost nobody read it), and the structure he landed on: quick wins, risks, delivery updates, blockers, and recognitionWhy consistency and recognition matter so much in a recurring newsletter, and how it created two-sided value — visibility for the team and a documented record protecting against "I wasn't aware" moments laterStreamlining how he collects input from contributors so the newsletter doesn't become an unmanageable dump of blockers and non-highlightsWhere project management and technical writing overlap and diverge: technical writers own the "how," project managers own the "what and why" — and where friction between the two roles can show upHis hill to die on: organizations massively underestimate the cost of poor communication, and transparency has declined since the pre-COVID era

Ren talks with Archer Berryman, a documentation leader at Broadcom, about a 21-year career in tech comm that started with an internship at Computer Associates (Archer thought it was a computer repair shop) and has spanned an acquisition, a shift from Word docs to structured CMSs, folding product education into the doc team, and now the AI disruption reshaping the field. Archer talks candor about staying in one place for two decades, why he thinks writers get an unfair reputation for job-hopping less than other disciplines, how his team absorbed Broadcom's product education function after the training org was cut, and his management philosophy of giving writers positive feedback since — like referees — they usually only hear about their work when something's wrong. In this episodeArcher's path into tech writing: an English degree, a recruiter call he almost turned down, and 21 years at Computer Associates/BroadcomWhy longevity in tech comm often comes down to luck, timing, and finding the "niche nobody else has expertise in" (for Archer, it was early structured/object-oriented CMS adoption)Surviving the Broadcom acquisition and absorbing product education into the documentation team after the training department was cutLessons learned turning technical writers into instructional designers, and why training content needs a different discipline than reference docsArcher's management philosophy: zero ego, be yourself, and the importance of giving writers positive feedback so the work doesn't become an echo chamberAdvice for new writers: use the "gift of time" early in your career to build an advantage, and lean into AI rather than resist itHow Archer is guiding his team through the accelerating pace of AI adoption in documentation, and reframing it as time given back rather than an existential threatHis hill to die on: documentation is a mirror — a writer's job is to reflect the product honestly, not make it look simpler or more polished than it is

We're back! This episode marks our return from summer break, and we couldn't have picked a better guest to kick things off. Ren sits down with Danielle Washington — technical documentation writer with stops at HPE, Weaviate, and now 10A Labs — for a conversation about how she found her way into tech comm through candle-making, teaching English in Spain, and political science, and what that winding path taught her about writing for readers. Danielle shares her "Day 0, Day 1, Day 2" framework for structuring documentation around the decisions readers are actually making, why she treats herself as "user zero" by testing everything she writes, the EKS configurator she built at Weaviate to replace words with a tool, and her take on where AI is pushing (and sometimes pressuring) the technical writing profession. In this episodeDanielle's unconventional path into technical writing — from a high school blog, to political science, to running a candle company, to landing at HPEBeing the first and only technical writer embedded on an engineering team, and how she learned to prioritize what to document first"Docs as a decision system": the Day 0 / Day 1 / Day 2 framework for thinking about what a reader needs to decide at each stageWhy Danielle tests her own documentation as "user zero" instead of only writing from the user's perspectiveThe EKS configurator she built at Weaviate to replace fragile, error-prone YAML instructions with a real toolHer move from HPE (GreenLake) to Weaviate (deployment docs, vector databases) to 10A Labs (information retrieval systems)Agent-friendly documentation, the shift toward tooling over pure prose, and why AI shouldn't be a scapegoat for layoffsHer hill to die on: documentation is a product surface, not a support feature Resources mentionedFrom Kitchen Experiments to Five Star Service: The Weaviate Development Journey — Danielle's Weaviate blog post applying the Day 0/Day 1/Day 2 framework to the developer journeyHow We Are Building the Core of the AI-Native Stack — the original Weaviate post that introduced the Day 0/Day 1/Day 2 mindsetDanielle Washington on LinkedInPrevious Behind the Docs episodes referenced in this conversation:Designing Documentation for Agents, Not Just Users — with Dachary Carey of MongoDBDoc testing, skills files, and the guardians of knowledge — with Manny Silva of Skyflow, creator of Doc Detective

In this episode of Behind the Docs, Patrick Bosek sits down with Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti to explore what AI actually means for the future of technical communication — beyond the hype. Fabri shares his journey from software reviewer and blogger to Principal Technical Writer at Elastic, where he helps shape documentation tooling, AI workflows, and collaborative content systems. The conversation dives into the evolving role of technical writers, why AI works best as a collaborator rather than a replacement, and how documentation teams are becoming increasingly responsible for architecture, tooling, and content operations. Patrick and Fabri also unpack the growing tension between AI acceleration and thoughtful implementation. They discuss the shift toward local and self-hosted models, the hidden value of “busy work” in building understanding, and why foundational content architecture matters more than ever in an AI-assisted world. The episode closes with a thoughtful look at what “great documentation” will mean in the future: content that is accessible to both humans and machines, structured with intent, and designed as coherent knowledge systems rather than disconnected pages. In This EpisodeFabri’s path from blogging and SEO into technical writingHow personal writing helps sharpen thinking in the age of AIWhy AI should be treated as a collaborator, not an autopilotThe role of technical writers in AI tooling and DocOpsHow documentation tools reflect organizational culture and “taste”Why AI hype may plateau over the next 18 monthsThe rise of local and self-hosted AI modelsWhat orchestration work looks like for future technical writersWhy foundational documentation still requires deep human expertiseThe importance of content types, metadata, and structure for AI consumptionAdvice for early-career technical communicators learning AIWhy the future of docs may look surprisingly similar to the past About the GuestFabri Ferri-Benedetti is a Principal Technical Writer at Elastic and a widely respected voice in the technical communication community. Through his blog, Passo Uno, and active online presence, Fabri explores the intersection of AI, documentation tooling, developer experience, and the evolving future of technical communication. Links & ResourcesFabri Ferri Benedetti’s Blog – Passo UnoElasticWrite the Docs

This episode of Behind the Docs is coming straight from the conference floor at ConVEx 2025 in Pittsburgh — a collection of candid conversations with the people who make this community what it is. From first-timers to veterans with decades in the field, the throughline is clear: this industry is in the middle of something real, and the people here are figuring it out together. They also dig into: why metadata keeps coming up in every single conversation — and why it matters more than ever for AIhow well-structured content is already separating teams that are succeeding with AI from teams that are strugglingwhat it actually feels like to show up to a TechCom conference as a newcomer (spoiler: everyone becomes an extrovert)the best real-world example of faceted search you've probably never thought to look at (hint: it's a knitting website)and why "garbage in, garbage out" is just as relevant today as its always been If you care about where this profession is headed — and you want to hear it from the people actually doing the work — this one's for you. Big, big thank you to the team at the Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM) for putting on another great conference. Looking forward to doing it again next year!

In this special replay from Scriptorium's Content Operations podcast, Sarah O'Keefe sits down with our very own Patrick Bosek to tackle one of the thorniest problems in AI-powered content work: governance. Patrick and Sarah unpack why governing AI outputs gets harder as the technology improves, and why the structure you put into your content before it ever reaches a model may be your most important quality lever. They also dig into: why "garbage in, garbage out" is too simple and what good upstream governance actually looks likehow content structure serves humans first (and why that makes it better for AI too)what happens when end users start stripping warnings and summarizing away critical informationwhy you should never replace a working deterministic system with an AI one If you work in content strategy, technical writing, or are watching your organization stand up an AI team and wondering how to prepare, this one's for you. You can listen to this episode and many more Content Operations conversations on Scriptorium's website.

Jeff Cross didn't plan to become a technical writer. He started a computer science degree, dropped out, spent a year trying to make it as a fiction writer, went back for a philosophy degree, considered academia, and then — almost by accident — realized that technical writing was the thing that made all of it make sense. Now Senior Manager of Technical Writing at Arctic Wolf, Jeff has spent years doing some of the most complex content work in the industry: documenting third-party security integrations he has no direct access to, managing a full DITA migration while keeping up with release cycles, and pulling off a content carve-out from a corporate acquisition with translated content in three languages and a hard deadline. In this episode, Jeff and Patrick talk about what it really means to do great documentation work, and why the hardest parts rarely show up in a job description. They cover: - Why the security space takes documentation seriously in ways other industries don't - What happened when a product rename turned "a" into "an" across thousands of content files - How AI helped a small team execute a DITA-to-DITA migration without outside help - The checkbox doc that nobody wanted to write — and that way more people read than expected - Why technical writing is less like writing and more like investigative journalism Plus: Patrick discovers mid-conversation that Jeff was the person who fixed the BlackBerry email signature problem that drove him personally crazy for a year.

In this episode of Behind the Docs, Ren sits down with Dachary Carey of MongoDB to explore a rapidly emerging challenge: AI agents can’t reliably read your documentation and most teams don’t realize it. Dachary shares how a deep dive into agent workflows (sparked by tools like Claude Code) uncovered critical gaps in how documentation is structured, delivered, and consumed by machines. From truncated pages and hidden content to the unexpected importance of formats like llms.txt, this conversation reveals why even well-written docs can become effectively invisible to AI systems. They also dig into: how agents actually interact with documentation (and where they fail)why technical writers are becoming essential to AI successand the growing gap between companies investing in docs and those cutting them entirely If you’re thinking about AI, content strategy, or the future of technical writing, this episode is a must-listen. Important Links: Dachary's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dachary/Dachary's website: https://dacharycarey.com/The Agent-Friendly Documentation Spec: https://agentdocsspec.com/The GitHub repo for anyone who wants to contribute or leave feedback: https://github.com/agent-ecosystem/agent-docs-specThe npm tool (afdocs - for Agent-Friendly docs) that documentation teams can run to see how agent-friendly their documentation is: https://www.npmjs.com/package/afdocsThe GitHub repo for that tool for anyone who finds an issue or has a suggestion or request: https://github.com/agent-ecosystem/afdocs

In this episode of Behind the Docs, Patrick sits down with Manny Silva, Head of Documentation at Skyflow, to explore what happens when technical writing evolves into full-scale content systems. From growing up building computers to working at Apple and Google, Manny shares how his path into technical communication led to a deeply systems-driven approach to documentation. Today, as a team of one, Manny is rethinking what it means to scale docs—building automated workflows that turn Slack threads into structured drafts, enforcing style guides with AI, and creating feedback loops that continuously improve content quality. He also dives into Doc Detective, his open-source project for testing documentation like code—validating procedures, capturing screenshots automatically, and ensuring docs stay accurate as products evolve. Along the way, Manny shares insights on: why technical writers are becoming content orchestratorshow AI agents are powered by documentation at their coreand what it really takes to reduce friction in modern content operations If you’re curious about the future of documentation, AI workflows, and doc ops, this episode is packed with practical ideas and forward-looking perspective. Docs as Tests website Docs as Tests book

In this episode of Behind the Docs, Ren welcomes back Sara Feldman, Director of Member Engagement at the Consortium for Service Innovation and longtime advocate for knowledge-driven customer experience. Sara began her career as a technical writer, spending a decade embedded with support teams before diving deeper into knowledge management through Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS). That journey eventually led her to the Consortium, where she now works with member companies around the world to explore new approaches to service innovation and knowledge management. Together, Ren and Sara discuss: How KCS helps organizations capture and reuse knowledge in real timeWhy demand-driven knowledge practices produce better documentation and supportThe rise of intelligent swarming and how it could reshape how work gets routed across teamsWhy many organizations are struggling to operationalize AI despite the hypeThe importance of structured, trusted knowledge in an AI-driven worldWhy reducing customer friction matters more than simply improving efficiency Sara also shares insights from working directly with industry leaders across customer support, customer success, and service operations—and why the future of AI success will depend heavily on strong knowledge foundations. If you’re curious about the intersection of documentation, knowledge management, and customer experience, this episode offers a thoughtful look at where the industry is heading next.

In this episode of Behind the Docs, Ren sits down with Melanie Denise Davis — journalist-turned-technical-communication leader, AI Wrangler, and founder of Dragonfly Diva Docs. Melanie’s career spans the evolution of modern technology itself: from punch cards and mainframes to structured content and AI. She shares what it was like entering tech before technical writing was even a defined profession, helping shape the field alongside early STC efforts, and now contributing to the ISO standard defining technical communication management. Together, they explore: ✨ Why technical communicators are far more than “glorified typesetters” ✨ The difference between writing words and engineering information ✨ Why structured content is essential for AI success ✨ How technical writers are the natural curators of generative AI ✨ The importance of allies, mentorship, and resilience as a woman of color in tech ✨ Why clarity — not grammar — is the true hill to die on Melanie also discusses her role with The Content Wrangler, her work in the upcoming Women in Technology anthology, and why this may finally be the moment technical communicators step fully into their power. If you care about clarity, collaboration, and the future of AI-ready content, this episode is packed with wisdom you won’t want to miss. Helpful Links Melanie on LinkedinDragonfly Diva DocsWomen in Technical Communication

In this episode of Behind the Docs, Patrick Bosek interviews Dave Koelmeyer, the Content Operations Manager at IDEXX. Dave shares his unexpected journey from IT support to becoming a professional technical communicator. He discusses the importance of consistency in documentation, scaling of technical content using structured content and a CCMS, and the significant role of advocacy and education to help colleagues understand the benefits of high-quality self-help content. They also touch on the future of technical content with the integration of AI and the importance of understanding business strategy and stakeholder engagement. This episode is ideal for those interested in technical communication, content management, and the evolving role of AI in documentation.

In this special episode of Behind the Docs, Ren sits down with Heretto’s own Jarod Sickler — philosopher-turned-structured-content expert, and one of the most genuinely thoughtful voices in the documentation world. Jarod shares how a grad-school paper and a chance encounter in a Rochester coffee shop set him on an unexpected path into technical documentation (and eventually into Heretto). He opens up about the early days of learning DITA from scratch, the realities of content conversion, and why “doing life with a weight vest on” actually makes him a stronger practitioner. Together, Ren and Jarod dig into: The moment documentation shifted from “supplemental” to “part of the product”Why structured content is seeing a resurgence thanks to AIWhat new teams should actually measure before adopting a CCMSCommon misconceptions about content conversionThe coolest emerging trends in docs and in-app helpThe joy of reuse, personalization, and helping teams finally break the copy-paste cycle If you love docs, workflows, or a good origin story that starts in a coffee shop, this one’s for you.