Value of Technical Communicators

[Michael Uhl <uhl -at- VISLAB -dot- EPA -dot- GOV>]

As a professional technical communicator, only a small part of my
day-to-day work involves formal writing. As a consultant who has
cleaned up messes left by "technical writers" I have learned
to appreciate skills such as document management, computer systems
management, and general organizational abilities. Other important
skills include the ability *and will* to

             - proficiently interview SMEs
             - learn and deal with relevant political situations
               in your working environment
             - conduct research, e.g. use libraries, e-mail,
               Internet, etc.
             - learn new skills and garner new knowledge, even
               that which is not immediately relevant to the work
               at hand but which is indirectly related and has a
               high probability of becoming immediately relevant,
               e.g. HTML, SGML
             - maintain good professional relationships with
               colleagues and co-workers
             - work with enthusiasm
             - strive for the highest quality products
             - invest in your own technology infrastructure. By
               this I mean, spend money to purchase computer and
               telecommunications equipment for use at home. This
               frees you from dependency on an employer and the
               conflicts of interest and other ethical issues
               that arise when you use an employer's equipment for
               purposes other than the work you are assigned. You
               also tend to learn a lot more about modern technologies
               when you've made a personal investment.

Excellent technical communicators are designers, builders, maintainers,
and managers of communication products. Communication products include
documents, multimedia presentations, WWW pages, stand-up presentations,
training packages, and so on. Substituting "Communicator" or some other
term for the word "Writer" benefits the profession. I suspect that is
why the Society for Technical Communication is not named the "Society
for Technical Writers and Illustrators."

-Mike

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Michael Andrew Uhl                          Internet: uhl -at- vislab -dot- epa -dot- gov
Lead Technical Writer                       Compuserve: 72624,2155
Scientific Visualization Center (SVC) &     Phone: (919) 541-4283 [W]
National Environmental                      Fax:   (919) 361-9464 [H]
    Supercomputing Center (NESC)            ftp site: ftp.nesc.epa.gov
EPA/Martin Marietta Technical Services Inc.
79 Alexander Drive   MD 24/4201-2
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
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