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.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: The ladder principle From:dan -dot- charles -at- tyson -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 7 Nov 2003 14:02:11 -0700
Roger,
Three technical writers from bmc software presented "A Non-Management
Career Path for Technical Writers" at the STC Region 5 Conference in 2002.
The focus was on what you call the ladder principle. Most of the material
covered building a technical career path pretty much described in Dick
Margulis' earlier post. What BMC used was specialization in areas like
subject matter knowledge, tool expertise, and process improvements.
Employees demonstrated expertise several different ways.
They became "go to" people in business areas (i.e. Offer knowledge on
corporate marketing strategy, or a particular product), tools (Answer just
about any question about Adobe Acrobat, MS Access, etc.), or process
developers (Whip out Excel or Word templates for any situation). They also
became mentors to other technical communicators wanting to learn these
skills. Their ability to fully transfer that knowledge to others was a
weighting factor.
I think they came up with only three or so job titles, and their
advancement was marked by the list of specialties that went with their
title. Get enough specialties and you advanced a job title. An example of
a job title might be Technical Writer. An advancing technical writer might
have a job title of Technical Writer-Manufacturing, or Technical
Writer-Adobe Photoshop, or Technical Writer-Forms Designer.
Thanks,
Dan charles
dan -dot- charles -at- tyson -dot- com
RoboHelp for FrameMaker is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to online Help, intranet, and Web.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! Call 800-718-4407 for
competitive pricing or download a trial at: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l4
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
