The art of storytelling for developers by Dave Kiss from Oh the Humanity! 2023
Abstract
Just like coding, communication can be complex. As developers, we can easily get tangled up in technical details and lose our listeners.
It’s not that you don’t have a story to tell. It’s about mastering a method to deliver these stories effectively.
In this talk, you’ll learn how to untangle the knots of tech-talk and share your knowledge in a way that’s easy for everyone to understand. Whether it’s writing a blog, outlining a user guide, or getting into the gritty details in docs, you’ll learn to talk about tech in a way that’s clear, interesting, and maybe even fun.
Dave Kiss is a web developer who has helped to make the internet better since the debut of his Kool-aid fan site in 2004. However, it was his work with a 3D animation studio in Chicago that really sparked his interest in web development. In 2012, he started selling his own software and worked on it for several years before joining the community team at Mux in 2021. Dave is passionate about sharing his knowledge and helping others learn about the world wide web.
My notes
How to share complex things in clean and straight-forward way? - There’s a lot of context, lots of assumptions - And human brain is complex and everyone learns differently
Our goal is to serve developers → everything we do should take us towards that goal
3 keys to strong developer stories
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Build relevance immediately - First 20 seconds of the content should ramp up - Communication blueprint - 1. Outcome: By the end of the engagement, they will… - 2. Why should they care? - 3. Know → 4. Feel - 5. Main point: distill into one brief phrase
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Create tension - Historically, we’ve been taught to write in a way that picks a topic from our brain and puts it into reader’s brain - The job of your writing is to identify a particular group of people and change the perspective from where they were to where you want them to go - Controversial or strong opinions or clickbait that spark discussion (note: it may work but I think it’s negative to the world)
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Share perspective - Tell your story - Generic doesn’t say anything, insert your own personality into the message
Different components sprinkled in as needed
- Helpful
- Precise
- Relatable
- Playful
API docs might need to be helpful and precise where marketing/social comms could be more relatable and playful. It’s always a balance.
Why does this matter? Telling better stories makes you and other people better and it can help your business grow
Good stories educate and introduce your readers and listeners to new perspectives
“Create an experience. That’s what people will remember.”, quote by Jennifer King
The best docs assume readers are intelligent but doing something new for the first time (Jack Bridger on Twitter)