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I'd Rather Be Writing Podcast

I'd Rather Be Writing Podcast

By: Tom Johnson
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A technical writing podcast about the latest trends and practices in the field of technical communication. Technical communication includes topics like technical writing (software help), AI, information architecture, usability, API documentation, information design, web design, illustration, DITA, structured authoring, content strategy, visual communication, and more. If you're a technical writer or interested in technical writing, this is the one of few podcasts in this niche. I also have a blog at https://idratherbewriting.com where the podcasts and other blog topics are published. For an index of all podcasts, see https://idratherbewriting.com/podcasts.2023, I'd Rather Be Writing Education Politics & Government
Episodes
  • Will tech writers survive AI? Perspectives from two professors, Nupoor Ranade and Jeremy Merritt

    Will tech writers survive AI? Perspectives from two professors, Nupoor Ranade and Jeremy Merritt
    Mar 21 2026
    In this podcast, I chat with two professors — Nupoor Ranade (Carnegie Mellon) and Jeremy Merritt (James Madison University) — about how AI is reshaping the technical writing profession from the academic side. We discuss dropping enrollments, misconceptions about what tech writers do, historical parallels to past disruptions, agentic AI and organizational restructuring, the cyborg model of human-machine collaboration, and how academics and practitioners can bridge the divide to solve real problems together.
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    1 hr and 18 mins
  • AI Book Club recording of 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies'

    AI Book Club recording of 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies'
    Mar 17 2026
    This is a recording of our AI Book Club discussion of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Will Kill Us All by Nate Soares and Eliezer Yudkowsky, held March 15, 2026. Our discussion touches on a variety of topics, including whether the book's use of parables strengthens or weakens its argument, the question of whether AI can develop genuine intentions, the competitive dynamics that prevent any single company from pumping the brakes, the limits of recursive self-improvement, and what ordinary people should make of wildly conflicting predictions from leading AI thinkers. This post also includes discussion questions,...
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    56 mins
  • Podcast: Doc testing, skills files, and the guardians of knowledge -- with Manny Silva

    Podcast: Doc testing, skills files, and the guardians of knowledge -- with Manny Silva
    Mar 8 2026
    In this podcast, Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti (passo.uno) and I chat with Manny Silva (instructionmanuel.com), head of documentation at Skyflow and author of Docs as Tests. Manny is working on a follow-up book that incorporates AI, covering validated generation, trusted agents, and self-healing documentation.
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    1 hr
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