{"id":27590,"date":"2017-05-20T08:56:49","date_gmt":"2017-05-20T06:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/?p=27590"},"modified":"2017-05-20T08:56:49","modified_gmt":"2017-05-20T06:56:49","slug":"a-million-words-published-at-work-in-a-remote-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2017\/05\/20\/a-million-words-published-at-work-in-a-remote-company\/","title":{"rendered":"A Million Words Published at Work in a Remote Company"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>Sara Rosso <a href=\"https:\/\/whenihavetime.com\/2017\/05\/18\/a-million-words-published-at-work-in-a-remote-company\/\">shares some thoughts<\/a> on what to document and share, after publishing over a 1,000,000 words while working at <a href=\"https:\/\/automattic.com\/\">Automattic<\/a>. \u00a0Here&#8217;s the gist of it:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>If you\u2019re the go-to person for\u00a0something in your company, <strong>consider how much of it\u00a0is just gatekeeper information<\/strong> you could document properly to help someone else learn\/grow from or work on independently.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Separate out processes and historical background\u00a0from your strategic expertise.<\/strong>\u00a0Processes and backstory are not really \u2018what you know.\u2019 It\u2019s much better to be a person someone asks \u2018why\u2019 or \u2018when\u2019 to do something vs. the logistics of a \u2018how.\u2019 How can and should be documented for others to build off of regardless of your involvement. This should free you up to be more involved in the why, the new, and the next of your work.<\/li>\n<li><strong>If you\u2019re repeating yourself in private chats or (gasp!) email on a specific topic, document it<\/strong>. That\u2019s also what drove me to create this blog \u2013 being able to answer someone\u2019s question with an answer you\u2019ve already carefully crafted for someone else\u00a0is a great feeling (and a great use of your time)!<\/li>\n<li>Will someone want to know why you decided or executed something a specific way later? <strong>Share as much background as possible so colleagues are brought up to speed immediately.<\/strong> Share the setup\u00a0&amp; thought process you went through, where to find more information, and even the facts, ideas, or information you considered but deemed outside of scope for the particular project. My goal is to hopefully never have someone ask \u201cwhere did this come from?\u201d or \u201cwhat\u2019s your source?\u201d or \u201cdid you consider this?\u201d (when I had) and instead focus on enriching the discussion or challenging my ideas vs. asking me for information I should have provided in the original post.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Gather the best, most complete, or authoritative things you\u2019ve authored and submit them as potential onboarding materials for new team members<\/strong>. Challenge them to ask questions and to find something you need to document.<\/li>\n<li><strong>If important progress is made, be sure to update your documentation, or retire in favor of something newer or more complete<\/strong>. We do this by linking from old posts to new ones, and all it takes is a quick comment and a link on an old post.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<!-- google_ad_section_start -->\n<p>Sara Rosso shares some thoughts on what to document and share, after publishing over a 1,000,000 words while working at Automattic. \u00a0Here&#8217;s the gist of it: If you\u2019re the go-to person for\u00a0something in your company, consider how much of it\u00a0is just gatekeeper information you could document properly to help someone else learn\/grow from or work &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2017\/05\/20\/a-million-words-published-at-work-in-a-remote-company\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Million Words Published at Work in a Remote Company<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<!-- google_ad_section_end -->\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A Million Words Published at Work in a Remote Company #work #Automattic #blogging #documentation #collaboration","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,62,1334,60],"tags":[2288,3179,90,78,17],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-27590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-technology","category-web-work","category-wordpress","tag-automattic","tag-collaboration","tag-communications","tag-documentation","tag-work"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":18743,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2013\/11\/03\/automattic-work-with-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":27590,"position":0},"title":"Automattic : Work With Us","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"November 3, 2013","format":"link","excerpt":"Automattic : Work With Us This is how a Jobs & Careers page of a company website is supposed to be like. \u00a0Watch and learn.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15553,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2011\/09\/20\/automattic-creed\/","url_meta":{"origin":27590,"position":1},"title":"Automattic Creed","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"September 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I've mentioned several times why I think Automattic is an awesome company to work for (no, I don't work for them, yet). \u00a0Here is another example. \u00a0This is a bit that goes on the offer letter that new potential employees get. \u00a0This is what the company stands for. I will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26804,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2016\/10\/30\/automattic-and-blog-domains\/","url_meta":{"origin":27590,"position":2},"title":"Automattic and .blog domains","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"October 30, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I was very excited when six years ago Automattic, the company behind WordPress, became a domain registrar. \u00a0Registering, renewing, and managing domains is still a painful process today as much as it was six years ago. So, what have the company decided to do with its new super power? Well,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"leonid.blog","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/leonid.blog_-500x208.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12383,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/31\/vaultpress-yet-another-goodie-from-automattic\/","url_meta":{"origin":27590,"position":3},"title":"VaultPress &#8211; yet another goodie from Automattic","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"March 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Automattic - an awesome company behind WordPress, Gravatar, IntenseDebate, Akismet, and a few other - announced that they are starting up a new service - VaultPress.\u00a0 While the details of the service are not completely clear yet, it looks like a real-time backup solution plus some security monitoring and automated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/vaultpress_invite_form.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13481,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2010\/10\/20\/automattic-becomes-domain-registrar\/","url_meta":{"origin":27590,"position":4},"title":"Automattic becomes domain registrar","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"October 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Matt Mullenweg reports in his blog that Automattic became a domain registrar. 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Automattic has been 100% distributed since day 1. 180 people, 28 countries, 138 cities make up the Automattic workforce. Interesting point about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27590\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27590"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=27590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}