In my last post, I suggested a few reasons why technical writing is dying. And it is, at least as a career with a single focus on writing documentation for end users.
What’s happening, and what do we need to do?
Continue reading “The death of technical writing, part 2”
I’ve spent a large chunk of time this week building a case for hiring a technical support person. This has been a difficult, time-consuming process, and I’ve been thinking about how I’ve done this sort of thing before, and why it’s difficult now.
I realized that since I keep encouraging writing groups to collaborate with other teams, I should provide some advice. It’s one thing to say “Go do this!” But that does require work, and the least I can do is give you advice that’s helped me.
So here’s one: Don’t present your would-be collaborators with a blank page. If you’re a writer, or if you’ve written anything, ever, you know how daunting a blank page can be. For someone who doesn’t write that often, it’s even worse.
Ryan Macklin wrote an excellent description of feeling like an impostor, which is something that I’ve suffered from throughout my career. Or more precisely, something that I’ve inflicted on myself.
