Kate sounds off on knowledge sharing and docs stewardship

The Not-Boring Tech Writer

In this solo episode, I share an update on my content update progress. I also reflect on Marcia Riefer Johnston’s interview (S3:E8) and on the idea of docs stewardship as opposed to docs ownership.

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I’ve continued my work to update the KnowledgeOwl Support Knowledge Base to align with major navigation and UI changes that were rolled out in December. I updated an additional 91 articles since my last episode, taking my total to 457. 🎉 I also reorganized another three Features subcategories, taking me to the milestone of having updated half those categories using content type-inspired information architecture. I also relocated 12 mice from my basement.

Marcia’s episode prompted a lot of reflection for me. Her infectious, unbridled enthusiasm for this work—from learning new tools to new domains— reminded me of all the reasons I love the craft of technical writing, and how thankful I am that for the last year I’ve largely “only” been doing technical writing. I also appreciated Marcia’s exhortations to share what you know because you never know what great things will come from sharing your knowledge. Too often, we don’t share what we know because we don’t think we know “enough” (whatever that is). But sharing knowledge is a gift to others.

Thanks to a conversation with a friend, I’ve started to come around to the idea of docs stewardship rather than docs ownership. “Stewardship” comes from the Old English words for house and guard. Stewards originally managed estates for medieval lords. I extend this into the world of documentation (doesn’t “Guardian of the Docs” sound like an awesome way to describe what we do? Maybe a swag idea, too, non?). Most modern definitions of stewardship include the idea of “careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care” (source), though they may also add sustainability, ethical use, or “a duty to protect and maintain assets which might be natural, financial, or informational” (source). Marcia’s observation that a lot of a tech writer’s job involves project and process management aligns with this approach, I believe. I explore some other ways I like this docs stewardship model and then draw a comparison between tech writers and gardeners.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• KnowledgeOwl Support KB, Features category
• Merriam Webster’s definition of stewardship
• meaningdictionary.com’s explanation of Steward
• Chris Drew’s 25 Stewardship Examples
• TNBTW Episode 8

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