Career Day 1999 Keynote: Trends Affecting Careers in Technical Communication March 1999 Meeting

Meeting Leader: Tracey Chiricosta Originally published in News & Views May 1999 issue. Copyright 1999 STC-Philadelphia Metro Chapter. For permission to reprint this article, contact the Managing Editor.

The STC Philadelphia Metro Chapter held its third annual Career Day, with about 70 participants, on Saturday, March 27, at the DoubleTree Guest Suites in Plymouth Meeting, PA. Career Day featured a keynote address by Region 2 Director-Sponsor, Tracey Chiricosta, and six sessions covering new tools, new career paths, job hunting tips, and a roundtable discussion of contract work issues. An exhibit area was also open throughout the event with 13 vendors offering information on software products, printing services, and employment opportunities. Tracey launched the conference with her discussion of "Trends Affecting Careers in Technical Communications." Drawing on knowledge gained through her STC activities and professional experience, Tracey feels she has a "finger on the pulse of what's happening" in the field. As Region 2 Director-Sponsor, Tracey is a liaison between the 13 chapters in the region and the STC national board of directors. She is the Vice President of Corporate Development for a firm that provides information technology services, including technical communications and training, to both private and government sectors. She is also past president of the STC Washington, D.C. Chapter. She holds an M.S. in Technical Communication, a B.A. in English and Computer Science, and is an adjunct professor at two universities. Good News From Tracey's viewpoint, technical communication is alive and well. The profession is getting increased recognition and respect and was named one of 20 hot job tracks in U.S. News and World Reports. Tracey jokingly noted that a technical writer is even included as a character in Dilbert, the popular cartoon strip. There is a growing demand for technical communicators and with that demand salaries are on the rise. Salaries went up by 3.2% from 1997 to 1998 bringing the mid-level salary to $44,800 in 1998. Work Trends Tracey highlighted several trends in the industry: Computers remain a dominant force. Over 60% of STC members develop computer-related documentation. Most members use computers to create documents even if they do not write about computers. Online documentation is becoming more prevalent. This is evidenced by the decline in hard copy entries in STC competitions. Help is being created using HTML, dynamic HTML, and Adobe products in lieu of WinHelp. Help products look more Web-like. There are also more Web-based products to document. Single-source documentation libraries are being used to create multiple types of documents in different formats (help, hard copy, online, Web, training). Users may be able to select only the information they need from a set of documentation. Do users know what they need, and if not, are providers liable for shortcomings? Enhanced, friendlier user interfaces may reduce or eliminate the need for help. Instead of being a threat, it may present an opportunity for technical communicators to serve as user advocates and help design the user interface. Skills Enhancement In the next part of her talk, Tracey discussed how technical communicators can keep their skills up to date. She said that we are already skilled in analysis, organization, and writing and editing, but we need to become familiar with online help, Web documentation, user interface design, and possibly some programming. Tracey suggested a number of ways to learn new skills: attend classes, workshops, and STC meetings read books, journal articles surf theWeb look at help in other products be a judge in an STC competition Vision for the Future In closing, Tracey related a technical communication fairy tale in which clients and employers recognize the value added by technical communicators and include them in planning a project from start to finish. This fairy tale can come true if technical communicators believe in their own importance and market themselves to their company and boss. Career Day Session Highlights This article summarizes three of the six sessions that were held at this year's STC-PMC Career Day on March 27. Refer to the April News & Views for a summary of the conference keynote address. [Ed. Note: The other three breakout sessions will not be covered, since our reporter couldn't be in two places at once!] Multimedia delivery opportunities: it's not just technical writing anymore Multimedia delivery of documentation has expanded career options for technical writers according to Beverly Bruns, former STC-PMC president and a marketing communications specialist at Hewlett-Packard. New jobs are emerging to handle the tasks, from preproduction planning to postproduction delivery, associated with publishing common information in web, CD-ROM, help, and hard copy formats. Hot jobs Which job areas offer the most opportunity? Beverly named the following positions: Document project managers deal with production and delivery issues and the marketing budget. They are familiar with document management software and have a big picture of how documents play off one another. Multimedia writers and editors are skilled in creating different types of documents and in using publishing software. Editors are concerned with consistency across documents and look for ways to streamline production processes. Web writers and editors work with web documents on the Internet, on a company intranet, and possibly on an extranet for external business partners, customers, and suppliers. Localization and publication coordinators handle regional and international documentation issues: the appropriate media mix, publication and shipping, language translation, electronic commerce, and best publishing practices. Marketing measurement specialists measure documentation results to determine the best way to sell, train, and support a product. Moving to a new job Beverly believes that "you can morph into anything you want to be." She offers the following tips: maintain a positive attitude recognize opportunities take a chance; don't be afraid to try new things do tasks you don't want to do; you may gain new skills acquire mobile skills keep learning Adobe Systems: content repurposing tools for technical writers Adobe Systems Account Manager Greg Pisocky introduced his company's latest products, Acrobat 4.0 and InDesign, and also fielded questions about FrameMaker publishing software. Greg has both a provider's and end-user's perspective: he was a technical writer, technical writing manager, and course developer before becoming a systems engineer and sales representative. Acrobat 4.0 Adobe Acrobat converts documents to portable document format (PDF) files for distribution across platforms. PDF retains the original document's fonts, graphics, and layout. PDF files can be viewed online as read-only documents or they can be printed. An important new feature in version 4.0 is Web Capture, a rendering engine for HTML files that also works with dynamic HTML and with web information from a database. Web pages or sites can be captured in PDF for offline viewing and printing and for conversion to presentations. Acrobat creates bookmarks from the HTML tags automatically. Printing web documents from PDF files enables you to designate page size; add pagination, headers and footers, and a table of contents; and achieve 1200 bpi resolution. Another version 4.0 enhancement is the Acrobat SelfSign digital signature tool for reviewers to use to sign off on PDF files electronically. InDesign InDesign is Adobe's new page layout program targeted to high-end designers, production artists, and prepress professionals. It is designed to work with artwork from Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator with which it shares a common user interface and technologies. Pages from PDF files can be placed as linked graphics in InDesign. InDesign publications can be saved as PDF files. Emerging trends and technologies in paperless documentation: taking advantage of markup language Melissa Kenig-Davis, technical publications production manager at Bentley Systems, presented her company's experience in using Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) to build a new documentation delivery system. SGML, developed in 1969 for IBM, provides generic text markup for document delivery across computer platforms. SGML separates content from style. Metadata text wrappers identify each type of data. Structure is imposed through a document type definition (DTD), a set of rules to which all documents must adhere. A style sheet provides rules-driven assembly and output in an appropriate format. Bentley Systems decided that SGML offered many advantages over Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), a subset of SGML. Unlike HTML, SGML separates markup from structure, imposes structure and insures data integrity via the DTD, has unlimited tags, can output to various media, and has built-in intelligence. Bentley is also looking at another SGML subset, Extensible Markup Language (XML), for future use. Although the new SGML system was expensive to start up and took two years to fully implement, Melissa says it was worth it. She cites the following benefits: provides one seamless help system with intelligent responses to queries composes easily tracks changes facilitates translations lowers per user costs gives faster, cheaper distribution identifies and assembles reusable material offers continuous improvement model

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Last updated: July 5, 1999 (mvh)