Recording of Version Control, Writers, and Worfklows by Richard Mateosian
Video, audio, and slides
Here’s the recording of Richard Mateosian’s presentation to the STC-Silicon Valley chapter on “Version control, writers, and worfklows.” Richard describes the presentation as follows:
In a highly interactive discussion, we’ll go over the basics of using version control systems to help support documentation of software products. We’ll share ideas and swap war stories about how to set up workspaces and workflows, conduct reviews, deal with product versions, and interact with developers. We’ll look at how (or whether) using these systems affects our decisions about chunking, modularity, and reuse. Spoiler alert: version control systems are not component content management systems. (STC Silicon Valley)
If you just want the audio, you can listen here or download it.
Here are the slides:
About the recording
I recorded the video and audio for the meeting. I set my iPhone on a tripod and pointed it at Richard. I also attached a lavalier mic to him. The lavalier was connected to a Zoom recorder (completely separate from my iPhone).
At about 30 minutes into the presentation, my iPhone ran out of storage space. So at that point, the video cuts over to just the slides plus audio.
The audio captured by the iPhone is decent, and has better omnidirectional capture than the lavalier, so you can hear the audience’s questions (if you listen closely).
When the recording cuts over to the lavalier, which isn’t omnidirectional, you can’t hear the audience very well. As a result, I chopped these parts out and inserted a “fast-forward” sound effect that is supposed to sound like a tape recorder fast forwarding. But since no one uses tape recorders anymore, the sound effect is a bit weird (like a thousand mice running in a tornado?).
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the recording. This is my first time video-recording an STC Silicon Valley presenter (instead of just capturing the audio). Video takes up quite a bit more space. The MP4 output from Camtasia Studio was 9GB. It took a while to upload that into Youtube, but I think including the video element adds a lot of appeal to the recording.
About Tom Johnson
I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.
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