Kate sounds off on docs as an act of service

The Not-Boring Tech Writer

In this solo episode, Kate shares an update on her content update progress. She also reflects on Sarah Walker’s interview (S3:E18) and the concepts of Asteya, giving great service, and going the extra mile.

I’ve continued my work to update the KnowledgeOwl Support Knowledge Base to align with major navigation and UI changes that we rolled out in December. I also created about 30 articles for the launch of KnowledgeOwl’s new Owl Analytics feature, taking my total to 618. 🎉

Sarah’s interview gave me a lot to think about, and I spent the bulk of this episode reflecting on some key points from that conversation. First, I focus on the concept of Asteya she shared, in the context of not stealing time and energy from other people. This concept is so central to well-written documentation and is a compelling argument in favor of clear, consistently applied style guidelines. I coined the phrase “Style guide adherence is an anti-theft device” to summarize this idea. Our conversation reminded me so much that creating great documentation is an act of giving great service. I outline the three-step guide to giving great service that KnowledgeOwl uses, which is based on Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service: 1) Find out what your customer wants; 2) Get it for them accurately, politely, and enthusiastically; 3) Go above and beyond, or go the extra mile.

Step one is often the hardest piece of giving great service since people often don’t know how to articulate what they actually want. At KnowledgeOwl, we use Disney’s “What time is the 3 o’clock parade?” example to show our new support and success owls how what someone asks for isn’t necessarily the question they want answered.

Great documentation helps deliver step two by creating the accurate answers your readers need.

Step three ties very nicely back to statements Sarah and I both made—about the idea of crafting a solid experience for others in our documentation, of distilling what they need and making it as streamlined as possible. This discussion builds on the ideas of craft we’ve previously discussed, the idea of care I discussed in Episode 17, and Sarah’s comments about crafting something FOR others. Sharing knowledge is an inherent piece of our humanity and of building human communities. Documentation isn’t merely transactional—it’s also an act of care, a gift of time and knowledge, and a gift of saved time so people can pursue other interests.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• KnowledgeOwl Support Knowledge Base, especially the Owl Analytics documentation
• Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great Service
• ZingTrain’s The Art of Giving Great Customer Service
• Disney Institute Blog’s How Would You Respond If Asked: ‘What Time Is The 3 O’clock Parade?’
• The Disney 3 o’clock parade question: Insights from KnowledgeOwl support team

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