Archive: Posts about Technical Writing
March 10th, 2004, 1 Comment »
This PDF report (and the lengthy discussion that follows) comes from the popular technical writers’ email list that I subscribe to and, rarely, actually read. Basically, it’s a study that lists a host of professions that are at risk of getting offshored (does a less-attractive verb exist?). You can read the summary list of professions here. Quick, look for your job!
I’m confident that offshoring will continue to grow. The costs savings obviously outweigh any downside in terms of decreased quality or increased administration. Fellow list member Bill Swallow says it better than I can:
This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Run-of-the-mill tech writing is easily outsourced, as is most programming, testing, and the like. We’re the factory workers of the 21st century; if you can build a process out of a series of tasks and enforce standardization, you have yourself the means of automating much of what you do and can outsource the rest wherever you’d like. Don’t believe me? Look at the dynamic shift in how Tech Writers work and the tasks they generally perform over the past 50 years. We leapt from pencil-wielding authors to electron-spinning jack-of-all-trades in that time span. Change is inevitable, and money talks.
So, what’s a tech writer to do? I’m not really a tech writer anymore. I am occasionally, but these days I do far more work in marketing. Why? It’s more interesting. Also, marketing is much harder to outsource. Generally it requires cultural savvy, business knowledge and intimate awareness of market forces. These are difficult to acquire from India or China.
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1 Comment »
March 1st, 2004, No Comments »
How can recognize a drowning WordPerfect user?
He’s yelling ‘F3! F3!’
I laughed way too hard at that. From this Slashdot thread.
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February 27th, 2004, 1 Comment »
Recently, a colleague of mine has started a weblog. She emailed me to ask:
Do you think potential employers would react positively when they read my rants about **insert subject here**? Obviously, if I knew the industry I’d like to target, I would tend to write about issues affecting that particular
business, but what if I wanted to be a generalist, how would I approach this
then?
An interesting question, so I thought I’d share my answer:
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1 Comment »
February 24th, 2004, 2 Comments »
From the popular (well, among font fondlers) TECHWR-L mailing list, Karen writes:
Four design engineers approached me with a wording problem. “We have multiple master clocks,” they said. “And one of them is more important than the others. There are also slave clocks, which are slaves to the masters. We call the most important master clock the Chief clock. Can we call the other master clocks Indians?”
The opening line reminded me of an old joke. A electrical engineer, a mechanical engineer and a software engineer are in a car, driving along the highway, when the car shudders and starts smoking. Pulling the car over to the should, the three discuss the problem.
The electrical engineer leans back in his seat, scratches his head and says “well, clearly it’s a problem in the car’s electrical system.”
The mechanical engineer disagress. “Clearly we have blown a gasket.”
They both turn to the software engineer for his opinion. He shrugs. “I don’t know what you guys are talking about. All we need to do is get out of the car and get back in again, and everything should be fine.”
Lame, I know.
2 Comments »
November 13th, 2003, 1 Comment »
Apparently I completed this survey at some point, and so they (Metri-Mark Inc) sent me the results. I guess there aren’t really any surprises, though the following are noteworthy:
- 11% of respondents are unemployed.
- Only 52% of the surveyed writers work in high-tech…I’d have thought that’d be considerably higher.
- “Lack of work for your staff” was ranked as the 4th most common problem for managers.
- The STC apparently pulls a lot of weight in terms of finding new employees.
- 33% of these people are making more than 80K a year? What the hell? Sure, half the people surveyed are managers, but that’s a heck of a lot of moola. And half the respondents say they’re underpaid!
1 Comment »
October 29th, 2003, 2 Comments »
I can’t remember where I found this, but here are some results from a technical writer survey. I’m not crazy about how they’re presented. In fact, the questions are kind of naff. Still, I was a little surprised to see 13% of people who took the survey out of work.
2 Comments »
October 28th, 2003, 14 Comments »
This one’s mostly for the tech writers who read this site.
Since starting my own company, I’ve given up on my membership to the Society of Technical Communicators. Sure, the publications were kind of nifty, but I wasn’t really reaping much benefit from the organization. One of their major functions is to post jobs and find work for their members. Since I’m not seeking fulltime work, it’s not of much use to me.
An STC committee has started a new weblog, with a most uninspiring title: STC Transformation:
STC is 50, and a lot of things have changed in those 50 years. And while STC serves our needs in some ways, there are other ways that it doesn’t. It’s time for STC to change, to catch up with the times. We can’t do it without our members, so please join the conversation and contribute to the transformation!
If we were going to start a Society today and call it STC, what would it look like? Would we have chapters? Would we organize it as a bunch of SIGs? If we were starting today, how much would we charge for membership? How would we structure our board? Would we want to be a charitable organization or a professional association?
While I applaud the STC for embracing a collaborative technology like weblogs, I do have one small complaint. The entries have no names associated with them. So, instead of readers having conversations with individuals, they’re talking to a non-corporeal body called ‘The Team’. It’s a little off-putting, and suggests that there isn’t (or can’t be) dissent among the committee members. After all, I’m most interested in what individuals on the committee think, so that I can engage with them as individuals.
And actually, now that I see how random the comments on first entry are, I think they’ve gotten it wrong. This should have been a discussion forum, with committee members posting specific questions and ideas, with a threaded conversation to follow. I find several comments that I want to reply to, but have no easy way to do so given the 75 comments in the thread.
14 Comments »
September 22nd, 2003, 2 Comments »
Just to be clear, horoscopes are a big load of bollocks. Here’s my IT horoscope for September:
It’s time to wrap up a long-term project you inherited. Don’t be afraid to set aside the old tried-and-true, especially when dealing with technology past its prime. New career opportunities raise your confidence and enthusiasm, so be sure to say “yes” to everything that comes your way. Finding new ways for individuals and groups to communicate becomes a priority towards after the new moon on September 27. Although your workload may increase, you will feel more relaxed and less like a firefighter. That’s because you’re finally acting proactively instead of reactively. One bit of caution: Be sure to double-check facts before offering your opinion to C-level bosses.
What’s a C-level boss? I work for myself. Does that make me my own C-level boss? My personal keyword is legacy application, as in ‘some days I feel like I’m a legacy application in a loosely-coupled world.’
2 Comments »