Something for the business card
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New technologies, new job titles
With the explosion of new technologies over the last couple of decades, life has got more complicated for technical authors. Publication is no longer limited to paper. Instead we have a range of multimedia options including online help, web pages, streaming video, and animation. Each time a new medium has arrived, technical communicators have had to master new tools and new job titles have appeared. For example, you can often find advertisements seeking "help authors".
More competitive and global markets have encouraged technical authors to address issues such as usability, information management, and the need to translate materials. Overall, the process of producing and maintaining publications has become increasingly complex to the point where many technical authors, especially those in relatively senior positions, spend little or no time creating the actual content for technical publications. Consequently, the job title of technical author is often a poor reflection of an author's activities. So what would be a better title?
The term technical communicator seems to confuse just about everyone who does not work in this field. A friend of mine was once invited to attend an interview for a particular project. Rather surprised by the invitation, he took the precaution of making a few enquiries before organising the trans-Atlantic flight that the interview would have entailed. This proved a wise move. A senior manager, having noticed a master degree in technical communication mentioned on my friend's CV, thought he was recruiting an expert in telecommunications! I can imagine that this type of misunderstanding happens fairly often.
One possible alternative title would be "information developer". I rather like this term because it does not tie the usefulness of technical communication to the realm of science and technology. Also, the word "developer" underlines that publishing information entails more work than simply writing. However, as far as I know, this particular job title is only used at IBM. A similar term, "information designer", has made its appearance in recent years. However, it often seems to be used specifically for graphic designers who don't let aesthetics overwhelm the informative aspect of their images.
Unsurprisingly, the Internet boom has had a great impact on the world of technical communication. Initially, technical authors were happy to accept the Web as just another electronic media. As technologies such as client-side scripting languages arrived, some technical authors were able to acquire the appropriate technical skills, and they became "web masters". However, the Web continues to advance technically in a multitude of directions. Few technical authors can hope to keep track of these changes. So these days a web master needs to know far more than just HTML and JavaScript; the job is now usually restricted to IT specialists. However job titles such as "web information developer" and "information architect" have been concocted for technical communicators who work primarily on web sites.
Technical communicators continue to suffer from the lack of a job title that is understood by the general public and that really reflects the full breadth of their work. However, most technical communicators will probably continue to call themselves technical authors or technical writers so long as these are the most common titles appearing on job advertisements.
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Copyright © 2003 Stephen P. Reynolds. All rights reserved.
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