The Manuscript

Today you’ll be hearing part two of our previous episode, featuring Jade Maravillas, Alliances Director at Birlasoft, and Cassi Vilvert, Product Manager at Z1. Last episode, while they share their story, we also got to know key topics revolving around product marketing, the early days and in tech, and consolidating a company's differentiation strategy. Since storytelling is so central to the marketing field, we illustrated what they learned about this area with actual stories that they experienced in their professional lives.

So if you haven't had the chance to listen to our previous episode, I highly recommend that you do so, since it was a very illuminating conversation.

In this part of our chat we talked about the importance of writing in product marketing, and discussed books and the future of this area.

Today's conversation features Jade Maravillas, Alliances Director at Birlasoft, and Cassi Vilvert, Product Manager at Z1. While they share their story, we will also get to know key topics revolving around product marketing, the early days and in tech, and consolidating a company's differentiation strategy. Since storytelling is so central to the marketing field, we illustrated what they learned about this area with actual stories that they experienced in their professional lives.  

Today we talk to Gabriel Cajiga, Fullbright Scholar in Law, and Willy Vasquez, PhD student in Cryptography, to talk about Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge, and how writing and tech are deeply present in this global competition. Gabriel Cajiga is a Panamanian lawyer and Fulbright scholar experienced in intellectual property, information technology and business law. Willy Vasquez is an American PhD student interested in designing provably secure systems using cryptography and formal methods. Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge is an annual cyber policy and strategy competition where students from across the globe compete in developing policy recommendations tackling a fictional cyber catastrophe.

We will be meeting tech writers around the world in this new season, so we can understand what's the market like going beyond major tech writing hubs, and also the trends and challenges that tech writers in different countries face. 

In this episode we travel to India to interview Sneha Sridharan, technical writer at commercetools, formerly working at Zoho. 

Check out her Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/amrithaasneha?s=21

If you are a tech writer based in Asia, Afria or Latin America, please reach out to us through our Twitter! We'd love to interview you

Surprise mini episode for the end of the year! Tune in to get to know Karla Luz, our new team member, and also get spoilers of our next season!

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Welcome to quite a different episode than what we’re used to. We’ll have a Q&A about the show, share some backstage stories, special projects like Pupila Talk, and talk about the future of the show. Get to know some of our guests today:

In this episode we interviewed Beatriz Guerreiro, fellow tech writer at VTEX, to talk about release notes, and the process of implementing them at VTEX. Bia graduated in International Relations at Universidade Federal Fluminense, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and before joining VTEX she worked at IBM in the Latin American HR. And we’re trying out a different kind of episode. On the last couple of weeks we came to the conclusion that it would be really cool to share with you a recent challenge we faced at VTEX involving release notes. We wanted to share how it went down and what we learned in the process. And it brought to my mind that maybe this could be a recurrent theme on the show. What if we had themed episodes with case studies of projects that different people lead? Tell us what you think!

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Links mentioned today:

In this episode we interviewed Maria Beatriz Vilela, marketing specialist at Imovision, the film distributor. We’ll be covering a digital product that has been on my wish list for ages: streaming platforms! Maria Beatriz led the launch of Imovision’s first streaming platform, so we’ll talk specifically about film distribution, and how marketing content applies to this media. We dive deep about the insides of the movie industry, and how tech writing can be a part of other professionals' day to day - even though they are not aware of it!

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In this episode, we interviewed Pedro Alecrim, technical writer at Wildlife Studios to talk about games, and how words are part of how users interact with them. We focused our chat on the following topics: Pedro's career and how it feels to work in this industry; game development, and how it differs from regular app's development; community engagement; and finally, the particularities of tech and UX writing in games.

In this episode, we interviewed Bruno Amui, tech writing lead at VTEX. We covered two main topics: the first one, we like to call “how Bruno performs his tech sorcery” which is basically his analytical approach to solving any problem or bug - which will interest you, even if you don't work with documentation; and secondly, we’ll talk about hiring and training tech writers for roles that demand more technical backgrounds.  On the previous episode, we talked about the decisions around platforms and tools that tech writers use to create and host documentation. Listen to part one and two to get the full experience!

In this episode we cover tech writing and documentation platforms and tools. We interviewed Bruno Amui, tech writing lead at VTEX, talking about Bruno's surprising career path, where he jumped from building hardware, robots, and even satellites, to leading a tech writing team at VTEX.

And spoiler alert: this is another episode where the chat was so inspiring that we didn't want to leave anything out, so our next episode will feature the rest of our interview, where we'll cover what we like to call "how Bruno performs his tech sorcery" since he can fix literally any problem or bug that we face. We'll also talk about leading a team of tech writers on our next episode, so stay tuned and listen to both parts to get the full experience.

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In this episode we interview John A Paz, senior content designer at Menlo Security. Our chat with John was so inspiring to us that we just had to share the full conversation with you. And to improve your podcasting experience we split it into two episodes. So today you'll listen to part two, where he dives deep into the reality of the tech market for writers, and how we have a long way until we reach racial equality and inclusion. We also talk about how mentoring and training junior tech writers can be key into transforming lives and the market.  

On part one, we explore John’s career, his experience in tech writing at Atlassian and Menlo, illustrated with his real day to day challenges, and how tech writing can be a great entry point for people interested in joining the tech market.

This episode is especially interesting for you, fellow tech writer, or aspiring tech writer, out there in the world. 

We interview John A Paz, senior content designer at Menlo, and he dives deep into the reality of working in the tech writing market. Our chat with John was so inspiring to us that we just had to share the full conversation with you. And to improve your podcasting experience we split it into two episodes. So today you'll listen to part one,  where we explore John’s career, his experience in tech writing at Atlassian and Menlo, illustrated with his real day to day challenges, and how tech writing can be a great entry point for people interested in joining the tech market.

On today's episode, we interviewed Carlisa Johnson, multimedia journalist based in Atlanta. Her work focuses on race and gender politics, specifically highlighting experiences within the African Diaspora. We started things off by talking about Carlisa's career and her experience as a journalist, we also explored the connection between journalism and technology, and finally talked about activism, and her protagonism in the Black Lives Matter movement. 

On this episode, we interview Ayodele Odubela, a Data Scientist and AI Ethicist who believes we should be using tech to make the lives of marginalized people better. We dive deep into the world of Data Science, Machine Learning and AI, and the challenges of communicating data. We also explore how we should bring more ethics and diversity into the field, if we want to create a more equal and just society, especially for underrepresented minorities.

This episode is for all the art lovers out there, who are also passionate about tech. 

We've interviewed Clare Brooks, who's worked as a creative producer in animation from Universal Studios to Nexus in London, making a move to AR and VR storytelling in Google and Facebook, and finally taking a leap into the art world. Now she's a producer at Google Arts and Culture Lab, experimenting with AI and machine learning. 

She talks about the challenges of  bringing an artwork from physical to digital and vice versa, the impact COVID-19 has brought to her industry and how we consume art, and also the role of writing and communication in all of it.

We want to know you! Send us an email to themanuscriptpodcast@gmail.com sending your feedbacks, comments and suggestions!
If you want to keep up with our latest news and insights, follow us on Twitter:

And today we're breaking the rules. This is a special, surprise, mini episode for you.
So last week we talked to Beatriz Guarezi about breaking the rules of content creation through newsletters. She’s a Senior Brand Manager at Liv Up, inhabiting the universe of brands since 2013 through research, consulting and content creation. She's the author and creator of Bits to Brands, a weekly newsletter that unites the fields of brand and technology, reaching thousands of professionals throughout Brazil.

And as you know, in the Manuscript we have a block where we ask our guests  what are they currently reading, and also their book recommendations for the episode's theme.  And Beatriz, being the incredible curator that she is, has given you a gift: here you can find links for this massive booklist she has curated over the years. And to celebrate this gift, we decided to keep our chat with her about books, and quarantining in a separate episode. So listen to that bit of our interview in this special, mini episode, and don't forget to checkout the links below to collect your gift!

In this episode we interviewed Beatriz Guarezi, talking about breaking the rules of content creation through newsletters. She’s a Senior Brand Manager at Liv Up, inhabiting the universe of brands since 2013 through research, consulting and content creation. She's the author and creator of Bits to Brands, a weekly newsletter that unites the fields of brand and technology, reaching thousands of professionals throughout Brazil.  

If you're brazilian, or a portuguese speaker, subscribe to Bits to Brands through the link below: https://www.bitstobrands.com/

If you want to keep up with our latest news and insights, follow us on Twitter:

In this episode we chatted with George Brindeiro, who is the head of VTEX's Education team. Our chat was so insightful we didn’t want to keep any details out, so we actually split our conversation into two episodes. On part two we dive deep into our experience with tech writing, illustrating our chat with lots of real cases that happen in our day to day work, our team rituals that make us grow personally and as a team, and how we deal with our documentation challenges. So listen to part 1 and 2. to get the full experience.

In this episode we were honoured to interview Larissa Mansur, head of localization and global expansion at Mindvalley. Mindvalley is the world's leading personal growth platform with 12 million students subscribed, and they have the mission of making their content accessible for 7 different languages. Having lived in more than 8 countries herself, Larissa truly understands the impact of language and culture, and we talk about the power and challenges of localization, and the particularities of it within the tech industry.

In this episode of The Manuscript, we talk to Paulo Victor, a technical writer currently working for Nubank, the largest fintech in Latin America and one of the most innovative companies in the world. He explores the challenge of deciphering the financial universe for a knowledgeable internal audience, talks about the challenge of being the company's first tech writer, and addresses the advantages and disadvantages of being a writer with an engineering background.

In this episode, we interview Sarah Arruda, Executive Producer at Tendril Studio. Sarah is a creative producer, experimenting with new media technologies to bring the digital world to life in the physical space. Here she talks about the challenges and benefits of dealing with multidisciplinary projects, the integration of writing, storytelling and technology, the ways she interacts with the tech aspect of innovation, and the boundaries between innovation and creativity.

Christopher Gales is the Senior Director of Documentation at Splunk. He has more than 20 years of experience in technical communications and engineering program management. In Splunk, he leads a team of 40+ writers, who form one of the best tech comm teams in the industry today. In this episode, he talks about reaching senior levels in a tech writing career, the organization of his team, the importance of customer feedback in our field, how to instill a documentation culture in our companies and what to look for when hiring writers.

Jacob Moses is the creator of The Not-Boring Tech Writer podcast. In each episode, Jacob covers a new tech writing skill, with the goal of showing tools all of us can use to become better writers and proving this is far from a tedious career. In doing that, he helps to raise awareness about the field and improves the sense of a Tech Writing community.

Tom Johnson is a technical writer from California, currently working for Amazon in the Appstore group. He is also the creator of the blog I’d Rather Be Writing, one of the most influential blogs on technical communications today. In this episode, Tom explores how a tech writer should approach the balance between writing expertise and technical knowledge. He also talks about the most common pitfalls in writing API documentation and shares his thoughts on how beginner writers should tackle the challenge of learning to use and document APIs.