Last night, I had a great, but depressing conversation about the future of tech writing.

Met up with a new friend who’s been doing the tech writing thing like a decade, and who’s been job searching for six months.

His one line summary, “it’s a race to the bottom”.

About a year ago, he left a good, high-paying tech writing job to travel. He was done with corporate America and ready for something different. But six months later, travel fatigued, he decided early retirement wasn’t for him. And he’s found nothing.

Well, it may be only a one-month contract to start - but it is so nice to be working in-house for a large company again. After a close-to 10 month hiatus working at home, and working via the Internet for small companies with only my family and cat as daily consultants, albeit, with the fantastic input of people via techwr-l, I'm back in an office environment working with people who WANT my help.

I have two internships available in Chicago (although telecommuting is a possibility) for a student or recent graduate, with all funds to be expended before September 1. One intern would prepare a content inventory and analysis of the web materials controlled by the ALA offices, with the final deliverable being an information architecture plan that integrates the materials into the right place on the website by topic.

The Chennai Technical Writers Meetup, has organized a virtual meeting with Dr. Mati Schwarcz, Director of Yeda Centre for Technical Communications, Israel. You can also meet Ms. Sajitha Jayaprakash who has released the book "Technical Writing" published by Himalaya Publishing House, New Delhi, India. Only 50 seats are available and would be allotted on first-come, first-serve basis. Preference will be given to members of The Chennai Technical Writers Meetup. This is conducted through the virtual classroom of KBuffer, India, a leading Online Technical Writing Training Institute.