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.
AI Book Club recording: I Am Not a Robot by Joanna Stern
This is a recording of our <a href='/ai-book-club'>AI Book Club</a> discussion of <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/0063446618'><i>I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything</i></a> by Joanna Stern, held September 20, 2026. The group gave the book its lowest ratings yet, and much of the discussion is about why: so many of the experiences come across as superficial stunts with AI, rather than true engagement. In our discussion, some found the medical chapter to be the book's strongest section. Other topics: the question of whether you should fix a system before amplifying it, chatbots that give you the candid career advice your friends won't, school policies on AI and who tutoring actually serves, work threads where both sides are pasting from AI, and the line between removing drudgery and giving away the thinking.
2 Sept 2026
Writing for an audience of agents — podcast with Ethan Palm from Mintlify
In this podcast, co-host <a href='https://passo.uno'>Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti</a> and I chat with <a href='https://mintlify.com'>Ethan Palm</a>, a technical writer and knowledge engineer at Mintlify, about what happens when nearly half your documentation traffic comes from AI agents. We discuss Mintlify's platform data on agent versus human traffic, hidden directories for agent-only content, the uncertain future of <code>llms.txt</code>, automated doc maintenance workflows where writing accounts for at most ten percent of the job, and the social atrophy that comes from reaching for a terminal prompt instead of a coworker.
16 Aug 2026
AI Book Club recording of The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut
This is a recording of our <a href='/ai-book-club'>AI Book Club</a> discussion of <a href='https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593654498'><i>The MANIAC</i></a> by Benjamin Labatut, held August 16, 2026. This was the club's first work of fiction, and much of the discussion is about what that mode makes possible: getting inside the madness of scientists like John von Neumann in a way a biography can't. We talk about the book's opening scene as a thesis in miniature, logic carried to irrational ends, the 'death of play' in the AlphaGo match against Lee Sedol, Move 78 as a case for human unpredictability, the garage door scene as a metaphor for the gap between AI labs and what people actually want, and von Neumann's deathbed claim that a machine would have to play like a child.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
165,233
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
3.9 / 5
12 ratings
Spotify
4.9 / 5
8 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 71 / 100
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