Mind-Blown! Tech Blog Is About Writing What Happens

Hello, this is HOKA from the Manabi-no-Michi-no-Eki (Learning Roadside Station) team.

The Manabi-no-Michi-no-Eki team functioned a bit like a club activity, where we all worked on both our main jobs and this project during office hours. But this fall (September?), we officially joined the Developer Relations Group!

For more details, check out this blog ↓↓ https://blog.kinto-technologies.com/posts/2024-12-03-the-next-goal/

Since we joined the Development Relations Group, we figured, why not contribute to the December Advent Calendar from our team as well?

We had previously written a Tech Blog together, so we set up the MTG in a similarly casual manner this time as well, and Nakanishi, the founder of the KINTO Technologies Tech Blog, said with enthusiasm, "Let's write 15 articles."

"Wait… was that really the plan? " I wasn’t so sure, so I asked him what the 15 topics were. Here’s the list:

• 10 about podcast episodes
• 1 about manabyi
• 1 about our portal
• One article reflecting on our past year
• Our future plans in the Development Relations (DevRel) Group

Looking at this list, I couldn’t help but wonder… "Do we really have that much to write about? Is this even interesting?" "No, no, let's just keep writing. For example, you wrote a blog in the spring. You can write about the reaction within the company, the change in the atmosphere, etc." said Nakanishi-san, full of confidence.

Since I have some PR experience, I figured I could write something, so I reluctantly said, "Okay, I’ll give it a shot". Just as I was about to wrap things up, Kin-chan spoke up. "HOKA-san, you’re not really convinced, are you? Are you forcing yourself?" He saw right through me.

Since it's work, I thought it was natural that there would be things I wasn't fully happy with and things I would have to force myself to do, so I answered honestly, "YES." Then I asked, "If we don’t even have enough material to write about, why do this?" I thought our current activities are not enough to be shared, and honestly, I didn't find them all that interesting to read either (full disclosure here.)

The conversation went as follows:

Nakanishi: I want you to write as if you were talking to your past-self before joining KTC. If you learned the company had this kind of atmosphere, you might actually want to join, right?

Hoka: Hmm. Yeah, nope. Doesn’t sound like something I’d want to read at all...

Nakanishi: Honestly, a Tech Blog only needs to really hit home for one or two people a year.

Hoka: !?

Nakanishi: Honestly, there are articles on Tech Blog that describe common things that happen in any company. But without it, the people outside KTC wouldn’t have any idea what’s actually going on here. So it doesn’t have to be some amazing discovery. Just writing about what’s happening at the company is enough. Because when people read it, they’ll simply see, "Oh, so that’s what’s been going on". In other words, all you need to do is document what you’ve done.

Hoka: !?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Nakanishi: Just write what you did, that’s it". That makes it easy, and anyone can. And even if each post is just a small part of what happens at the company, if everyone keeps doing it, all those pieces will come together to show what KTC is really like.

HOKA: Got it. That makes so much sense (imagining a patchwork diagram in my head).

Kin: That’s Nakanishi-san’s strategy, isn’t it? It's what differentiates our Tech Blog from others. Also HOKA-san's concerns are the same as those engineers who have not written Tech Blog articles yet. I feel relieved to have heard HOKA-sans concerns.

I spent 10 years in corporate PR, where my writing goal was always to strip away personal feelings and concisely convey business performance and brand image. That’s because my readers were always time-strapped reporters and editors.

But today was different—I got to experience firsthand how engineers communicate in a company built around engineers, and I learned a lot from it. Honestly, it was one of the most eye-opening moments since joining the company, so I had to put it into writing rightaway.

Summary

• Our Tech Blog serves as a record of what happened.
• The Learning Road Station Team is an amazing team where people can speak honestly.
• They are wonderful teammates who support each other through uncertainty.
• Everyone involved is continuously learning.