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RE: Microsoft wants journalists, not tech writers?
Subject:RE: Microsoft wants journalists, not tech writers? From:"Mike Hiatt" <mhiatt -at- vocaldata -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 30 Oct 2003 09:57:35 -0600
Nope, you're not. I was a journalism major who was a journalist for 10 years including 3 years running my own newspaper (small weekly). I backed into the tech writing field by getting hired as a proposal writer at my previous company. Along the way, I became a Technical Resource Specialist, basically a laison between the proposal department and the rest of the company, and a valued resource by many of the sales staff in formulating responses to customer requirements.
I moved into tech writing when the proposal department management and I didn't see eye-to-eye. I spent most of my time in as a tech writer at that company mainly documenting a call center management application. When I took over the project, it was stalled and I found that my journalism background in interviewing and being willing to go to people to get the information I needed, worked very well.
Over the years I've picked up more tech writing specific skills and methods along with different tools, but much of what I do as a tech writer I did as a journalist, just with different subject matter. Oh, by the way, my introduction to writing on the computer came from the newspaper world.
Mike Hiatt
Manager, Tech Pubs
VocalData, Inc.
Dallas, TX (yep, that one) mailto:mhiatt -at- vocaldata -dot- com
www.vocaldata.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Victoria Nuttle [mailto:vnuttle -at- cauto -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 8:48 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Microsoft wants journalists, not tech writers?
I can't be the only tech writer around here who was a journalism major
in college....
You know, they *do* make you take a lot of other writing and
communication classes for a journalism degree. It's not like colleges
teach you paparazzi techniques or how to fudge a source. We were even
taught how to figure out how to write for your audience since different
print sources all have their own audience (liberal, conservative, etc.).
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