Heart of Technical Communication

Tools and trends in information technology are changing the way we communicate and, at the same time, the way we communicate is transforming the technological arena in which we work. Technical communicators are at the heart of these trends and these technological transformations. These professionals must determine whether they will be part of the game or give the reigns of thought leadership to another group. There is no single unified profession called technical communication, but many professionals have used that phrase in the decades preceding the opening of the Web to social networks and collaborative spaces to describe their work and their value to the corporate enterprise. The state of communication is changing from one of publishing with defined channels of communication to one of collaboration and ever-changing ways to communicate. The terrain is not always easy to navigate.

Most people do not understand technical communication as anything deeper than technical writing, which they perceive as something English majors do when they graduate and want to get a job in a high tech work force. But those of us who have some experience in the field know that there is a discipline behind it and it is our job to articulate it. Part of the problem is that there are many university professors who are teaching what they call technical writing but which is not what documentation professionals do in industry. Those of us who work in the field have neither the time nor the resources to articulate what we do or to convince anyone that it is an important job. But with changes in industry, there are reasons to take the time to explain it and there are Web tools available that make sharing that information and collaborating about answers much easier.

In the past it was mainly documents and we distinguished ourselves from the broadcast communications media which was controlled by Madison Avenue and broadcast to the widest audience while we created documents spearheaded for specific audiences for specific reasons. Now we publish on the Internet, on the web, for the widest possible audience, yet aimed at a more specific audience for a more limited time as technology becomes obsolete more quickly. Broadcast media is public; technical documentation is corporate. Document types are blurring as we go online and out of time. White papers are advertisements and tutorials at the same time. Reports are reference material and marketing spin at the same time. Online help is technical support and user manual at the same time.

The reasons for, and value of, technical communication are not often visible to lay people, and not always apparent to professionals. It is not solelyabout writing, as in writing a good book. It is also about speeding the flow of information that must be put together in new ways for the health of the enterprise, not for the consumption of a mass-market individual. We differ from the novelist not simply because we do not express feelings and inward thoughts but also because we do not write for the individual reader alone. While some of what we create is the written word to be read by individuals, technical communication must develop content and structure information not only with computers but also for computers, as well as with and for human readers. The differences with traditional disciplines have not been well articulated. This has resulted in two trends that must be reversed.

First, we have allowed sub-disciplines to splinter off; there is knowledge management, there is content strategy, there is information architecture. They are all part of an overarching communication profession, but vie for attention and race for the consultant dollars claiming they are the chosen career, the true center of the profession or their own profession.

Second, there is this strange and persistent association of technical documentation with writing as taught in university English curricula. We need to break the connection with university English departments because they keep monopolizing the discussion about what is the core of our profession. What makes it a discipline is the business, the business value, the use of communication to allow business to operate, to make money, to accomplish its goals. The profession is too encumbered by its historical relationship to academic institutions that are steeped in the old paradigm, instead of to business, which is quicker at evolving. With their origin in academia and their continued association, many in the profession are afraid to step out and grab the baton and continue the race. The direction of technical communication is toward more complex relationships — relationships that are allowed in business but not well understood or encouraged by academia. The sooner we break those bonds, the sooner we can reestablish much needed newer ones that will help bolster our profession.

It is becoming apparent that our profession is heading in the direction of treating content development as a transition to another stage. I encourage managers and project leads to innovate with content development and delivery and automation, with finding new ways of reaching specific audiences without forgetting the technical innovation that is possible. And I also encourage us all to help with articulating what we do and why. Technical communicators are doing great work, but we are only beginning as a profession. What we are transitioning to may become clear as we dig into the discipline of technical communication.  For those of us who have worked for years with documentation and knowledge of this sort are beginning to see that what is called for is a democratization of information, a freeing of the constraints of knowledge in an enterprise that will have as much an impact on the structure and operation of the enterprise as political democracies have had on equally large organizing social structures. More about this in a future post.