How open source organizations can prepare for Season of Docs

Last week Google announced a new program, Season of Docs (g.co/seasonofdocs). The program provides a framework for technical writers and open source organizations to work together on a specific documentation project chosen by the open source organization and the tech writer concerned. From April 2, interested open source organizations can start applying for this year’s Season of Docs. Exciting news indeed! But what happens before April 2? I decided to blog about some ways you can get started with Season of Docs right now.

Open source organizations can start planning the documentation projects they’d like help with, and letting technical writers know about those projects. Get the conversation going, and build up excitement amongst your open source community and amongst the technical writing community.

The first step is to think about a good project or projects that a technical writer can help you with. The Season of Docs website provides some generic ideas for doc projects. You should to craft a specific project or two, based on the actual doc needs of your project. Include links to the relevant docs or other resources within your open source repository or on your website. I’d recommend that you propose a a few different project types, because different tasks may be of interest to different tech writers. For example, you could offer one project to refactor your existing docs, another to create a specific tutorial, and so on.

Your goal is to attract tech writers by making them feel comfortable about approaching your organization and excited about what they can achieve in collaboration with your mentors during Season of Docs.

It’s a good idea to find out who in your community wants to be a mentor. The mentors don’t need to be tech writers. There’s help about the mentors’ role on the Season of Docs website too.

When you’ve gathered some project ideas, blog about the fact that your organization is putting forward an application to participate in Season of Docs. Use the blog post to tell tech writers about your ideas and ask for input. You don’t need to wait for applications to open. You can get a head start by kicking off the discussion now.

Use the tag #SeasonOfDocs when promoting your ideas on social media. To include the tech writing and open source communities, add #WriteTheDocs, #techcomm, #TechnicalWriting, and #OpenSource.