2005 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference Proceedings

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The Road Not Often Taken: Understanding the Need for a Technical Track for Professional and Technical Communicators

George F. Hayhoe East Carolina Universitygeorge@ghayhoe.com

Abstract

At least within some organizations, it is possible to create career paths for technical and professional communicators that allow them to continue developing their technical expertise without taking the management track. This paper outlines the kinds of knowledge required for professional and technical communicators who wish to pursue technical alternatives rather than careers in management.

Keywords: professional communication, technical communication, careers, career counseling, human resource management

The Problem

When technical and professional communication first emerged as a full time job after World War II, technical writing, editing, and illustrating were often part of a publications department that also included print production personnel—typesetters,designers and layout artists, and press operators—as well as technical publications project and organization managers. The companies and government organizations in which these departments developed were typically engaged in defense and aeronautics manufacturing or support tasks, which flourished from the 1950s into the 1970s [1] [2] [3].

As the profession evolved, entry, intermediate, and senior positions were often defined for each of the major skill sets of writing, editing, and illustration, and by the 1970s, large companies had developed career paths that offered technical and professional communicators opportunities for advancement and satisfaction [3]. Because the tasks and the subject matter were so varied and vast in the large

companies and government laboratories that were the typical employers of technical communicators in the decades following World War II, many who joined the profession in those years saw the opportunity for lifelong careers in technical communication.

In the 1980s, however, personal computer hardware and software caused significant changes in most publications organizations. The release of the Apple Macintosh in 1984 and the Apple LaserWriter in 1985, along with relatively sophisticated publishing software, made it possible to merge text and graphics and to produce camera-ready copy for print publications. The effect was twofold. First, the production positions that were formerly part of technical publications departments were usually eliminated. Second, writers and editors took over most of the tasks formerly performed by illustrators, typesetters, designers, and layout artists [1] [4].

At the same time, computer hardware and software companies were hiring large numbers of technical writers to document their products. Many of these hardware and software developers were small companies that tended to hire individual writers rather than full-scale technical communication departments [1] [4].

These trends continued and widened in the later 1980s and the 1990s, as Windows-based publishing software and higher-resolution laser printers emerged. Technical editors became as scarce as technical illustrators and typesetters. Publications managers became increasingly rare, and writers assumed responsibility for managing their own projects. Although publications departments still existed in large companies and government organizations, small shops, and “lone writers” became increasingly common [5].

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In recent years, even in big organizations, the large publications departments of the past have often been decentralized, and organizational charts have become flatter and less diverse. Instead of junior, intermediate, and senior grades of writers, editors, illustrators, and managers, a “large” technical publications organization today often consists of a manager, a few writers, occasionally an editor, and perhaps some clerical employees who assist the writers and editor with graphics and layout [6].

During the past 15 years, significant turnover has affected the ranks of technical and professional communicators [7]. There is often only one promotion possible (from “technical communicator” to “senior technical communicator,” for example) before personnel reach the top of the ladder. The only alternative within the field is management, and those opportunities are few in number.

Although the cause-effect relationship I’ve suggested here remains to be proved, the lack of obvious career paths seems to be chasing large numbers of highly competent communication professionals from the field.

The Solution

I am convinced that one of the biggest problems in our field is that so many technical and professional communicators and their managers have tacitly assumed that the communication skills required for our jobs can be easily mastered, that a low level of knowledge of the subject domain about which we communicate is sufficient, and that other information and skills are of relatively minor importance. I believe that such an approach trivializes the profession and may well be responsible for its decline in recent years.

Similarly, I am convinced that making knowledge of a few software tools the most important qualification for employment in this field dooms it to oblivion [8] [9].

If we can demonstrate that expertise in communication, cognate areas, and the subject domain about which we communicate requires complex knowledge that takes years to acquire and master, we can then make a credible case to senior management and human resource professionals for tracks that will allow technical and professional communicators to spend their careers in a field that

they love without becoming managers or pursuing other occupational options.

Communication Expertise The modest attention that most technical and professional communicators seem to pay to communication expertise suggests to me that their level of knowledge is similarly slight.

When technical and professional communication began to be established as a profession in the 1950s, most of its practitioners were scientists, engineers, and other technical professionals who were skilled at communicating technical information to a variety of audiences. Many of the communication artifacts they produced may seem amateurish by today’s standards, but the standards of the time were largely ad hoc. Readers of technical documents tended to be other technical professionals, and documents often had very small audiences, so these early technical communicators had the advantage of knowing their audience, though the significance of audience knowledge was seldom understood.

Just as the theoretical and research base of the field was beginning to grow and academic programs were being established, the field experienced a great expansion in the 1980s [5]. Large numbers of people with an interest in or talent for communication entered the field, but few of them had either the subject-matter credentials of the first generation of professional and technical communicators or the communication credentials of the graduates of newly established programs in the field [10]. Even in today’s contracted job market, there are many more positions available than there are those with degrees in technical and professional communication to fill them [11]. As a result, although the body of knowledge of the field has expanded significantly since the 1950s, few practitioners have achieved significant expertise in communication.

As a result, those who have worked for several years at documenting software applications or hardware often have a fair intuitive understanding of how to write procedures because they have done that kind of writing and have seen many models, both good and bad. They have also usually mastered the software needed to prepare procedures contained in user guides or online help. But many—perhaps most—lack the explicit theoretical knowledge needed to explain what they

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do in creating procedures and why they do what they do. Their knowledge of theory is often limited to hearsay or myth [12]. Worst of all, many technical and professional communicators are not aware of or concerned about the limitations of their knowledge.

There is no shortage of training and development opportunities available to help technical and professional communicators learn about the theory and research in their field. These range from graduate programs to international, regional, and local conferences; books, magazines, and journals; seminars and workshops; and formal and informal mentoring. The diversity and availability of these opportunities would easily support a variety of position descriptions, grades, and career paths within the field.

For example, many of those working in software documentation know little or nothing about writing technical reports. They are often unfamiliar with the executive summary and have no clue about what its purpose is, who its audience is, and what information it should contain. Nevertheless, the senior technical positions this paper envisions require a mastery of the technical report genre, including the ability to write to an executive audience and familiarity with the purposes that such reports serve.

Moreover, current trends in the field suggest that the need for enhanced communication knowledge is not limited to those interested in more senior positions. The increasingly common use of single sourcing means that even entry-level communicators must understand the concept and know how to write or edit to implement it [13] [14].

Similarly, if job opportunities for technical and professional communicators shift away from hardware and software to other subject domains, the need for communicators to master genres such as technical reports, proposals, and articles for scientific and medical journals is likely to increase.

Cognate Expertise Besides knowledge of communication theory, research, and techniques, technical and professional communicators need to acquire a basic level of understanding of a number of other related fields. These include such disciplines as instructional design, cognitive psychology, human

factors, usability, typography, and the design of information, documents, and document sets.

Each of these cognate fields is a full-scale area of inquiry that few communicators will master. Still, a solid familiarity with the theory, research, and techniques of one or more of these fields will enhance the communicator’s ability to transfer technical information to those that need to use it.

Even an entry-level technical communicator can benefit by knowing the fundamentals of these cognate fields, and some of them are beginning to be addressed to a limited extent in undergraduate programs in technical and professional communication [15]. Cognitive psychology and instructional design, for example, provide helpful insights in understanding and communicating effectively with a variety of audiences. But more senior communicators will likely need to specialize in one or more of these areas to bring a more sophisticated understanding of the complexities of these domains to their work [16].

Opportunities to acquire and expand knowledge of these cognate fields will not be as obvious to most technical and professional communicators, but there are many sources of information and education in these disciplines. Consulting with human resources personnel in the company regarding development programs in these fields will yield many options.

Subject Domain Expertise For many years, those in technical and professional communication have debated whether technical knowledge or communication knowledge was more important for success in the field. More often than not, communication expertise has been acknowledged as the more important area for communicators to be knowledgeable about, but certainly subject domain expertise is vital for those who wish to become masters in the field [17].

For those who have worked in the computer industry for the last two decades, subject domain expertise has too often been limited to knowledge of specific pieces of hardware or software because their audience has most often been nonexperts and their purpose has been to explain the basics of operating a product. In recent years, however, the computer literacy level of much of the general population has increased significantly, while the domain complexity of products has also risen.

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For example, explaining the operation of a software product today is trivial by comparison to the situation 20 years ago. Interfaces have been standardized to such a great degree that many people can master the basics of many products through trial and error without any formal training or user documentation.

On the other hand, such knowledgeable users may require more advanced information about the database that the product uses or about the task that the software automates. As a result, technical communicators require greater mastery of computing and business processes to support this more sophisticated user base.

If, as I suspect, technical and professional communication is evolving away from the software and hardware domains to other areas, just as it evolved away from defense and aeronautics manufacturing in the 1970s and 1980s, communicators’ mastery of subject domains such as healthcare, finance, and security will become significantly more important in the near future.

No matter the subject domain in which they work, the more senior the communicator, the more knowledge he or she needs about that subject.

Again, there are many sources of information and education in subject domains. Company human resource development experts can provide the information that technical and professional communicators need to identify and pursue training in these areas.

Management Expertise Although the subject of this paper is developing technical tracks for senior communicators, no technical or professional communicator can excel without knowing how to manage people and projects.

Whether the project is big or small, whether the tasks are performed by a single person or a large team, a communicator needs to know how to estimate a project and how to ensure that it is completed on time and at or under budget.

Indeed, more advanced technical professionals often work independently on tasks that a much larger project relies on. Therefore, accurate estimation and effective time management are essential skills [18].

Similarly, knowledge of budgeting, basic accounting, marketing, and other business areas can be very helpful in understanding how a task fits into a larger project, how the project fits into a business plan, and how effectively the organization competes in its business area or industry. Although such expertise can be helpful to a junior communicator, the more senior the employee, the more enlightening this type of knowledge will be and the more helpful to his or her advancement [19].

Finally, leadership, motivation, and interpersonal dynamics and communication are areas of expertise that will contribute greatly to career advancement, whether the individual is pursuing the management or the technical track. The same skills that are useful in managing a team or a department will be helpful in working effectively with peers and managers as a project technical expert or consultant [19].

As with cognate and subject domain training, human resource development experts can provide the information that technical and professional communicators need to identify and pursue training in management topics. Training, the more specialized area of publications management is available through journals, magazines, books, and conferences hosted by the professional organizations in our field.

The Technical Track

Although I cannot sketch the full range of possibilities in this paper, I will suggest several areas that technical communicators can pursue.

Information Development and Design Saul Carliner has defined very detailed position descriptions and career paths for information developers and designers, the jobs that would typically fit under the rubric of technicalcommunication [20]. He explains that information development was IBM’s term for the combination of the roles of technical writers, editors, and illustrators in the 1980s, and he defines information design as “Preparing communication products so that they achieve performance objectives established for them” (p. 158).

Carliner describes five roles for traditional technical communicators:

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• Production assistant • Information developer • Expert information developer • Information designer • Project manager

For each of these roles, he provides a detailed job description and lists the minimum skill levels in information design and development, technology, industry applications of technology, and business and management.

It’s interesting to note that the first of the levels that Carliner describes, the production assistant, is a clerical position that does not require a college degree and requires low-level skills “such as copyediting for consistency and conformance to style, and laying out information in a predesigned template” (pp. 162-163). Between this position and that of the project manager, however, Carliner provides thorough descriptions of three roles that require increasing levels of knowledge and expertise.

Technical and professional communicators, in partnership with their corporate human resources personnel, can adapt the information Carliner provides to describe new positions within their own companies to replace the usual “technical communicator” and “senior technical communicator” positions. With the assistance of human resources personnel, each of Carliner’s information development and design roles can be further refined to include grades and salary ranges that require increasing knowledge, expertise, and responsibility.

Single Sourcing If it is widely adopted, single sourcing promises to have a greater impact than any other development in the evolution of our profession to date. As Michael Albers explains [21], in a single-sourcing implementation, a single writer is no longer responsible for individual paper documents or help files. Instead, he or she creates content chunks that reside in a database and can be combined with the chunks produced by many other writers to form user guides, online help, marketing brochures, and other documents.

Albers proposes three levels of single sourcing content creators, lists the skills required for each, and describes the junior and senior levels in some

detail. In fact, he sees the senior-level position branching into four possible areas, corresponding to distinct single-sourcing specialties:

• Information designers (those who plan the presentation of single-sourced information)

• Information architects (those who plan the content of the company’s information set)

• Information technologists (those who plan how to implement the company’s single-sourcing strategy with specific technologies)

• Information analysts (those who decide what chunks needs to be written and how the chunks get assembled for particular documents)

Similarly, Jeanette Bottitta, Alexia Idoura, and Lisa Pappas recount how a representative writing team might change roles and responsibilities to implement single sourcing [22]. Their article complements and expands upon Albers’ article, showing roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

Technical and professional communicators can partner with their corporate human resources personnel to adapt the information provided by Albers and by Bottitta and colleagues to describe new positions within writing teams that implement a single-sourcing approach. With the assistance of human resources personnel, the roles described in these two articles can be further refined to include grades and salary ranges that require increasing knowledge, expertise, and responsibility.

Knowledge Creation In an important article, Michael Hughes has described how technical and professional communicators can move from the transfer of information from subject matter experts to those who need to know it, to the creation of explicit knowledge from tacit knowledge [23]. He describes three ways that communicators can create knowledge:

• Helping experts make tacit knowledge explicit

• Helping design teams reach consensus about product design

• Creating knowledge assets such as documents (p.280)

As Hughes demonstrates, these tasks “improve an organization’s wealth by increasing the value of its

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knowledge assets” (p. 283), transforming the communicator into a significant corporate asset rather than simply a conveyer of information, essentially changing the definition of the field.

Hughes doesn’t translate the three knowledge creation activities he describes into explicit roles or positions within a company or communication team. However, his insights could help technical and professional communicators and their colleagues in human resources to completely redefine the roles of communicators within an organization.

Conclusion

There are many other possibilities for technical tracks besides those I have briefly sketched here. It would certainly be helpful to have a standard set of job descriptions, roles, and responsibilities, along with corresponding lists of required knowledge and expertise that companies and individual professional and technical communicators could adopt. However, the fact that such standard descriptions do not exist gives communicators a great deal of freedom and flexibility to define their own career paths.

It may be impossible to restore technical and professional communication as a field that offers career-long employment—from entry level to retirement—except in large organizations that have a critical mass of communication employees. By definition, career paths must consist of multiple position titles, grades, and salary ranges, and a single path within an organization will not support individuals at various points along a 40-year career.

Unless we reconstitute technical and professional communication as a career, however, it may soon die. If someone with five years’ experience can attain expertise in the field, it is not worthy to be called a profession. In that case, communication tasks can be mastered by scientists, engineers, and programmers, or they can be performed by clerical personnel at significantly less expense.

I believe that the key to our field’s survival is a rediscovery of the theoretical underpinnings of communication tasks, the strengthening of practitioners’ knowledge of the subject domain they communicate about, and mastery of management techniques. By making our

companies’ expectations in these areas explicit, we can help ensure the future of the profession.

References

[1] F. M. O’Hara, Jr., “A brief history of technical communication,” in Proc., STC 48th Annual Conference. Arlington, VA: Soc. for Tech. Comm., 2001, pp. 500-504.

[2] K. T. Durack, “From the moon to the microchip: Fifty years of TechnicalCommunication,” Tech. Commun., vol. 50, no. 4, pp. 571-584, 2003.

[3] E. J. Young, “Consolidating graphics and documentation services: A case history,” Tech.Commun., vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 2-5, 1974.

[4] M. Whitesell, J. Ford, J. Vetovitz, and D. Brooks, “Electronic publishing: Mainframe, mini, and PC-based,” in Proc., 35th International Tech. Comm. Conference. Washington, DC: Soc. for Tech. Comm., 1988, p. VC-2.

[5] K. A. Schriver, Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Texts for Readers. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1997.

[6] S. Carliner, “What do we manage? A survey of the management portfolios of large technical communication groups,” Tech. Commun., vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 45-67, 2004.

[7] Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, “Writers and editors, including technical writers,” Occupational Outlook Handbook 2000-2001 Edition, http://www.umsl.edu/services/ govdocs/ooh20002001/280.htm, 2000.

[8] S. Carliner, “Hard times and hard choices: Strategic challenges for technical communication managers,” Intercom, January 2002, pp. 12-14.

[9] G. F. Hayhoe, “Toolkit for the new millennium: Communication, domain, and software knowledge,” in Currents 2000: A Road Map to the 21st Century Proc. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta Chapter, Soc. Tech. Commun., 2000, pp. 99-102.

[10] R. Norman, “Careers in technical writing: Advising English majors,” ADE Bulletin, Fall 1986, pp. 30-34.

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[11] M. T. Davis, “Technical communication degrees for the 21st century,” in Proc.,IPCC/SIGDOC 2000. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE, 2000, pp. 69-74.

[12] G. Hart, “Ten technical communication myths,” Tech. Commun., vol. 47, no. 3, pp. 291-298, 2000.

[13] J. D. Williams, “The implications of single sourcing for technical communicators,” Tech.Commun., vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 321-327, 2003.

[14] M. F. Eble, “Content vs. Product: The effects of single sourcing on the teaching of technical communication,” Tech. Commun., vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 344-349, 2003.

[15] S. Harner and A. Rich, “Trends in undergraduate curriculum in scientific and technical communication programs,” Tech.Commun., vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 209-220, 2005.

[16] T. M. Skelton, “Managing the development of information products: An experiential learning strategy for product developers,” Tech. Commun.,vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 61-80, 2002.

[17] D. G. Roper, “How much technical knowledge do editors need? The authors’ perspective,” in Proc., STC Annual Conference.Arlington, VA: Soc. for Tech. Comm., 1993, pp. 215-217.

[18] J. T. Hackos, Managing Your Documentation Projects. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 1994.

[19] R. S. Dicks, Management Principles and Practices for Technical Communicators. New York, NY: Longman, 2004.

[20] S. Carliner, “Emerging skills in technical communication: The information designer’s place in a new career path for technical communicators,” Tech. Commun., vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 156-175, 2001. [21] M. J. Albers, “Single sourcing and the technical communication career path,” Tech. Commun., vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 335-343, 2003.

[22] J. Bottitta, A. Prendergast Idoura, and L. Pappas, “Moving to single sourcing: Managing the

effects of organizational changes,” Tech. Commun., vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 355-370, 2003.

[23] M. A. Hughes, “Moving from information transfer to knowledge creation: A new value proposition for technical communicators,” Tech.Commun., vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 275-285, 2002.

About the Author

George Hayhoe is an associate professor of technical and professional communication at East Carolina University. A senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the IEEE Professional Communication Society, he is a past president of the society and a member of its Administrative Committee. He is also a fellow of the Society for Technical Communication and has edited its journal, Technical Communication, since 1996. He holds a PhD in English from the University of South Carolina. His professional interests include product and document usability, research in technical and professional communication, and core competencies of professional and technical communicators.

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