Re: New Communications Skills?

[Brian Daley <briand -at- MEI -dot- COM>]

I agree wholeheartedly with Ed Putkonen.  This is exactly what I was
getting at when I got hammered last week for favoring technical expertise
(with adequate writing skills, of course) over writing expertise.   :-)

Despite the drubbing, I still think we there will be an increasing need for
us to be technologically capable, especially as companies downsize.  As
technology advances, technical communication will increasingly involve
distribution on CD-ROM and the Internet, interactive multimedia, and
document servers.

Technical writers will become interface designers as they develop the user
interface for their interactive documents.  Possibly after we've shown what
a good job we can do on interactive documents, we can become involved in
user interface disign for the overall product.  After all, WE are the ones
who know the audience and how they learn!

In addition, technical writers will need to become system administrators,
as the document databases in their departments (accessible over the
Internet?) need administration.  A company's IS department may not be able
to spare the resources to administer the document server for the tech
writing department, so tech writers quite possibly will have to learn some
of this, too.

Sure, we'll still have to be able to write.  But there's a lot of other
skills that will be required for my vision of the future to occur.


-BD

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          "What matters is not DOW's average, but YOUR average."

                                    - commentator Jim Hightower, WTMJ Radio

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Brian Daley                |     Marquette Electronics, Inc.
briand -at- mei -dot- com             |     Diagnostic Division - Technical Communication
(414) 362-3133             |     8200 West Tower Avenue
FAX: (414) 357-5988        |     Milwaukee, WI  53223  USA