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Tie your skills to what problems the company cares deeply about and big hint: it's about the money.
What skills do we possess that retain customers? A positive post sales experience because people can use the product. That leads to increased revenue because happy customers buy more product - increased customer lifetime value AND it's much easier and cheaper to sell to existing customers.
The VP is held accountable for these sorts of things - these are her KPIs and her bonus is tied to improving her KPIs. Any skills we tech comm people have are not relevant to her unless you can show how they impact her KPIs and her bonus. It's all noise otherwise.
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> On Sep 6, 2016, at 5:38 PM, Janoff, Steven <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com> wrote:
>
> These are skills a tech writer needs in addition to writing, if applying for a job as a Tech Writer.
>
> But there's some good material in here.
>
> Let's assume you have all of these skills, and you're good at all of them:
>
> * Interviewing skills (including people skills)
> * Analytical ability (to perform audience, needs, and task analysis)
> * Knowledge of information product methods and materials
> * Customer focus
> * Organizational ability
> * Good attention to detail
> * Instructional development
>
> Now let's assume that the VP has a problem that has nothing to do with documentation, or UX, or information products, or anything we normally deal with.
>
> What are some of the highest level challenges you could imagine, that you could apply these skills to, with success?
>
> For example: "Interviewing skills (including people skills)" -- perhaps you could help the VP build a team for a particular project.
>
> I'm just reaching here, and that's not the best example. It could be helping with business process improvement within the VP's department. Or organizing the VP's various corporate policies into a SharePoint site.
>
> I'm not doing a very good job of explaining this, obviously, but I'm trying to think outside the box.
>
> The problem is in thinking about what we do relative to what we do, versus what we do relative to what someone at a higher level might do.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve
>
> PS - Thought experiment: "Analytical ability (to perform audience, needs, and task analysis)" -- how would you apply that skill to a non-documentation, non-UX project?
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jelus, Susan C. [mailto:susan -dot- jelus -at- thermofisher -dot- com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2016 4:25 PM
> To: Janoff, Steven <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com>
> Cc: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: RE: Transferable skills of a Tech Writer
>
> Skills a tech writer needs in addition to writing:
>
> Interviewing skills (including people skills) Analytical ability (to perform audience, needs, and task analysis) Knowledge of information product methods and materials Customer focus Organizational ability Good attention to detail Instructional development
>
> Susan Jelus
> Senior Technical Writer
> Thermo Fisher Scientific
> Logan, Utah
>
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