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I would also say Product Knowledge. I'm one of the few people who know
almost all aspects of the product.
And Customer Relations.
On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 3:31 PM, Monica Cellio <cellio -at- pobox -dot- com> wrote:
> First and foremost, analytical thinking -- the same skills that go
> into analyzing a product or proposal for completeness, consistency,
> usability, and so on go into other business decisions.
>
> I'd also mention user-experience factors. Understanding who your user
> is, what he's trying to accomplish, and how your product fits into
> that is something a good technical writer understands and high-level
> business people need.
>
> I regularly apply all that to product definition; I work with the
> developers on our team through functional specs, interface design, and
> sometimes implementation design to make what we're building better for
> our users. That I spend much of my time writing words instead of
> writing code doesn't matter. This is all stuff you have to understand
> before you write those words.
>
> Monica
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 6:19 PM, Janoff, Steven
> <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com> wrote:
> > Apologies if this has been dealt with before.
> >
> > If you wanted to educate a VP, or someone from the C-suite, as to what
> "abstract" skills a Tech Writer has that could be applied to their own
> challenges, what would you list?
> >
> > This is for the purpose of leveraging existing skills into the needs of
> a larger department.
> >
> > I think these folks tend to think of writers as people who "write," and
> that's it -- if even that. Lot of examples lately of stereotyping as
> "making things look pretty," or just typing, or whatever.
> >
> > For me the first things that come to mind are information architecture
> and the organizing of information. What comes to mind for you?
> >
> > So if you're sitting talking with a VP and you want to think of how you
> could plug into his or her agenda, how would you characterize the highest
> level, most abstract version of your skills?
> >
> > You wouldn't say things like, "I can write stuff for you," or "I can
> make your reports look pretty."
> >
> > What would you say?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Steve
> >
> > PS - This is *not* where you're sitting there trying to pitch yourself
> as a Technical Writer. What you're trying to do is pitch a way that you
> could approach one or more of their highest challenges for which you have
> skills that could be applied. Process improvement is an example, but not
> just Technical Writing process improvement or necessarily anything related
> to Tech Writing -- it's just that your skills as a Tech Writer, in some
> abstract form, at the highest level, might be able to be applied to their
> problem/challenge/opportunity, whatever you want to call it.
> >
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*Robin Whitmore*
Senior Tech Writer
Weebly
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