What we’re about
We are people who care about making the reader experience awesome by delivering excellent documentation. We are writers, developers, designers, learning professionals, and documentation enthusiasts. Come to our meetup and strategize how to make documentation great, and meet others in the Bay Area who care about documentation.
** To see events for all the local WTD groups (San Francisco, East Bay, and South Bay/Peninsula), click Meetups.
** Access our GitHub repo, https://github.com/San-Francisco-Write-The-Docs.
** Read the Write the Docs Code of Conduct at http://www.writethedocs.org/code-of-conduct/.
Upcoming events (1)
See all- Lightning Talks: Technical Writing Tools Used on the JobLink visible for attendees
Agenda:
- Lightning Talks: 6:00 – 7:00 PM PDT
- Breakout Room Discussions #1: 7:00 – 7:25 PM
- Breakout Room Discussions #2: 7:30 – 7:55 PM
- Main Room Discussion & Wrap-Up: 7:55 – 8:00 PM
Speaker #1: Sarah Deaton
Title: From Code to Canvas: Transforming Mermaid Diagrams into Polished Visuals
Description: I'll demo a workflow I’ve been enjoying that combines AI-generated Mermaid diagrams with Excalidraw’s styling capabilities. It’s a solid approach for getting the structural benefits of code-based diagrams while ending up with visuals that don’t look completely auto-generated, and it’s become a regular part of how I handle documentation diagrams.
Bio: Sarah Deaton is a Developer Experience Engineer at Writer, focusing on developer-facing documentation. Previously, she was a Developer Educator at Twilio, where she helped customers build with voice, video, and other communication channels. When she's not writing docs or experimenting with AI tools, she enjoys knitting.
Title: Developer Experience Engineer
Company website: https://writer.com
Speaker #2: Tilde Thurium
Title: 4 hacks to turbocharge your Cursor productivity
Description: Cursor, an AI code editor, is by some measures the fastest growing developer tool of all time. Cursor works pretty well out of the box, but there’s a lot you can do to make it even better. In this talk, we'll demonstrate 4 ways to make your Cursor agent more personalized and accurate. Here's to better code -- and prose.
Bio: Tilde (they/them) leads the developer relations team at LaunchDarkly. They can probably deadlift more than you. Ask them about how to paint an algorithm, the intersections between mutual aid and biology, or which coast has the best vegan croissants.
Title: Developer Relations Manager, LaunchDarkly
Speaker #3: Ethan Palm
Title: From question to answers: Using AI assistant query data to identify documentation gaps
Description: I'll demo how I use AI assistant queries to uncover user intent and find gaps in my documentation. With access to specific questions users are asking about our products and docs, we have new insights into what information people are looking for and whether or not they're finding it. The tools I'll use are Mintlify and Claude.
Bio: Ethan is a technical writer with a passion for dev tools. He is currently at Mintlify maintaining documentation about maintaining documentation.
Title: Technical Writer
Speaker #4: Erica Pollock
Title: Writing With Belief: Using ChatGPT to Make Technical Content Actually Stick
Description: Most technical writers focus on clarity—but clarity alone doesn’t drive adoption, trust, or behavior change. Great documentation doesn’t just explain how something works; it shifts what the reader believes about the product, the process, and themselves. In this talk, I’ll show how I use ChatGPT not to write for me, but to surface assumptions, identify friction, and uncover belief gaps—so I can structure more persuasive, user-centered content that sticks.
Bio: Erica Pollock is a content strategist and writer for B2B SaaS companies, with a focus on creating belief-shifting content that drives conversions, adoption, and trust. When she’s not writing, she's probably getting lost in Wikipedia rabbit holes, talking to her dog like he’s on payroll, and running marketing experiments just to see what breaks.
Title: Senior Content Strategist
Speaker #5: Rick Larsen
Title: Single source with Asciidoc
Description: Asciidoctor is a flexible tool that outputs content in multiple formats, such as HTML, PDF, and ePUB from the same source. Asciidoc is a robust and feature rich markup language with a vibrant community and extensive documentation.
Bio: Rick Larsen is a writer and content developer who built projects with Asciidoctor for over eight years. He has built documentation pipelines and content sets for companies you have heard of and companies you have not.
Title: Technical Writer
Speaker #6: Tia Marcel
Title: 100X Team Productivity Through Above Average Documentation
Description: Above-Average Docs: The Force Multiplier Your Team Needs High-performing teams don’t just ship faster—they document smarter. In this talk, Tia Marciel unpacks how above-average documentation, backed by findings from Google’s DORA reports, acts as a force multiplier for teams of any size—improving velocity, reducing burnout, and scaling knowledge without scaling headcount.
Bio: Tia Marciel is a freelance senior technical writer with 9+ years of experience helping Fortune 500s and high-growth tech teams build scalable, self-serve documentation. She uses Confluence, GitHub, Slack, and Copilot to deliver clear, efficient content systems—making her the go-to partner for teams that need expert docs without slowing down.
Title: Senior Technical Writer, Documentation Expert, Human in the Middle
Speaker #7: Wesley Frederick
Title: Docs That Talk Back: Multi-Threaded AI Collaboration
Description: l'll demo a workflow that replaces traditional AI chat interfaces with embedded conversations that persist across LLM sessions. Borrowing from IDE tools like Cursor, this approach excels at complex collaborations in semi-structured spaces. It enables dynamic walkthroughs, in-place research, and iterative prototyping beyond context windows. Perfect for PRDs, technical evaluations, and documentation that evolves with your project.
Bio: Wesley is a product consultant specializing in AI-augmented workflows for faster, more impactful product development. He focuses on improving the messy early phases like elicitation, sense-making, and problem framing.
Title: Product Consultant
After the talks are facilitated, breakout rooms will be created so that attendees can join them to discuss topics of interests further.
