Re: tech writing and presentations

[Chris Hamilton <chamilton -at- GR -dot- COM>]

Barry Kieffer wrote:
>
> The pay in this field varies. Most trainers I know
> make good money. Starting salary on the East and
> West coast is around $30-35,000 minimum, and can
> climb quickly. Most companies treat trainers as real
> assets, and are liberal in travel expences. Actual
> salary in most cases exceeds $50,000 easy.
>

As a former trainer, I can attest that while what Barry says is not
wrong, it's not completely right, either. If you're going around doing
UNIX or Java classes for a higher-tech company and you're good at it,
you're going to make that kind of money and have that kind of worth to
your company.

If you're teaching Intro to Windows to mid-level bureaucrats, you might
not. It really depends on what and where you're teaching. But either
way, the teaching experience is definitely an asset to you as a writer.
After you've been in a class instructing end users, it becomes a lot
easier for you to enter their mind-frame when you're writing (it does
for me, anyway). It also forces you to be able to get up in front of a
group of people and be able to carry off a presentation with grace and
(at least faked) confidence.

As for the original question: I'd say there are a lot of jobs in which
presentation is a part of it all and a lot of jobs where it isn't. I've
done both. I just never hurts to be able to do it.

Chris
--
Chris Hamilton, Technical Writer
Greenbrier & Russel
847.330.4146

"The essence of greatness is the preception that virtue is enough." --
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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