TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
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"Whether the doc is written in an office in Seattle or an office in
Calcutta, the publications will be good if Boeing's quality control is good,
and lousy if their quality control is lousy, and it has nothing to do with
who's writing their manuals."
A commendable insight that is a refreshing change from the normal
doom-and-gloom view of offshore outsourcing. Tech writing is not much
different than any other product or service; if you produce a superior
quality article at a competitive price, you will have a ready market. If
not, the problem may be either that the quality is deficient, or the the
price is not competitive. In a free market, there is no motivation
whatsoever for a buyer to pay a premium price to one group of sellers when
an equivalent quality article is available elsewhere for a better price.
That is not really a problem. It is simply a wakeup call to tech writers to
realize they have to compete on one of those two dimensions--quality or
price--rather than being privileged sellers. In short, to join the rest of
the world in the 21st century, in which competition is a fact of life, and
no one's job is ever "secure."
Personally, I kind of like it. My previous profession was intensely
competitive, and required continual upgrading of skills, continual exploring
of alternative methods of problem solving, continual compensating for the
scheming and plotting of extremely aggressive competitors seeking the same
few dollars of market share. In contrast, many tech writers seem to be of
the opinion that learning a few basic skills and tools should grant them a
lifetime of premium pay.
Consider: What skills do you have that cannot be readily purchased elsewhere
for less money? Lean on those skills, and develop them. What skills do you
have that a motivated competitor can develop in a short span of time? Those
skills are considerably less important.
Any English, journalism, or tech comm major can write, interview, consider
audience and purpose, write in second person active voice, and crank up
RoboHELP or Framemaker. Those are basic skills that everyone in the field is
expected to have. Can you program in Java, C#, or even Python? Can you
design documentation using XML? Are you taking biochemistry classes in your
spare time to learn the vocabulary and syntax for the upcoming growth in
biotechnology documentation?
The more competitive tech writing becomes, the more it appeals to me. Who
would want some silly job that pays a premium salary to anyone with a modest
skill set? Then anyone who can replicate that skill set becomes a competitor
for that job, whether he or she is offshore, onshore, or in the next
village.
I think the chagrin is more that the good old days are gone than that the
current market is more competitive. In that increasingly competitive market,
the obvious response it to raise the bar to entry--not by legislative
restriction, but by certification, educational requirements, basic
competencies examinations, and skill set validation. As long as your job can
be performed by someone else somewhere else for less money, you need to
establish why you are worth more. "Experience" is not an argument.
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