Showing posts with label Communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Communication. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Technical Writing as a Career

Technical Writing can be a great choice for anyone who has passion for writing and has interest to learn and communicate information of the technical world—General Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Bio-medical industry, Aviation, Pharma & Drug Discovery and others into a structured format for the intended audience.

Technical Writers role existed almost in every product industry where they needed to communicate the product information to its internal stakeholders and customers as well. Everywhere either and an engineer, a product specialist, or a documentation specialist took-up this role.

The fact remains unimportant to many of the organization’s biggies that high quality documentation can make a big impact on customer satisfaction. It increases usage, gives more successful implementations, and creates better references and happier customers, which then drive more sales. It is an image-uplifting act which most of the organizations fail to realize. Good documentation can sell even product. You can have competitive advantage over your competitors of having high quality documentation.

Today, the ratio for developers and technical writers are somewhere 20 or 30:1. This is for the obvious reason if the bosses are technical person, they value that art more than anything. That also reflects the poor image one organization has toward its documentation. Organizational chart does not show a progressive look to the technical writers. Many organizations have typically failed to sustain because of the dearth of enough documented archival knowledge, which helps most of the new employees to understand the background of the product.

Although technical writer’s whole job is about communication, they are sometimes the last to hear about future development plans or last-minute changes to a release. Truth is, Tech writers are good advocates for the user, always thinking about the user's point of view and they can make valuable addition in the development of the product.

Technical writers do tend to be arguing for clarity and logic in everything from error messages to how features are implemented. But that's hard to do when you never talk to any customers. Even the customer’s feedbacks are shelved with customer support department, leaving technical writers imaginative on their own.

Technical writing is no black magic and if many feel, anyone can become, they are wrong. English is no short cut, which can be learnt in a year or two like Java or C++. This field is in nascent stage and growing horizontally in sheer numbers. Today, technical writers are joining the band wagon, but it is not too far that these writers would be evaluating and weighing their career goal in terms of their achievement on vertical ladder. Future will hold the platform where technical writers will make it big or break.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Why should you write clearly?

Writing clearly is the hallmark of communicating effectively. Most often we write and believe that what we have written is clear to others. However, many a times it is not. Our writing in general than its clarity overwhelms us. But if we still believe that what we write is readable and understandable to the larger audience then its time we look at other's writing and analyze where we are placed in terms of clarity in our own writings. In fact, when we look around the people who make the difference, are the one who communicate their ideas clearly and forcefully, both orally and in writing.

Success eludes those who can't express their ideas, or who do so in bureaucratic fashion. Today, its not just enough to be a good scientist, engineer, businessman, or whatever you do. You have to be able to make other people understand what you're doing and why it is important. No matter how competent you may seem in private, your hard work will usually go unrecognized, because others will step in and communicate it more skillfully.

Be with the information explosion

Undoubtedly, today the fastest growing segment of any nation’s economy is information industry, which is by and large, production and dissemination of information. It is rapidly surpassing the mark of production of goods and services. The obvious reason is that the sizes of corporations and government agencies have grown so large that transmitting information through personal contact is merely impossible. In today’s world, clear, concise and to the point writing has greater relevance than ever before. One could get away with disorganized report, ambiguous memos a couple of decades back when people had more time and things moved slowly. But today we are competing with thousand of other people at a time who are sending multiple electronic documents through e-mails. People will not be interested in your writing if it does not convey the central idea in more than a minute.

The important skill

Nine out of ten times when the corporate executives are asked how the business and engineering schools could better equip the students to face the challenges of the real business world. The responses have been unanimously emphasizing to train the students to write better and clear English. However, it is really unfortunate that the education systems do not teach you the skills, which you require to use everyday i.e. to write.

Communication skills are highly rewarded in business, industry, and the scientific community today. If you are able to get messages down on paper clearly and condense masses of data to one sheet of clear analysis, your future in your organization is really bright. Truth is also that a huge amount of money gets wasted every year on research and technical achievements because the reports and memo fails to inform the result concisely. You might wonder that if the system is running on the wrong machine how can you make the difference in totality. But, the message is, you can do something of your part. That will get you noticed and others will follow the example you set in.

Get recognized

The person who can clear the mess of written words will immediately attract attention. People who have never heard of you will recognize you by the word you spread around. You may be helpful to the people for making the language legible of the reports and memos, which are going to impact larger audience.

The danger of sloppy writing is that it can create unimaginable damage and destroy the image of you being a good writer. Even if you write a good piece of concept, idea or script and if it fails to covey its clear meaning, you earn a bad reputation. Next time your readers may find you a burden to read your write-up without really going through it. Your name might sound boring for your reader. Similarly, in the organization, where you work, you get branded as good writer or get compromised as a writer in die-hard requirement.

Always remember your writing can reach far more people than you can personally contact them. To them, you are precisely judged by your writing and that shows how effectively you communicate to them. In case your point of contact with your professional world is through your writing, then its even more tough challenge for you to create your image through your writing. To your audience, in true sense, your writing is you.

Your communication is important

Once Sir William Oslar wrote- "In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs."

True, as it is said, scientific investigation or engineering project is never completed until you communicate your results. No matter how significant your findings are, they remain useless unless you communicate them in a way that others can understand. You might have worked long hours and hard way to develop some new ideas or products. When you finally succeeded, you decided that this might be something a lot of other people might find useful.

You excitedly write it up and share this announcing your new result. But you never got a response from them, neither critical statement nor the appreciation. You wonder why such things happen. The practical scenario is you put yourself in the receiver’s shoes and analyze your writings. As you analyze, you understand that where you had gone wrong.

Clear writing is clear thinking

Many a times while you sat down to produce a piece of writing you realized that you don’t understand the subject as you thought. You find yourself as if you have nothing to say in your writing and moreover, whatever you are writing is the information to cover up your ignorance. In reality, writing has a way to visualize your knowledge and uncover the gaps in your understanding. But if you consider that you have not produce a good piece of writing, you are probably missing the clear thought to write about.

Everyone has experienced the clarifying effects of getting something down on paper. The reason is simple. When you view something through several senses, you gain new perspectives from each one. Writing uses vision, touch and, if you read it to yourself, sound. Each sense enriches the experiences surrounding a concept that may have formerly been only vaguely specified somewhere inside your head.

If you're finding that your thinking about some idea is fuzzy and ill defined, try jotting your ideas down, in whatever form and order comes to mind. Look them over. Read them out loud. Write them out in different ways. Talk them over with friends and coworkers. You will soon find that you are thinking more clearly about them, too.

If you have been missing this aspect in your writing, you may re-look and take time to refine this art to suit your writing and redefine your prospect of being a good communicator. A good communicator will always be sought after in terms of demand in industry, education and any specific field of knowledge. Free advice is to hone this skill as soon as possible.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Technical Writing: Is the opportunity worth taking?

Technical writing is the art and science of producing document, which describes the technical information about the features of the product and its functionality. It is an art, because it involves the articulate use of language for communicating the information. It is a science because the presentation of the information is based on the styles, template, grammar, consistent terminology, clarity, concision, factual accuracy, information mapping, layout and design, proofreading, subject matter-expert reviews, document validation, resource scheduling, and deadline relative to product-release dates. Technical writing is not the recent development of the industry; it was present in the form of documentation in different form.

However, in recent years the importance of information communication have been felt paramount and documenting the technical information has not only become the part of communication but also the storage of knowledge for future reference and use. Technical writing and technical writers were the part of the information industry in the west from long time whereas in India its presence can be traced around two decades back. This is due to the emergence of software and hardware industry. But the real requirement of technical writing and technical writers are felt necessary for past five years, when India became a hot IT destination because of cost cutting factor and available talent pool. Almost all the product company required technical writers to document the product information in a legible manner, which can educate the user to use the product effectively. The emergence of India as global IT destination opened up a new job avenue for the people as technical writers.

Scenario

Although it does not matter which industry you're considering for a career, it probably employs technical writers. Technical writers work in computer science, medicine, environmental studies, electronics, government, cinema, the aerospace industry, and just about any field in which people must interpret and use technology. They are an indispensable part of today's technology world. Presently more than seventy percent of the technical writers are working for the Information technology Industry. Out of them, majority belongs to the western countries. India has very little share in terms of percentage of total technical writers in the IT industry.

According to some sources quoted frequently in the news, around 5000 Indian technical writers are engaged in technical writing, mostly with software industry. This includes the writers working for product information communication, pre-sales documentation and training documentation. Though this figure, according to some industry expert seems to be bit higher side. However, the demand for the technical writers is noticed ever increasing in India, but there is a dearth of people with right skills.

Indian IT industry is really finding it tough to get the technical writers from the market. Industry also can not overlook this part because this is the mandate of the industry to deliver or release the product to the customer along with the technical information in documented form. Without the product documentation the product delivery is incomplete.

What is the proposition?

The present situation where American way of looking at technical writers is being followed: every software company is looking for engineers to be the technical writers. The job is first offered to the engineers who want to make a career in technical writing and if the engineers are not available, only then the focus is turned on to other suitable incumbent. However, in software industry, most often the question is being asked, “Can engineers write well?”. Yet, they are preferred over others. The idea might be that engineers can understand technology better than the other lots. Then, what if they are not able to communicate well? In fact this might not be a generic problem. The question is now haunted for the hiring department, whom to rely on: a good writer without engineering background or an engineer without good writing skill. Software industry also truly believes in re-engineering the product and even resources. However, the belief of re-engineering an engineer into a good writer is a difficult task at hand and in some cases a utopian dream.

“Technology can be taught and learnt in a year or two, but learning a good language is the fruit of years learning process and that can not be given in a packet form” --quotes an industry expert. This holds true to the case that most of our institution emphasize on imparting technological education whereas they ignore the fact that without good communication the impact of technology can not be realized. This is indeed going to cause talent deficiency and industry might get the brunt of this sooner or later. There are some good trends coming up where some software company is weighing options to utilize services of good writers who have adaptation of learning new technology faster and translate them effectively into precise writing.

What is the job?

The job is where you do the same thing over and again. If this is your palate, technical writing may be the field for you. If you like the challenge of writing for an audience, technical writing offers you the chance to make money while just doing that. Technical writers work in a challenging, and exciting field which tests their ability to adapt to new situations and learn new skills. People who enjoy learning new things will find technical communication a stimulating career. Technical writers take knowledge from engineers, scientists, doctors and other experts and render it into forms that lay people can understand. To do this, they must have the willingness to continually learn about new subject matter. And they must know how best to present information to different audiences from technically trained people to the general public

The take on

Do you want to be a technical writer and write for the different audiences? Hold on! There is no sort cuts. The job will ask you to have few skills in you and some of them you can learn at work place as a part of the training. First and foremost is good writing skills in English and presentation skills of the information in the best-possible way. Primary knowledge of word processing tool like MS Word is required without saying. However, the company with whom you want to begin your career also teaches you the use of some of the other authoring, publishing and web help tools.

There are some of the training institutes, which provide short-term training on technical writing and placement too. There is no academic program being offered as of now in our educational system where you can be a qualified technical writer. The only opportunity you can have is to become a trained technical writer, that too with training or on job. This is a new opportunity in India and having career in this field is industry dependent and the future of this career can be well aligned with future of the industry.