Re: So now we are content engineers?

[Joe Pairman <joepairman -at- gmail -dot- com>]

Since I first heard the term "content engineer" used by Joe Gollner, I've
never thought that it was intended to be synonymous with "technical
writer". Joe used it to refer to the application of engineering principles
to the design of end-to-end content processes and the accompanying
technologies (I'm paraphrasing but that's the gist of it). Mark Baker seems
to define it in a similar way in his final paragraph.

I do think it's helpful to have a term for those of us who spend much of
our time working on the tech planning & implementation side of things and
don't do any actual tech writing (well, apart from specs, presentations,
emails, and the odd internal guideline!) Most medium to large organizations
that do anything interesting with structured content need at least one
person dedicated to this. Other terms I've heard include "information
architect" and "CMS engineer", though the former can cause confusion with
those who work exclusively on Web IA, and the latter is often too narrow
for what people in this kind of role actually do.

I run a small Content Engineering community over on Google+. Actually, I
neglect it badly, so it's not very lively. But the posts that I and a few
others have made there give a picture of the areas that this term is
supposed to cover. Here's the link, for anyone who's interested:
https://plus.google.com/communities/117964510377945990313

Joe


On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 12:00 AM, Milan DavidoviÄ <milan -dot- lists -at- gmail -dot- com>wrote:

> Or perhaps he was speaking primarily for himself and secondarily
> inviting us to undertake a similar sort of reflection on our own work.
>
> --Milan DavidoviÄ
>
> Sent from my Yost 10
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 10:49 AM, Lippincott, Richard
> <RLippincott -at- as-e -dot- com> wrote:
> > I'm less sure that Baker was recommending a change in our job title so
> much as he was using different words to describe what we do.
>
>
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