MEGAComm recording: How to increase awareness of tech comm inside corporate walls
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How to increase awareness of tech comm inside corporate walls
I’ve been a blogger writing about tech comm for 15+ years, and in that time have increased awareness and education of tech comm to thousands of tech writers globally. However, creating the same awareness about tech comm inside corporate walls has been a different challenge that has frequently eluded me. Like many tech writers, I’ve often felt somewhat invisible to the engineering and product teams, business executives, and other stakeholders around me. It’s easy to feel left out of the loop, to interact with people who have little idea about tech writer processes for authoring and publishing, who don’t understand what we do, where we publish, or who we even are.
Recently, I’ve begun to discover some blogging-like strategies that actually work within the corporate context. Not by creating an internal blog and spamming everyone in the company, nor by trolling corporate interest groups with linkbait. Instead, there are some simple strategies for boosting awareness of tech comm within the corporate context. The strategies require some writing effort and can put you out of your comfort zone, but the formula essentially follows the same strategy for awareness on the web, which is to create relevant content and share it with those around you on a regular basis. Following this formula, others in your company will be aware of doc resources, what you’re publishing, upcoming features, how your group works, your doc challenges, strategies, and more. If you follow these strategies, your group and documentation will be much more visible to those around you.
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For a series of posts on this topic, see A hypothesis about influence on the web and the workplace.
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About Tom Johnson
I'm a technical writer / API doc specialist based in the Seattle area. In this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, visual communication, information architecture, writing techniques, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out simplifying complexity and API documentation for some deep dives into these topics. If you're a technical writer and want to keep on top of the latest trends in the field, be sure to subscribe to email updates. You can also learn more about me or contact me.