What Technical Writers Should Automate First (A Practical Playbook)

Welcome to episode 231 of the Technical Writing Success podcast from Curt Robbins, where we help you get smarter than your competition.

This episode is entitled "What Technical Writers Should Automate First (A Practical Playbook)." Hosts Daphne Blake and Fred Jones outline a strategic analysis of the proposed llms.txt standard, specifically tailored for technical writers and documentation professionals.

They provide a strategic roadmap for technical writers looking to implement automation without sacrificing the quality of their work. It introduces a foundational principle that prioritizes automating high-toil, low-judgment tasks—such as link checking and style linting—while preserving human oversight for complex reasoning. By addressing the "productivity paradox" revealed in a recent survey, they argue that automation should be used to offset the increased review burden caused by AI-generated drafts.

This episode recommends a tiered approach, starting with mechanical errors and moving toward more complex needs like automated screenshots and API documentation. Ultimately, the goal is to redistribute a writer’s time away from repetitive drudgery and toward the high-value thinking that ensures technical accuracy.

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"It will not be AI that takes away the job of a technical writer, but rather another technical writer with deep AI skills." — Curt Robbins

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