RE: Techwriting after the boom; WAS: (no subject)

["Mark Baker" <mbaker -at- ca -dot- stilo -dot- com>]

steve arrants wrote:

> ups and downs of the industry.  Yeah, it has matured and seems to
> be in a slow
> steady state, but there are other technologies and services that offer
> opportunities--biotech, health care management, and more.  It
> will never be the
> go-go years of the 1980s-1990s (at least in my lifetime), but it
> aint' dead yet!

True enough, but those industries don't produce the same kinds of complex
home/office products that came out of the microprocessor revolution. There
is a lot a writing to be done, but it requires deep expertise. It is
communication from one expert to another, and much of it will be done by
people who think of themselves as engineers or scientists, not writers.

Technical writing jobs exist largely where there is a cognitive gap between
the supplier and the recipient of information. That gap always exists, but
it represents a small percentage of all the communication on technical
subjects that goes on in the world. That percentage was blown way out of
proportion in the microprocessor revolution, and is now returning to its
normal state. I don't see any technological movement now underway that
threatens to change it so radically again.

---
Mark Baker
Senior Technical Writer
Stilo Corporation
1900 City Park Drive, Suite 504 , Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1J 1A3
Phone: 613-745-4242, Fax: 613-745-5560
Email mbaker -at- ca -dot- stilo -dot- com
Web: http://www.stilo.com

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