Technology has been intertwined in our lives for the last several years. Whether through social media apps, YouTube videos, or what ever other “latest and greatest” content creation platform, people are preferring these means to gain knowledge on both an entertainment and professional level. Whether you love him or hate him, Gary Vaynerchuk often delves deep into the power of social media/content creation and technology to help end users consume content. Our phones alone are portable computers, which we use to look for information. So how does this affect us technical writers?
Let me give a brief background. I have been in the Technical Writing field (IT focused) for almost 12 years now. I have held positions within secured facilities, training institutions, and publicly traded companies. These companies ranged from Fortune 100 to small business subsidiaries with a staff of 15. All of them have one thing in common, documentation. Ninety-nine percent of their documents were Word and PDF files. Now this is not based on when I entered the industry in 2009; this is how things are today. With the exception of some smaller, tech companies moving towards structured documentation or using platforms to create documents (e.g., Confluence, Paligo, etc.), most companies have the traditional documents we all love to hate—especially if you’re a frequent Word user like me. You would figure with all the “legacy” documents and software that technical writers would not need to worry about communicating through these “hot” mediums. From a 30k view, this may be the case. I believe there will always be legacy type documentation that needs to be edited/updated as long as there’s Word and Acrobat, and this is why part of the services my company offers focus on these platforms.
However, the reality is technical writing is evolving. Although you can find 100s of technical writing openings, how many are looking for the straightforward writing and editing that many writers are familiar with; very few are. Me being an IT technical writer, job postings will often require at a minimum to have a vague understanding of code, develop fully functional sites, and/or perform some duties usually performed by entry level System Admins or developers. That’s right. Coding and some basic system troubleshooting. Not quite what I learned in my English classes. Technical writers in a technology based field have now become required quasi developers. Personally I’m always up for learning new skills including coding, networking, and other more tech heavy responsibilities, but I find that this could be a shock to those who have been in the field for a while and enjoy just the writing aspect or the students who take technical writing courses that are not focused in what is happening within the Industry.
I have also seen this change happening in other technical writing areas like pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and training. These areas I will often see requirements that go beyond documentation, as if employers are looking for seasoned professionals who can also write. What I tell people is employers in IT want a developer who enjoys writing; good luck finding that. As a note, there are still positions out there that is strictly just writing. These tend to be fewer and fewer from what I am seeing in the Technical Writing field.
So it appears technical writing is indeed evolving away from writing in the traditional sense. I believe in the next 10 years we will see technical writer as a description gone and replaced with the term technical communicator. I understand that the term “technical communicator” has been used for a while now—long time follower of STC—but employers will start adopting that phrasing as well. No longer will we be relegated to only writing but expected to be a subject matter expert (SME) in what ever field we are communicating in. Position requirements will focus less on documentation, or writing aspect, and more on the communication component through different mediums like code, video, and even gaming. Technical writers already wear many hats within an organization to stay relevant, and I see this only becoming more commonplace as technology enter every aspect of end users’ lives.
-Chris