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Recording of Tech Comm Trends Presentation (STC Puget Sound chapter)

by Tom Johnson on Jun 8, 2019
categories: api-doc • jobs • podcasts • user-centered-documentation • video • technical-writing

I recently gave a presentation on technical communication trends to the STC Puget Sound Chapter in Seattle, Washington, on May 21, 2019. This is one of the better presentations on trends I've given and culminates a lot of research and other iterations on this topic during the past year. You can view a recording of the presentation, check out the slides, grab the audio file, and see other details here.

Video

Audio

Listen here:

Slides

Tech Comm Trends slides

Presentation description

Tech comm trends: Providing value as a generalist in a sea of specialists

Trends in technical communication can be hard to decipher, even when looking at data. But one underlying trend is that technology seems to be getting more specialized and complex. This trend toward specialization is driving up the value of technical knowledge, making it more prized than writing skills. To handle the complexity, technical writers may find that they are playing increasingly collaborative roles with engineers to create the needed documentation. To drive up their value in organizations, technical writers should look for ways to collaborate more skillfully with engineers in creating content.

Takeaways:

  • The growing complexity in the technology landscape is ratcheting up the importance of technical knowledge in organizations, overshadowing writing skills.
  • Creating documentation is becoming more of a collaborative effort with engineers due to the increasing level of complexity and specialization in the technology landscape.
  • Documentation processes are moving towards docs-as-code tools in part because engineers are more involved in the authoring processes, and they prefer to use tools they’re familiar with.

Venue

STC Puget Sound presentation

Details about the event from STC Puget sound are here.

Date: May 21, 2019
Time: 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Venue:
University of Washington – The Tower
 4333 Brooklyn Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98195

About Tom Johnson

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.

If you're a technical writer and want to keep on top of the latest trends in the tech comm, be sure to subscribe to email updates below. You can also learn more about me or contact me. Finally, note that the opinions I express on my blog are my own points of view, not that of my employer.

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