Sample email¶

Remember to change the things in [brackets]!

FROM: [your name]

TO: [your employer or manager’s name]

SUBJECT: Professional Development: Documentation Community Conference

I’d like to attend Write the Docs Prague, which takes place October 18-20, 2020, online. This three-day online event explores the art and science of documentation, and covers a diverse range of topics related to documentation in the software industry.

Write the Docs conferences bring together everyone who writes the docs – Tech Writers, Developers, Developer Relations, Customer Support – making the events an ideal networking opportunity. Each conference successfully combines a number of different event formats to deliver engaging, practical, and timely content.

There is a single track of talks, a parallel unconference event, and a community writing day. The sessions from last year will give you a good idea of the kinds of topics covered, many of which are relevant to my work.

Costs:

• Conference ticket (includes breakfast and lunch) - €125

Benefits:

• Discovering solutions to problems I’m facing at work
• Exposure to the latest ideas, techniques, and tools for software docs
• Opportunity to learn from the best doc teams in the industry
• Building professional connections with other documentarians

Thanks in advance, [your name]

Resources¶

When discussing how to pitch the conference, a few generally helpful tips emerged:

• Highlight a few specific talks that relate to ongoing projects at work. (This one’s dependent on pitching after the talk line up has been announced).
• If your company is looking to hire another documentarian, the job fair and networking at the event are an excellent resource.
• Don’t forget that one of the benefits to your attendance is that it raises the visibility of your company in the community. If your team wants a reputation for caring about their docs, having people at Write the Docs is a great way to do that.

In addition, it can be useful to share some info about previous conferences. You can find the websites for previous events on Conferences, and a quick list of last year’s talks down below. But perhaps more useful might be some of the info in our Press Kit, which includes community testimonials, photos, and more.

List of talks from 2019¶

• Aaron Collier – Seeing your docs through different eyes: Mapping doc users’ experiences

• Kelly O’Brien – Surprise! You’re a designer now.

• Prerana Pradhan – Fostering Technical Writing in Developing Nations

• Ellie Farrier – Wild Geeks: Poetry in the Digital Age

• Ben Ahmady – Write the API docs before the API exists

• Jen Lambourne – The UK government meets docs as code

• Brian Lemke – How to launch your startup with good docs

• Arran Southall – Fostering Talent: Mentorship, Peer Reviews and Going Beyond Your Job Description

• Karen Sawrey – Disagree with “I Agree”. Enforcing better data privacy through the language of documentation

• Plamena Maleva – The Power of Empathy in Support Documentation: A 5-Step Guide

• Kayla Lee – The Super Effective Writing Process of Grammy-winning Artists

• Zachary Sarah Corleissen – Found in Translation: Lessons from a Year of Open Source Localization

• Ilona Koren-Deutsch – Inclusive environments are better: science says so

• James Scott – 101 to 404s: How to write great error messages

• Alison MacNeil – Documenting known unknowns