RE: Maybe We Need a New Job Title - More Info

["web Master" <webmaster -at- iexplain -dot- com>]

"Technical communicator" connotes an ability to communicate in more than one
medium. The primary skill at stake here is communication. I see the
technical in technical communicator is an affirming adjective that says:
this person has a message or instruction and knows how to deliver that
message or instruction powerfully in the appropriate medium. I think enough
room is left under the title technical communicator to change our hats when
we need to and still remain what we unbendingly are - technical
communicators.

Sometimes I use my ears, mouth, body language, etc. to communicate in a
"verbal medium" Sometimes I use the medium built of HTML to communicate.
And as soon as I find the time to learn DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, etc.,
I'll be using the media built of these scripts, one by one, intensely, to
communicate through, in, with.

I'm one of those poor souls still not convinced that: "...the medium is the
message...". We've got many mediums (I know, I know "media" but how do you
fit it with "many") around nowadays to get our message or instruction out.
The new media have much unrealized power to add effectiveness to the
message/instruction/content. But that's just it. The power remains pretty
much unrealized.

We are the ones who can best (and should fully) use the power of the new
media. We have the message. We have the instruction. We are telling the
techno-stories of the 21st century. That's why our asking price is going up,
up, up. Not because of a title, necessarily, but rather, because of the
responsibilities and the abilities that the title alludes to or carries with
it (I had to get at least one "alludes to" in here somewhere).

We get to be the ones who fill the new media with clear messages, clear
instructions, clear content. In our techno world, medium-developers still
sometimes will precisely place obfuscatory dead-language filler paragraphs
in a new medium. By this it seems medium-developers are wont to fill the
emptiness, but alas have no means (or desire) to deliver the clear message,
the clear instruction, or the clear content (otherwise they'd be called
techwriters, oops, ah, technical communicators).

Geekly-bound, they know not what they cut-and-paste.

Of course, we'd all be pretty lost if the media that the good folks at
Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia, Bluesky, etc. have created over the years were
to suddenly disappear off our computers.

But that, doubtless, would only be for a little while . Very quickly I
think, technical communicators would rediscover the pre-techno life medium -
open the desk drawer, pull out and dust off the blank legal pad, refill the
$300.00 fountain pen from Levenger's (http://www.levengers.com/), sit down
at the writing desk, open the brain and start communicating - paper and pen.

Then there'd be all those medium developers needing instruction on how to
basically communicate...

Howzat fer rhetoric.

I vote for Technical Communicator

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-techwr-l-32021 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
[mailto:bounce-techwr-l-32021 -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com]On Behalf Of Dianne
Blake
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 4:07 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Maybe We Need a New Job Title - More Info


Actually gang, I was looking more for a title that is more
"professional". The type recruiting companies look for because I think
it needs to better reflect all the hats that a technical writer can
wear. Also, technical writers in some people's minds cost less than
maybe some of the titles that Connie suggested below. It is all in the
perception.  :D

Of course, we then have to convince them they really need the new and
improved version.

- Dianne Blake

Giordano, Connie" wrote:
The ones I've seen most often are:
 > Information Architect
 > Information Designer

The title I was opting for during a job negotiation:  Manager of
Information Design and Delivery.


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