This week I read a post by Ivan Walsh of I Heart Tech Docs entitled “Who Makes The Most Money—Technical Writers with Strong Language or Deep Technical Skills?” For some reason, his site won’t let me comment, but since it turned out that my reply was somewhat lengthy, it’s better to respond here in my own space instead of imposing on his.

At first, Ivan seemed to be saying that technical skills are more important than writing skills. But I read the post again, and I think he’s saying that technical skills are worth more in the marketplace because they’re harder to develop.

My take is that the reason a developer who does some tech writing gets paid more than the full-time tech writer is because the first guy is still a developer. Developers get paid more than technical communicators most of the time (or all the time, most likely). I think a programmer with some interest or a bit of practice in technical writing getting a job ahead of experienced technical writers may be a signal that management (or HR) doesn’t know what they’re supposed to be looking for in a technical writer.

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Twitter has different uses for different people. For me, it’s primarily a professional development tool.

I follow a number of technical writers. I also follow the #techcomm hashtag. I keep Twitter open while I work (to this point, we’re allowed to do so). When someone I follow posts a link on a subject that I’m interested in, or an interesting link is posted to the #techcomm tag, I copy the link to my tasks list in Gmail with a few words from the person’s tweet so that I remember what it’s about.

I usually don’t follow these links while at work for a couple of reasons. First, I’m in the middle of working and don’t want to derail myself by clicking the link; second, the links are typically shortened, and I have no way of knowing where they’ll go (at least not with Twhirl, the Twitter client I’m using). I don’t want to follow a shortened link to a questionable site at work, so I leave them for reading on my personal machine at home so I’m not taking any professional risks.

It is a bit annoying, though, when you’re following a hashtag, and after one person tweets with that hashtag, a bunch of other people retweet. Then you get a broken record clogging things up. But that’s the price of following a hashtag, I suppose.

Out of the people I follow, @dmnguys is the most prolific poster of links to tech comm information and related subjects, such as user experience design and usability. Thanks, Scott and Aaron. I don’t read everything, but you give me a good variety to choose from.

Sometimes I post something that’s just a thought I find humorous. But most of the people I’m connected to via Twitter are technical communicators, so Twitter is a way for me to interact with people in my field with whom I may not interact otherwise. I probably don’t offer them as much as they usually offer me, but over time, I hope that will change.

Here are a few cartoons to help you wind down after a week working in the tech comm trenches. (I drew these for the newsletter of the NY Metro Chapter of STC some months ago.)

Of course, since the year has turned, it’s time for some new year’s resolutions. Here are ten resolutions for technical writers:

1. Finally learn what DITA stands for.
2. Delete that “For more information, go to our website” line from the Internet access setup instructions.
3. Tell the project manager: “It’s all right if no one reviews the project plan for you. No one reads the plan anyway.”
4. Read the Society for Technical Communication’s bylaws.
5. Find a professional conference that costs less than the bill for your car’s transmission replacement.
6. Secretly sew a small, wireless microphone in the lining of the project manager’s tie so you can hear about project schedule changes live.
7. Start writing a book on a tech comm topic that will still be relevant when you finish it.
8. Convince your teammate that your favorite help authoring tool really is the best thing since sliced bread.
9. Keep your heart rate normal when someone uses “media” as a singular noun.
10. Decide what your job title is for real.

In a university class I took called “Reading Theory for Writers,” the professor had us write a page about whether we thought we had an inner voice. Not the kind that argues with you about which shoes to wear, but the one that speaks in your mind while you’re reading.

I argued that I do have an inner voice. My main evidence is that when I’m reading and I come across a word I’m not sure how to pronounce, I notice that’s the case. Why would I need to know how to pronounce a word if there isn’t some kind of voice in my head?

A similar concept, that our thoughts have a voice, has been used in TV and movies when you have some device that makes people’s thoughts audible to those around them. These disembodied voices come out of thin air, and of course, people are thinking offensive things about each other, resulting in conflict.

I remember reading something like this in one of David Eddings’ novels, where one character made another’s vocal so he could hear them. It took the second character a few minutes to realize his thoughts were actually audible. (The first character was doing this partly to provoke the second.)

I realized recently, however, that this is impossible (something impossible portrayed in the media?). The only thing that gives voice to our thoughts is our vocal cords. If our thoughts were to pass out of our minds some other way, we would need a similar mechanism. Even if our thoughts could be picked out of our heads by some external agent, it would need such a mechanism, and chances are, the resulting voice wouldn’t sound like its owner. We wouldn’t be able to identify people’s thoughts by the voice.

Anyway, that’s just something that was on my mind that I thought I’d share.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an animator. I loved drawing Looney Tunes characters. I did it so much that I can still draw them, years later, though having done it seldom in the interim.

Of course, I changed my mind and decided to be a writer. I would still draw and doodle, and I even had a cartoon strip in the university newspaper later, but I tended to write a lot more than draw.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to get back to drawing on a regular basis. The best way to fit that into my schedule and make sure I actually did it was to spend a few minutes each night sketching and drawing before I go to bed.

I have received compliments on and some small awards for drawings before, so I suppose I’d say I have talent in the area. People have said, “I wish I could draw like that.” For years, I’ve been convinced that most people could “draw like that” if they really wanted to.

Okay, maybe they wouldn’t draw exactly like me, but they could draw well. My opinion is that many people can develop artistic talent if they tried it and kept at it.

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Lately, through some of the assignments I’ve had at work, I’ve become acutely aware of intellectual property issues. Many of us are tempted, when we need an image or bit of text, to jump online, run our favorite search engine, and grab the first thing that suits our purpose. After all, since text, images, audio, and video are freely available on the Web, doesn’t that mean they can be freely used?

I admit that I’m among those who would love to get free stuff from the Web all the time and be able to use it in any way I like. To create the gryphon image on my site, I used a couple of photographs from sites that provided license to use and modify the images. It’s great to have things that wide open. There are those selfless souls who place their intellectual property out on the Web and allow everyone to reuse and repurpose it without limits—but I would guess that there are more people like me who like to take advantage of them and at the same time don’t want to invest our own time and resources to offer what we do for nothing.

Many of us are possessive of our content. Businesses pay people to create content, so it only makes sense to want to charge for it. Or I went to all the trouble to write it or draw it with my own time and money, and people should be willing to reward me. Or at least acknowledge me.

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