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Journals by EmailI started my current job five years ago this week. Reaching the level of senior technical writer brings me to ask whether I’ve got the smarts to go along with the time I’ve clocked.
A Narrow View of Tech Comm
When I graduated from Utah State University two months before starting as an intern, I thought technical communication consisted mainly of writing manuals, help systems, and the occasional tutorial. I thought the main activities were writing and creating images for print or Web.
My definition of a technical writer didn’t differ much from most people’s if at all.
I hadn’t heard the terms CSS, single sourcing, structured authoring, DITA, social media, Agile, RSS, SEO, or content strategy. Some of these things were either relatively new or not dreamed of at that point.
I belonged to the student chapter of the Society for Technical Communication, but the chapter members mainly learned from each other. There was only so far we could go that way.
A Widening View
My horizons definitely broadened after graduating. The program I graduated from taught me things like collaboration, audience analysis, and project planning. But the focus tended to be on delivering a final document.
Through the projects I worked on, I learned some help authoring, CSS, and JavaScript. I was a team of one for a while, so I had to find opportunities to improve my skills. Later, as people joined the user education team, I discovered tools and techniques I hadn’t guessed existed. I also rejoined STC, started attending conferences, and served in chapter leadership positions. I learned to subscribe to tech comm blogs to find out what other people in my field were up to.
An important lesson I picked up is that I don’t have to be stuck in user guides or online help. The technology available these days has opened many methods of communication.
A Realization
Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is what I’m really doing as a technical communicator.
My first documents were indeed online help and a small set of manuals, so I can credit my education with getting the job because that’s what my supervisor was looking for. But the other things I’ve done have altered my view of what a technical writer or technical communicator is.
If someone were to ask what I do for a living, for much of the last five years, I would have said something like “I’m a technical writer. I document software.” I still say things like that. So some of the lessons from my time in the field haven’t sunk in to the core of my brain yet.
What I should be saying is, “I provide documentation and training to make people successful in using software.”
That is the goal of all technical communication as far as I’m concerned: making the audience successful at whatever their goals are, whether it be obtaining a certain piece of information or completing some task.
A Look Forward
I’ve been anticipating new projects so that I could bring to bear everything I’ve learned over the last five years. That chance has come with a couple of new software projects, and I expect good results of myself. I’m trying to think outside the manual and the traditional help system. I’m considering the audiences, their environments, and their needs.
With a look back over the last five years, you may think I’m going to wave my fingers over a crystal ball and predict where tech comm is going in the next five years.
I don’t do that sort of thing because I don’t find a lot of value in it.
I can sit here and tell you where I think tech comm should go, and that has come out in my blog. At this point, that’s the only effect I can have on what changes happen in the profession. Sure, the practice of tech comm has its core functions that haven’t changed in the last five years, which means they won’t change in the next five. Everything that has changed has done so at a quick enough pace that I don’t think we can predict what tech comm will look like five years from now.
In many ways, it probably won’t look much different. Most of the changes that have come about have to do with how we produce documents, not with how we deliver or how the audience experiences them. Social media have changed that to some degree, but things like structured authoring and single sourcing affect the writer much more than the audience.
If anything will change in the next five years, it needs to continue to be how we perceive ourselves and how the organizations we work for perceive us and our contribution. That won’t happen unless we think strategically (yes, an allusion to content strategy) and point out that we help make customers successful, rather than thinking tactically (“I create software documentation”).
A Few Final Words
I think I’m smarter now than I was five years ago. I’m recognized by the managers and development teams in the project portfolio I work in. Many of them understand how I work and how to work with me. Equally important, I understand how to work with them. I understand how necessary good audience analysis and project planning are in technical communication.
The last five years have been good to me. I’ve gone from being a just-out-of-college, entry-level newbie to a professional with confidence in my work, an online presence, connections with numerous other professionals, and leadership experience.
Let’s make the next five at least as good.
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2 Comments to 'My First Five Years as a Professional Communicator'
July 12, 2010
Ben, congratulations on reaching a milestone!
You entered the profession at a time of rapid and profound change. The key to success, as you said, is thinking strategically — not tactically. Once again you’ve written a sentence that I want to frame and hang on my wall: “If anything will change in the next five years, it needs to continue to be how we perceive ourselves and how the organizations we work for perceive us and our contribution.” Amen.
July 12, 2010
Many thanks, Ben, for sharing such a candid summary of your career. It’s inspiring and encouraging to see how much we can learn about ourselves just by looking and listening to where we’ve been.
And more power to you to say your making people successful! I once flippantly told a manager: “I make users look good and suck less.” (Props to my hero Kathy Sierra for the second half!). It was only his surprised, but affirmative reaction that I learned that I was onto something!