Author Archives: Tom Johnson
December 19, 2016: Holiday Schmooze at Stein’s Beer Garden & Restaurant in Mountain View
During December, we always have a holiday schmooze where we get together over dinner and socialize. During the holiday schmooze, there isn’t a specific presenter, nor a set agenda. Instead, you can kick back and nibble away at Stein’s truffle … Continue reading
October 17, 2016: Saving your sanity through better client relations
Event Recording If you missed the meeting, you can watch the event here: Event Description Is work craziness creeping over into the rest of your life? You’re not alone. Having the confidence to take control of client relationships can improve … Continue reading
August 15: Hunting for Dev Doc Work around the Bay
The job market for developer documentation in Silicon Valley is the hottest in the country. But developer documentation jobs can be tricky to get, and also difficult to excel in, especially if you lack an engineering background. Despite the difficulties, … Continue reading
July 18, 2016: Social at Sam’s BBQ
Our next meeting will be a social dinner at Sam’s BBQ. The chapter will buy your dinner and any non-alcoholic drinks for free! Come and socialize with other members and friends during a casual BBQ dinner. Event Details Date: July … Continue reading
June 20, 2016: Let’s Tell a Story – Scenario-Based Documentation
To new users, complex software products can seem like dark woods on a stormy day. As tech writers, we often spend a lot of time talking about the overall shape of the forest and the variety of paths within it … Continue reading
March 24, 2016: Optimizing the Googleability of Your Content
Joe Welinske will present a webinar to our chapter on the topic of “Optimizing the Googleability of Your Content.” The webinar will be held at noon on Thursday, March 24. This webinar does not replace our monthly chapter meeting but … Continue reading
April 18, 2016: Shape of a Modern Technical Publications Organization
Modern writing organizations need skills very different from basic writing. This session will cover the job roles and skills that your organization might need to adopt best practices. For example: content strategy, analytics, web and app development, taxonomist, linguists, etc, … Continue reading
March 21, 2016: Building a Documentation Portal
The documentation strategy team from Palo Alto Networks, an industry-leading network security platform provider, will describe how they created a custom documentation portal from scratch in less than two years. They will describe how they took a problem-driven approach to … Continue reading
February 22, 2016: Doc is Dead! How Walkthroughs Changed Salesforce’s Content Strategy
If you missed Gavin’s presentation, you can view the slides here: Doc is Dead! How Walkthroughs Changed Salesforce’s Content Strategy from Gavin Austin Presentation description Customers no longer have the patience to read online help or user guides. To help … Continue reading
November 16, 2015: Version control, writers, and worfklows
Presentation description In a highly interactive discussion, we’ll go over the basics of using version control systems to help support documentation of software products. We’ll share ideas and swap war stories about how to set up workspaces and workflows, conduct … Continue reading
December 21, 2015: Holiday Schmooze at Stein’s Beer Garden & Restaurant in Mountain View
During December, we always have a holiday schmooze where we get together over dinner and socialize. During the holiday schmooze, there isn’t a specific presenter, nor a set agenda. Instead, you can kick back and nibble away at Stein’s truffle … Continue reading
January 11, 2016: A Knowledge Engineering Approach to Technical Communication
If you missed Denny’s presentation, you can view the recording here: Presentation description Denny Brown is co-founder of Expert Support, a company of contract technical writers that provide documentation to companies in the Bay area. In this presentation, he will … Continue reading
October 12, 2015: Spec Driven Development, RAML, & API Documentation
Spec Driven Development isn’t just changing the way we build APIs, but even the way we share and document them. In this session we’ll take a look at what Spec Driven Development is, and how it ties developers and technical … Continue reading
September 24, 2015, Webinar: An Aggressive Approach to Concise Writing, with Joe Welinske
Note: If you missed the webinar, you can access it here. The password for the session is stcsilicon0924. Joe Welinske will present a webinar to our chapter on this concise writing. The webinar will be held at noon on Thursday, … Continue reading
September 21, 2015: How to Choose the Right Tool for Me
So many tools to choose from! So many messages from so many vendors. Everyone saying they are the right one! One size does not fit all and one solution is not right for everyone! How could it? How do you … Continue reading