The importance of having technical credibility

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>]

Yesterday evening, I attended a networking event.  Most of the people 
were executives or non-technical types, such as artists, but, judging 
from the name-tages, there was a scattering of developers - most of them 
looking very uncomfortable about the company they were keeping, and 
huddling together in small groups of twos and threes at the fringes.

During the evening, I encountered most of these groups (when I work the 
floor at a networking event, I really work the floor - kind of like a 
train going downhill without any brakes). Each time, the conversation 
went something like this:

Developer: What do you do?

Me: Mostly, I write technical, marketing and business documents.

Developer (eyes darting about, looking as though he's going to take a 
step back): Oh.

Me: I've also written articles about Linux for Linux Journal and Maximum 
Linux.

Developer (excitedly; looking like a horse that sees the stable ahead): 
Really? What about?

At that point, I'd be granted provisional human status, and we would 
then go on to talk about Linux, or some related issue, such as security 
or the open source movement. Later, several of them remembered who I 
was, too. One of them even said that they hadn't expected to have a 
conversation about open source technologies at the event.

I've got no objection to talking to executives (they're the ones with 
the job) or to artists (they're often closest to my type), but I came 
away with a renewed sense of my long-held conviction: if you want to be 
taken seriously by developers and SMEs as a tech-writer, gain some 
technical expertise, and demonstrate it.  

--

Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604.421.7177
http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield

"There is no science without fancy, and no art without facts."
- Vladmir Nabokov, inteview, 1966



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