The Philosophy of Structured Content with Jarod Sickler of Heretto

In this special episode of Behind the Docs, Ren sits down with Heretto’s own Jarod Sickler — philosopher-turned-structured-content expert, and one of the most genuinely thoughtful voices in the documentation world.

Jarod shares how a grad-school paper and a chance encounter in a Rochester coffee shop set him on an unexpected path into technical documentation (and eventually into Heretto). He opens up about the early days of learning DITA from scratch, the realities of content conversion, and why “doing life with a weight vest on” actually makes him a stronger practitioner.

Together, Ren and Jarod dig into:

1. The moment documentation shifted from “supplemental” to “part of the product”
2. Why structured content is seeing a resurgence thanks to AI
3. What new teams should actually measure before adopting a CCMS
4. Common misconceptions about content conversion
5. The coolest emerging trends in docs and in-app help
6. The joy of reuse, personalization, and helping teams finally break the copy-paste cycle

If you love docs, workflows, or a good origin story that starts in a coffee shop, this one’s for you.