The debate on the future of technical communication

My Vienna presentation on the future of technical communication and building a career has sparked a debate on a couple of Web sites: Tom Johnson’s blog How to Avoid Extinction as a Technical Communicator has generated 12 comments so far. CJ Walker has posted her thoughts on her blog, too It’s interesting getting feedback on… Read more »

The perfect technical author

The perfect technical author can: act as a novice user member of the target audience of the product be an expert in understanding all aspects of the product be technically adept in the technologies needed to deliver the information to users create content in a way that is organised & repeatable, managed & sustainable, while working in… Read more »

How can technical authors become part of technology ecosystems?

Jonathan Mitchener has written an article in Engineering and Technology magazine on the interest of technology providers in creating “ecosystems”. This is the concept of offering not just gadgets but also a range of related products and services, which can integrate seamlessly with each other in an overall system. The poster boy for this ecosystem approach is… Read more »

So who wants a job as a technical author?

We’ve had a number of new vacancies for technical authors come in within the last few days – in the UK and mainland Europe. You can see them on our Technical Author Vacancies page.

Does size matter for a technical author?

Pity the poor software project manager who needs to ship their product in ten languages, because today they are looking at roughly £1.20 ($2.20) per word* in translation costs alone. If they have a programmer delegated to develop the online Help or user guide, then every unnecessary phrase, sentence or paragraph they write can eat… Read more »