Favour Kelvin is a Nigerian-based technical writer that has been working relentlessly to enhance Mautic’s documentation and Knowledge Base, and she was particularly active in those documents for the Mautic 4.x releases.
In this article, Favour explains how she became part of the Mautic community, what she has been contributing with and where she sees the project going in the future.
Why Mautic?
Favour has always been involved in the open source community, having participated in Google Summer of Code 2019 and 2020 as both a student and mentor respectively. She was also selected to begin working with Mautic through Google Season of Docs 2020. Favour started her path as a developer, and was transitioning to a technical writer career when she participated in the program.
Her new career was one of the factors that led her to choose Mautic during Google’s program, as she was able to choose to work not with development, but with documentation. In looking for an interesting project, Favour read up on Mautic. “I felt like I resonated more with this community, that here I could make more impact”, she recalls.
Once she started contributing, she met people that were both organised and accommodating. After the program’s three-month period, she decided to stay on, which she credits in part to Mautic “such a nice and impactful community”.
Why documentation?
“A technical writer is part of every project, and I really love writing”, Favour sums up. She remembers feeling anxious at the beginning of her new career, but that changed once she understood better how the daily activities work. “It is just explaining in the simplest way the process of doing something ”, she details.
Favour’s decision to change careers was also motivated by how much she likes to make an impact on the community. She exults how great it feels to be helping people in understanding and making use of tools and resources. In addition to documentation, she highlights that her day to day job includes writing articles, newsletters and other resources that connect users to the program they are working with.
At Mautic, the Nigerian technical writer has been instrumental in documenting new releases and features, as well as in growing Mautic’s Knowledge Base with more step-by-step guides, assets and other high-value contents. Answering users’ questions is also a big part of what she and her peers are contributing with.
What is going on now?
Favour has been working on standardising some of the documentation, as well as keeping it up-to-date and useful. “People use Mautic in different countries, and we have new releases every quarter. It is essential that these users can get the information that they need”, she mentions.
The fact that Mautic is a free tool is also, in Favour’s view, an important aspect that may draw people to this resource. “Documentation helps users to really get how a program works and how to use it”, she details. The technical writer argues that having up-to-date, easy-to-understand information readily available is also part of what makes Mautic accessible.
What does the future hold?
To Favour, great documentation is a very valuable resource to users. Along with spreading the word about Mautic, upgrading those assets and the Knowledge base is her way of helping with Mautic’s growth, as well as contributing to the marketing field altogether.
“It is not just comercial business that can benefit from using Mautic, but many people don’t use marketing automation tools because they don’t really know how. So we are working to bridge that gap, to raise awareness as to what Mautic can do and how people may benefit from it.”
Favour and her team (Leon-Elias Oltmanns, Favour Chibueze, Pragati, Destiny, Robin M) are also working on a new website, which should be released in 2022. This involves migrating both the documentation and the Knowledge base into platforms that will make it easier for Mautic users to get all the information that they need at ease.
“I’m really happy for everyone's contributions and effort towards this goal. We want Mautic to be on top, to let people know about this open source tool for marketing automation.”
What about the Mautic community?
To Favour, the best part about the Mautic community is that people can fully be themselves and can contribute in whatever capacity they feel comfortable with. “Everybody has day jobs, they are busy, and everyone in the community appreciates whatever time people can take to do one or two things”, she compliments.
She, for one, rejoices in every little contribution, which she credits to the hard work of each and every member. In her professional life, Favour’s goal is to work as a project manager, with creative teams. “I want to be in a team that works together towards a goal, a team that grows together”, she explains.
Favour is also a co-organizer of the Mautic Meetup Lagos. The Mautic Meetup Lagos takes place once a month, and has different speakers who lecture participants on various Mautic-related topics – as well as any other topics in the open source ecosystem.
Why contribute?
“If you love challenges, you gotta be out there”, Favour sums up. In her opinion, contributing to an open source project such as Mautic is a way of “touching the lives of people and of organisations”. She also points out that the experience in itself is a great benefit, and one that can figure on contributors’ resumes as well.
For those who like to write, having the basic skill is enough to get started, Favour incentivises: “if you can explain something, you can write about it”. She also highlights that contributing to an open source project can kick start people’s careers and land them jobs, as they will be in contact with a great team, full of experienced professionals. “There’s plenty of opportunities, and any contribution you can make will be very valuable”, she pleads.
If you want to know more about technical writing and Favour Kelvin, you can read her blog at Medium or check out her GitHub repo, @fakela.
Want to join the Mautic community? Check out our Community and Get Involved sections.