We’ve called our new series of courses on the Firehead Academy Fundamentals of modern technical communication. What makes it modern? How do we differentiate our approach from other technical communication courses?
Let’s look at how we practice technical communication in 2023. What has changed? What has stayed the same?
I remember discussing ideas about the future of technical communication in back in 2018 – the changing technologies, changing roles, and expanded skill sets four field is watching. Five years later, so much has changed, but we’re still seeing new technologies and approaches. Our role as technical communicators hasn’t really settled into a new routine. Instead, we’re seeing our roles and technology continually evolving, and this will only accelerate with new technology in the AI era.
New Technologies
When I teach technical communication at the Rochester Institute of Technology, I find it difficult to refer to the work of a technical communicator strictly in the context of traditional documents. Our documents have become on-demand instructional videos, micro-learnings, chatbots, and other examples as we work in an increasingly dynamic and changing atmosphere.
Have you purchased a new product recently? Outside of legal disclaimers and maybe warranty and safety information, we’re often provided with no product documentation at all. Is there a quick-start guide? Sometimes. Often, we’re provided with a QR code that allows us to access product documentation in various forms. Sometimes this is a PDF. Oftentimes it’s web-based dynamic content.
New Processes
New technologies also drive new processes. Two decades ago, MSProject was a leading choice for project management. Today, we see a wide variety of products and practices that help us manage projects, many leveraging online tools such as Miro boards, or Jira, or a Project Management module within ServiceNOW. Although our goals of managing a project from conception to implementation are the same, the sometimes burdensome use of traditional project management tools has been replaced with cloud-based SaaS platforms.
Enhanced Collaboration
Tools such as Slack, Zoom, Teams, and Google Workspace move us away from traditional document review-routing with the delay of a document making its way through reviews to real-time synchronous or asynchronous collaboration with an expectation that we’ll make changes quickly. We conduct and record Subject Matter Expert (SME) interviews through Zoom and other tools that, at least in theory, can shorten development times.
Content Delivery
We develop content that may be consumed in new ways, often through streaming services that we can access on a smartphone or tablet. That impacts our choices of how we develop content and how we ensure that we account for user contexts that may have not been a concern twenty years ago. Communication in the workplace has become much more fluid and informal. Decisions are made and communicated through email, not through carefully-crafted memos.
New Roles
Did you know that there are well over 100 different job titles that apply to the work of a technical communicator? We may not even have a standalone technical communicator role. We’re often embedded in development teams, serving as project managers, working hand-in-hand with marketing, and supporting new technologies such as AI. (Has anyone in our industry NOT heard of ChatGPT or other generative AI at this point?) How many of you have technical writer or technical communicator in your job title? How many of you have discipline-specific titles that still leverage techcomm skill sets? I work in Cybersecurity. My title is Governance, Awareness, and Training Manager. I leverage my technical communication skill set all day.
Expanded Skill Sets
Do you code? Do you work to document APIs (Application Program Interfaces)? Have you learned how to create and equip a chatbot? Have you learned to leverage new collaboration technologies? Have you built customer-facing documentation on the web that enables customer input? Do you use social media platforms such as Twitter or Instagram to deliver content?
The Same Fundamentals
In many ways our role hasn’t changed. We still communicate and contextualize complex information so our primary audience is able to take the action they need to take. We analyze readers. We still communicate concisely. We handle data ethically and accurately. We’re precise in our vocabulary choices. We build solutions. We function as a bridge between technical people and typical people.
How our courses differ from traditional technical communication courses
Many traditional technical communication courses focus on theory and rhetoric. We’re more interested in equipping you to be successful in your daily work. Our courses use up-to-date scenarios. We discuss our work in the context of our rapidly changing technology, and equip you to communicate complex information appropriately for your audience. We are tool agnostic. Although we’re not teaching you how to use specific tools, we are teaching you the concepts and processes you need in order to leverage tools in the context of your desired outcomes. We are teaching you how to develop a future-proof modern technical communication mindset and skillset to help ensure a successful career.
If you want to know more about how to hit it out of the park in the future of technical communication, check out our first course in the series here Fundamentals of modern technical communication, part 1.
We also have a free resource on how to create create clear, concise technical content from an audience conscious perspective. You can download here to get started in developing modern technical communication.
