Welcome to the Just Write Click blog.
Professional Biography
Anne Gentle is a developer experience leader, helping companies define and grow their strategic developer relations programs. While a Director at Cisco, her team worked on API quality assessments and API documentation with OpenAPI specifications, interactive REST API documentation, and developer tutorials. She was instrumental in continuously improving the developer portal at Cisco DevNet. She has adeptly handled complex, high-impact projects with executive visibility.
Anne pursues eliminating biased language in code and content with open source projects. Anne wrote the book, Docs Like Code, to provide practical guidance for docs-as-code workflows with GitHub, automation, and enhanced processes for developers and writers to work together. She proudly serves on the Austin Community College Workforce Advisory Committee, pushing the field toward future opportunities in API and developer documentation.
Even More About Me
My latest project is the Docs Like Code site and learning tools, including the book, Docs Like Code, available in paperback or ebook.
I wrote Conversation and Community: The Social Web for Documentation based on my experiences with social media applied to documentation authoring, reviewing, and distribution. It’s available for free on xmlpress.com.
I would love to talk about improving your developer experiences. You can view my resume if you’d like to see my work history and experience.
I have acquired many interests in customer success over the years, from developer advocacy to using GitHub for developer documentation.
I had a book reading at the South by SouthWest Interactive Festival. I’ve presented at multiple conferences and meet-up groups. You can read a list of my presentations and inquire about a speaking engagement on the Speaker Profile page.
I got a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. A summer internship in an analytical lab in Michigan testing nutritional supplements and infant formula showed me I was a little inexperienced with pipettes, but I did realize that I enjoyed reading the manuals for the instrumentation. One year later, I pursued and obtained a Master in Technical and Scientific Communication at Miami University in a year and a half while working full-time at the Center for Chemical Education during the last year of my degree pursuit.
Summary of my Professional Profile
Eager to engage information professionals and spark action using a unique combination of education and experience as a computer industry writer and open source community leader. Recognized thought leader and innovative coordinator of unique documentation solutions.
Key Experiences
- Director of Developer Experience leading the API documentation team and an API experience team charged with driving up API quality at Cisco.
- Developer Experience Manager with Cisco DevNet managing both the developer.cisco.com API documentation and interactive tutorials, as well as the team working on infrastructure automation for Cisco certification and training offerings.
- Manage developer content and support on the developer experience team at Cisco DevNet, the developer relations program for Cisco APIs, software integrations, and automation solutions.
- Technical product management at Cisco, improving customer experience across the private OpenStack cloud spectrum from onboarding to successfully deploying applications.
- Technical leadership role at Rackspace, attaining the title of Principal Engineer with expertise in documentation collaborating, authoring, tooling, and automation.
- Led the community documentation effort for OpenStack, consisting of 130 git repositories governed by more than twenty related programs. Written in Python, OpenStack projects enable organizations to provide cloud computing capabilities on standard hardware using open-source software. Applications written on OpenStack are growing and scaling.
- Gathered competent documentarians to write about OpenStack. Grew numbers from 79 docs contributors to 130 docs contributors in six months from April 2013 to November 2013.
- With Adam Hyde, I coordinated and participated in the second FLOSS Manuals Book Sprint, resulting in a 250-page manual for One Laptop per Child written in five days in a wiki and a surge in community growth.
- Demonstrated thought leadership as one of the first ten nominated bloggers on talk.bmc.com. Connected directly with our customers, sometimes leading the group in popularity with 10,000 hits a month. When I left BMC in 2005, I started this blog, Just Write Click.
- Integrated O’Reilly learning materials directly into a BMC Software product using an online Help system in a new way, enabling BMC Software users to search O’Reilly content and offer expert advice for database administration.
Awards
2021: Trailblazer panelist for Junior Achievement Northern California S.H.E. LEADS Virtual Summit
2019: Nominee for a Groundbreaker Award from Oracle Cloud.
2018: Keynote presenter at the third annual internal Amazon TechCommCon
2014: Winner of IO Award for technical achievement, Rackspace
2013: Anne Gentle Travel Scholarship Award, OpenStack Foundation
2012: Central Texas Women of Influence, Austin Business Journal
Recognized as one of the top ten technical communication influencers from 2010 through 2014 by MindTouch, a social business platform vendor.
Articles
InfoQ.com: Always Be Publishing: Continuous Integration & Collaboration in Code Repositories for REST API Docs April 2017
OpenSource.com: Git and GitHub for open source documentation April 2016
OpenSource.com: Continuous integration and delivery for documentation Co-authored with Andreas Jaeger, July 2016
The Agile Executive: Agile Across the Enterprise: Prioritizing Value in Support and Training December 2009
Podcasts and interviews
Podcast interview with Niki Acosta for the OpenStack Podcast May 2015
Podcast interview with Steven Spector about the documentation work in the fall 2013 release of OpenStack, October 2013
Podcast interview with Scott Nesbitt and Aaron Davis on their Communications with DMN show September 2008
Podcast with Anne Gentle about her Conversation and Community book on Tech Writer Voices August 2009
Video Interview with Ellis Pratt of Cherryleaf Consulting September 2009 (part 1, part 2) Conversation and Community book was featured in their History of Technical Communication in 7 minutes video.
Affiliations
Committee Member, Austin Community College Workforce Advisory Committee, current
Board Member, Gethsemane Lutheran Children’s Ministry, 2008-2011
Chair, Editorial Advisory Panel for 2009 STC Intercom, 2008-2010
Please feel free to email me at annegentle at justwriteclick dot com.