Re: tech communication career

[Mati Schwarcz <drmati -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il>]

Hi Roy,

Just wanted to respond to some of your questions. I've been a technical 
writer for about 20 years and came from a similar background as yourself - 
in my case, Sociology. Since then I've built a very successful technical 
writing business here in Israel (which has many international hi-tech 
companies such as Intel, Amdocs, etc. as well as lots of start-ups). In 1993 
I started the country's first Technical Writing Training Center 
(www.jaynecommunications.com) and have devoted myself to training as well. I 
found that people who come from fields such as history, philosophy, 
sociology, etc are usually good writers and are ideally suited for technical 
writing, especially for software products.

A typical day? There are no typical days for technical writers. Writers 
working in start-ups may find themselves handling all the writing by 
themselves. If the company is a dynamic one, the typical day is going to be 
quite exciting - meetings about product specifications, tight schedules, 
lots of arguments about how to organize the documentation and documentation 
priorities, and writing many different kinds of documents, many of which 
require a lot of creativity. Often, the technical writer in these companies 
is treated like royalty - the documents that the writer puts out are the 
"face" of the company.

In very large companies you may not find as much of a dynamic atmosphere - 
and you may be more confined to writing a particular set of documents (often 
involving updating the existing material).

Salaries in technical writing are generally considered high and they 
increase with experience. If you're working as an employee of a company 
there are a lot of perks as well. If you're freelancing you can make 
considerably higher per hour, but of course you are responsible for your own 
social benefits as well as making sure you're marketing yourself and lining 
up jobs (these can range from several days work, to many months and even 
years).

The bottom line in job satisfaction is that it all depends on the type of 
company and your personality. Luckily, there are enough different types of 
companies to choose from, so that you should not think that one company is 
representative of the technical writing experience - mobility is one of the 
hallmarks of this profession.


Regarding courses: technical writing, like all writing (novels, short 
stories, poems, etc.) involves many types of knowledge and skills - and like 
these, many people have the talent but lack the proper knowledge and skills 
to produce something professional. Technical Communications, like journalism 
(and perhaps even more so) involves many concrete things to learn - methods 
of organization, patterns of writing, language conventions, not to mention 
the many skills that go into learning the computer tools, and of course the 
concepts behind today's hi-tech products. A good technical communications 
course should help eliminate the hesitation that new writers feel when 
taking on any writing project - it should provide a concrete methodology so 
that the writer knows how to attack a writing problem - all the way from how 
to obtain the information to how to write it, paragraph by paragraph. And it 
should allow for a lot of feedback from the instructor - writing, like music 
or art, improves through practice and intelligent critiques.

Of course, experience brings with it speed and efficiency - and hopefully, 
even higher quality - but a good course, as my training center has proved 
over the years, can get a concientious student to a level that makes them a 
real asset to any technical communications team. I invite you to consider 
our online technical communications course, or to email with any more 
questions you might have.

Best Regards,
Dr. Mati Schwarcz
YEDA Center for Technical Communications
www.jaynecommunications.com




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roy Waggoner" <rwfromkansas -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 7:38 AM
Subject: tech communication career