Much of the training that is targeted at technical communicators seems to revolve the creation and quality control of text. To my thinking, formatting, editing and punctuation are really editing skills, although I accept that they are also part of the landscape for many technical communicators.
These things are all skills that most people develop to a reasonable level in the first year of professional practice. No doubt they can be refined by further application but I’m adamant that 10 years of editing/writing is a case of arrested development if you are in fact a tech communicator rather than a career editor.
Such skills are what Americans refer to as “commodity technical writing”: user guides, screen captures and the like. Snaggit Monkeys, in less flattering language.
What kind of professional development comes next? Clearly it can branch in many directions and this has been stumbling block in scoping any certification. I suspect the problem arises because too much effort is wasted considering content-creation skills. No matter what kind of content is involved, this is just a variation of commodity tech writing.
Business coaches are forever trying to inspire owners to spend time working on the business, rather than just working in the business. And so it should be with advanced technical communication skills. Forgot about content creation and refinement. Instead, consider the environment in which the content exists. The whole-of-life planning and management. Process improvement. Not to mention the promotion of such skills.
These skills are a long way up the value chain from commodity tech writing, but how can they be nurtured? Are they even worth developing within the context of technical writing?
I’ve seen local surveys where potential employers rate the qualities they most value in technical writers. Invariable, the skills that are plain “commodity tech writing” rank highly. Probably this reflects the fact that non-expert employers, recruitment agencies and a pool of commodity tech writers have created a status quo. The employers and recruiters don’t know any better, and the tech writers typically don’t have any incentive to up-skill I (assuming they have the desire).
The big-picture aspects of technical communication are happening, but typically not with much involvement from technical writers. That’s not how it works under the status quo.
Happily, certification that focuses on advanced technical communication also sidesteps many of the problems of curriculum. We no longer need to worry about specific tools, particular industries or any other issues related authoring. Perhaps this a way forward with twenty-year impasse in technical communication certification?
