Podcast: “Anyone Can Write”: Changing Roles for Technical Communicators
Listen here:
This podcast is a recording of a presentation I gave to students at the Missouri State University technical writing conference on April 23, 2010. This presentation has some overlapping content from the previous presentation on Trends in Technical Communication that I gave to the teachers, except that with this presentation, because the audience was students, I focused mainly on the changing roles technical communicators are playing.
My basic premise is that many IT environments have an assumption that "anyone can write." Because of this assumption, technical writers are changing their roles, becoming hybrids with additional skill sets, or moving beyond the basics of writing in order to provide both value and find fulfillment.
About Tom Johnson
I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.
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