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Subject:RE: So now we are content engineers? From:Dan Goldstein <DGoldstein -at- cytomedix -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L (techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com)" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 8 Nov 2013 16:28:07 -0500
I think Rick Lippincott's post was right on the money, as far as this goes. For that matter, if I saw the job below advertised with the title, "Senior Technical Writer," and commensurate salary and conditions, I'd find it appropriate. The same goes for my own job, even though I'm officially a Quality Assurance Manager for medical devices.
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Pairman
Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 3:48 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: So now we are content engineers?
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
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