Not the Docs: content & voice on a developer blog

Havi Hoffman
Write the Docs Portland, May 7, 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMEZv_KSsJE

My talk about the work I do on Mozilla Hacks, also about empathy and editorial, speaking & writing, luck and imposter syndrome, and the importance of outliers and diverse voices in tech.

"I believe there’s as much appetite for diversity of voice and point of view in blogging about software development as there is in speaking about it at developer conferences. And I’ve got some observations to share about how we can cultivate that."

Here is the full transcript of my talk:

Not the Docs

Hello everyone. Hi. I'm Havi Hoffman, and this is Not the Docs: my talk about content and voice on a developer blog. It’s an honor to be here today, to share some observations with you from my decade + of working in devrel as an editor and content wrangler.

These days, as a member of Mozilla’s Developer Outreach team, I manage Mozilla Hacks, a blog for web developers. In the first 4 months of 2018, we published 38 posts by 29 authors, generating nearly 1.5 million views. And we’re growing!

(Now, I’d like to take a moment to learn just a little about you. Show of hands please. How many documentarians in the house? Brilliant … [Developers? Excellent Writers? Bloggers?] Just one other - Who here has ever given a talk at a conference or event? Thank you!)

You see, there’s a relationship between blogging and conference speaking. A relationship that I’ll be referring t...

Transcript

1. Not the Docs: content & voice on a developer blog Havi Hoffman, Mozilla May 7, 2018 Write the Docs, Portland
3. hacks.mozilla.org april 2018
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzVr_nsKoZs
6. the yin & yang of editor & engineers
7. Denise Graveline
8. eloquentwoman.blogspot.com
10. The Eloquent Woman Index of Famous Speeches by Women
11. Ursula K. LeGuin
13. “We are volcanos. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.” Ursula K. LeGuin, 1986
14. Credit: Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument - Jasperdo https://www.flickr.com/photos/mytravelphotos/15237018282/ (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) new mountains
15. hacks.mozilla.org
17. University Ave. Palo Alto, CA, 2006 www.flickr.com/photos/freshelectrons/292496711/
18. Gloria Dwomoh
19. paid internships for under-represented people in tech www.outreachy.org/
20. “It was a spring night in Greece when I got the news I’d been selected by Mozilla to be an Outreachy intern… That night, I was the happiest person in my town, I believe…” Gloria Dwomoh, 2015 https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/09/implementing-air-mozillas-related-events-feature/
21. “Movement of a Robotic Arm through Bluetooth Communication Between an Arduino and an Android Application” Gloria Dwomoh, 2017
22. Mozilla Tech Speakers at FOSDEM, February 2018
23. anti-pattern: imposter syndrome
24. “An anti-pattern is a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-pattern
26. soft skills & good luck
29. Clay Shirky, Hudson Theater, Open Hack NYC 2009 https://www.flickr.com/photos/yodelanecdotal/3995269285/in/album-72157622549624826/
30. the first blogher, 2005 San Jose, CA.
31. Open Hack EU Team, Bucharest, Romania, 2011 https://www.flickr.com/photos/freshelectrons/5719657787/
32. an epidemic of imposter syndrome
33. Soft skills : “These skills can include social graces, communication abilities, language skills, personal habits, cognitive or emotional empathy, time management, teamwork, and leadership traits.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_skills
34. Margaret Heffernan
36. “Helpfulness means I don't have to know everything, I just have to work among people who are good at getting and giving help. “ Margaret Heffernan
37. hacks.mozilla.org 2012
40. Inside a super fast CSS engine: Quantum CSS code cartoon by Lin Clark @linclark https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/inside-a-super-fast-css-engine- quantum-css-aka-stylo/
41. How to Write CSS That Works in Every Browser, Even the Old Ones By Jen Simmons @jensimmons Resilient CSS in 7 video episodes, wrapped in a blog post. https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/03/how-to-write-css-that-w orks-in-every-browser-even-the-old-ones/
43. the yin & yang of reader & writer
44. “Our aim is always to be useful and witty, but never sarcastic, spiteful, or snarky.” Danielle Vincent, 2018 Mozilla Developer Newsletter
45. what Erin McKean taught me about context
46. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKPvzZzXyJI
47. Online Communities https://xkcd.com/256/
49. Illustration by Ashley Williams @ag_dubs https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/04/hello-wasm-pack/
51. “Public speaking is a risk that you take, every time you get up to speak. And every time someone speaks, you all will be learning with them..” Denise Graveline
52. Thank you! twitter: @freshelectrons | @mozhacks | @moztechspeakers medium: @freshelectrons havi@mozilla.com Slides by Mike McFarland Design