Two weeks ago, my phone broke. It was a cheap phone. It wasn’t smart in any way. You simply don’t need a smartphone when you have an iPad at your disposal.

I thought about getting a new phone, but for the past two weeks, it’s actually been quite nice getting by without one. There’s an old saying that I like. “Wherever you go, there you are.” For me, the past two weeks, that saying has been true again. Whenever I travel with a cell phone, a part of me is on a leash. At any moment, anyone with my number could invade where I was and pull me away. For two weeks, that wasn’t really possible. People had to come find me. It was nice.

Of course, I have a phone again now. It appeared one day, given to me by a friend. It seems that people want to stay in touch with me. So Hello MOTO, I hope you don’t mind if I leave you at home sometimes.

• How To Live The Maximalist Life from Dumb Little Man – Tips for Life by DLM Writers
• Do One Thing Well from zen habits by Leo
• What makes simple documentation from ffeathers — a technical writer’s blog by ffeathers
• A Guide to Elliptical Constructions from Fiction Writing | Daily Writing Tips by Mark Nichol
• Dealing with Criticism from Fuel Your Writing by Icy Sedgwick
• Four Tips to Once & for All Detonate Procrastination from FreelanceFolder by Peter G. James Sinclair
• Five Poetry Tips to Improve Your Blog from The Urban Muse by Nikki Marlar
• Productivity System Overview: “Getting Results the Agile Way” from Stepcase Lifehack by ChrisSmith
• Understanding and Evaluating Google+ from Christopher S. Penn : Awaken Your Superhero by Christopher S Penn
• Mobile Marketing Is the New Black from Everything PR by Mihaela Lica Butler
• Google Plus is a VERY Different Sharing Environment from chrisbrogan.com by ceb
• Google+: Should Writers Sign Up? My Recommendation: YES! from Writer Unboxed by Debbie Ohi
• Google+ for Writers: First Impressions from Get Paid to Write Online by Sharon Hurley Hall

It is six in the morning and I’m already hot and sweaty. Today promises to be an ridiculously hot day although there are thunderstorms predicted for the afternoon. If anyone in San Diego is looking for a technical writer, I’m willing to make the trip. Here’s some cool reading to keep your mind off the heat.

• Guy Kawasaki’s 5-Step Guide to Becoming an Enchanting Authority from Copyblogger by Kelly Erickson
• Agencies Becoming Publishers–a Trend and a Problem from Writer Beware Blogs! by Victoria Strauss
• Ten Things Every Beginning Developer Should Know from FreelanceFolder by Amber Weinberg
• How to Build an Email List that Makes Money from Daily Blog Tips by Daniel Scocco
• 150 Foreign Expressions to Inspire You from Fiction Writing | Daily Writing Tips by Mark Nichol
• Are horizontal networks key to web work success? from WebWorkerDaily by Jessica Stillman
• “One Day I’m Going to Figure Out the Solution to Help…” from I’d Rather Be Writing by Tom Johnson
• Sell $20,000 Worth of Your Next Ebook from ProBlogger Blog Tips by Sarah Mae
• Why Writing is Not a 9 to 5 Job from WritingThoughts by Laura Spencer
• Use Your Content Archives to be Relevant from Conversation Agent by Valeria Maltoni

I get a lot of visitors to my blog, far more than I ever expect, but very few know much about me or my blog so I thought today I would provide ten quick facts about me.

1. I was born in the late sixties, which puts me in my forties and firmly a member of Generation X.
2. I have over fifteen years of experience as a technical writer.
3. Other jobs I’ve held include lobbyist, web developer, help desk support, teacher, trainer, newspaper editor and video store clerk.
4. I watch too much television. Once, for jury duty, I had to name every television show I watch. My answer took several minutes.
5. My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20. Not counting computers that I’ve bought to resell, I have owned twenty-two computers over the past thirty years.
6. I created my first web site in 1993 and created the poewar domain in 1999. Poewar, by the way, is short for poet warrior, and was used as my video game handle in the eighties.
7. I have a Master’s Degree in English
8. I have a scar on my right thumb from when I was five years old and decided to peel my own orange with a steak knife.
9. I have terrible handwriting
10. I have been married for almost six years. My wife is a social worker.

Writers have a tendency to be introverts. Not all writers, of course, but there are certainly more introverts than extroverts. Most people picture writing as a solitary task. You sit in front of a computer and block out the rest of the world as you bang away at whatever writing project (book, blog, essay, manual) you are working on.

Sometimes that is the case, but many times, especially in the business world, writing is a collaborative process. As a technical writer, I have often written documentation during a meeting. If I have all the players in the room and willing to cooperate, then I am perfectly happy to pull out my laptop and walk through the process with them.

Collaboration is a skill, just like any other. The more you do it, the better you get at it. The better you are at collaboration, the better the results of that collaboration will be.

Of course, not all collaboration happens in the same room at the same time, especially in this modern world of distributed teams. Your collaborators may be in six different locations working at six different times of the day. There are tools that help make that possible, but they don’t necessarily make it easy. If you are going to survive in the business world though, I recommend that you start learning how to work as part of a team.

People in the USA (I’m told it is different elsewhere) always want to know what you do for a living. You are defined by your profession in many ways. This is difficult for me because what I do for a living, even though I do it well, is not how I like to define myself. More importantly, I do a lot of different things with different titles. Over the course of the past year alone, I have had legitimate reasons to call myself a technical writer, freelance writer, blogger, web developer, editor and unemployed person. Different titles applied at different times, and none of these things were really how I wanted people to think of me.

At heart I am a writer. You can apply all sorts of modifications to this title, but it comes closest to defining me even when I’m not making a cent. There are plenty of things I write without ever expecting to be compensated. There are plenty of other things I write for direct payment or at least in the hopes of getting paid for someday. I write poetry, I write fiction, I write blog posts, I write online help, I write manuals, I write resumes… the list goes on and on.

Think about what you call yourself, and what it means to you. Is it tied deeply into your job? Do you feel limited by it or empowered? How many different things do you call yourself? If you find the title that means something to you, that defines who you are or at least who you hope to be, it will give you a clarity that cuts through all the titles that just don’t matter.

Research

Research skills are the most underrated but essential tools in a technical writer’s skillset. Research means a lot of things: reading technical specifications, interviewing subject matter experts, finding information on the Internet, watching people use the product. Technical writers tend to spend much more time on research than on actual writing.

Collaboration

As a technical writer you’ll find yourself working with a wide variety of people with various technical and social skills. Some will prefer group meetings, some will want to meet one on one, some will want to walk you through the product, some will prefer email, and some will do everything they can to avoid helping you. As the technical writer, it is your job to find the best way to collaborate with all of these people.

Organization

Most technical writing positions require you to stay on top of multiple projects. Some days you’ll be left to your own devices to just research and write, but on other days you’ll find yourself in non-stop meetings or on the phone. This is why it is important to track your progress on every project and keep either a detailed calendar or a to-do list (or both). In many cases you’ll be asked to give weekly reports on each project, but even if you’re the only one tracking your progress, staying organized will make your job much easier.

Planning

Planning goes hand in hand with organization, but it really is a separate skill. Some positions and situations may not require heavy planning, but as you move forward in your career, you’ll often be asked to submit project plans that give such things as an estimate of hours to be worked, milestones, deliverables, dependencies and reviews. Once you create a plan, you’ll be expected to stick with it, even when the overall product development falls behind. It pays to invest in a book or two on project management so that you know both how to create a project plan, and what to look for in other people’s project plans.

For more advice on technical writing I recommend you take a look at Technical Writing Career Advice from 11 Experts over at Helpscribe.

Discussing money is always difficult when it comes to jobs. People tend to exaggerate (and sometimes downplay) how much money they make. Also, because of the variation in benefits, a job that pays $50,000 a year might be a better deal than a job that pays $60,000 a year if the first job has benefits such as fully paid insurance, stock options, bonuses and 401k matching and the second job does not. Also, in times when the job market and economy are bad (as they have been for a couple years now) a new position might pay less than the averages of employees who were hired during a better job market. On the flip side, when the job market is hot a new hire may suddenly become the highest paid writer on the staff.

Another variable to consider is location. For example, San Francisco technical writers, according to my source, make about 20% above the national average. Just down the road in Sacramento, technical writers tend to make 11% less than the national average. Also tied to location is cost of living. Just because one city pays more than another doesn’t mean you’ll be better off in a higher paying city if the cost of living is much higher as well.

My research source is Indeed.com/salary. I prefer it because it isn’t based on reported salaries from workers. It is based on the rates posted in the job listings that Indeed aggregates. For me this makes it more accurate, as long as the profession is one in which few people run scams. I trust it for technical writers, because almost all postings for technical writers are legitimate. I do not trust it for jobs such as blogging, because there are many scam postings for bloggers that promise far more money than seems possible.

That said, here are the national (USA) averages for technical writers and related fields:

• Junior Technical Writer – $44,000
• Technical Writer – $64,000
• Senior Technical Writer – $82,000
• Lead Technical Writer – $78,000
• Scientific Writer – $66,000
• Documentation Specialist – $52,000
• Instructional Designer $67,000

Here are some average salaries from different cities across the country for the vanilla title of technical writer.

• Atlanta, GA – $67,000
• Austin, TX – $56,000
• Baltimore, MD – $64,000
• Bend, OR – $54,000
• Boise, ID – $45,000
• Chicago, IL – $66,000
• Cleveland, OH – $52,000
• Columbus, GA – $54,000
• Dallas, TX – $59,000
• Denver, CO – $58,000
• Des Moines, IA – $50,000
• Grand Junction, CO – $50,000
• Los Angeles, CA – $64,000
• Louisville, KY – 48,000
• Memphis, TN – $50,000
• Miami, FL – $60,000
• Mobile, AL – $53,000
• New York, NY – $80,000
• Oklahoma City, OK – $52,000
• Omaha, NB – $64,000
• Philadelphia, PA – 58,000
• Phoenix, AZ – $53,000
• Portland, OR – $54,000
• Providence, RI – $54,000
• RTP, NC – $59,000
• Sacramento, CA – $57,000
• Salt Lake City, UT – $48,000
• San Diego, CA – $58,000
• San Francisco, CA – $77,000
• Seattle, WA – $56,000
• St. Paul, MN – $54,000
• Tucson, AZ – $50,000

Full disclosure: Indeed.com has an affiliate relationship with my blog, but the link in this article is not an affiliate link.

Moist drops on a desert mirror. Photo courtesy of my wife, Jeni Hewitt.

Cool air in a desert summer

There was a cool breeze this morning. To some of you that may not mean much, but if you are living in the Arizona desert and a cool breeze occurs in August, it is something to be cherished. It is all the more amazing to have one when the sky is relatively clear with just a few pinkish white clouds. Sure, it won’t last the day, but at least you were there for it so take a deep, deep breath.

Blue on blue

I’m spending a lot of time lately reviewing tutorials built in PowerPoint. Here’s a tip to all of you designers out there. Light blue text on a dark blue background is not a good idea. There’s a whole spectrum of colors out there my friends, If you actually want people to read your slides, try to pick two different colors. I’m going to make that text a pale orange. Why, because I’m really craving a Creamsicle. Take that design expert!

Also, watch the speed of your animations. Nobody wants to sit for 25 seconds while your animations slowly fly in to tell them that this is the start of a new section. That’s 25 seconds of my life I’m just not getting back.

Finally, if you want to try something fancy with your “Next” links, you’d better make sure it works perfectly, or else I’m putting you back in chronological order.

Technical writer role play

Tom Johnson over at I’d Rather Be Writing has an excellent article today about how technical writers deal with corporate reorganizations and changing roles. It also discusses some of the different approaches organizations take when it comes to technical writing. I’ve been through so many reorganizations that I must admit I’ve become jaded in that area. I just concentrate on doing my duties and on maintaining the relationships I trust. I’m not recommending that as a strategy, it’s just what I do.

As Louella Parsons would say, “Ehhh”

I’m normally a big fan of Chuck Palahniuk. His novel Lullaby is among my favorite books and I enjoyed Fight Club and Pygmy almost as much. I have to admit though that his new book, Tell All was tedious and the direction of the plot was far too obvious. The stylized writing, which worked well in Pygmy, becomes so repetitious that you begin to hope for two or three paragraphs of actual story. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.

Most writers, even successful novelists, have jobs. They are teachers, lawyers, doctors, dentists, advertising executives, auto mechanics and grocery store clerks. Some are technical writers, copywriters, editors and proofreaders. It is certainly possible to freelance full-time, but many writers collect paychecks along with their invoices. This is especially true in the worlds of poetry and fiction, where payments are often small and spaced far between.

How do you want to spend your energy?

There is only so much time in the day, and that means you have to be careful about the jobs you take. You don’t want a job that is going to make it impossible for you to write outside of work. That is why some people take jobs far from the writing field. Some jobs only require presence and a little attention. Working as a security guard, for example, allows you to spend most of your time standing around watching people. For some writers, this is a great opportunity to observe, and get paid to do it. It isn’t difficult work, and it won’t leave you intellectually drained at the end of the day.

Working as a technical writer or as an editor gives you a chance to improve your writing skills as you earn a paycheck (and a bigger paycheck than a security guard). The downside is that you may use up all of your intellectual energy reading documents and attending meetings. A construction job is an example of a third option, one that works your body more than your mind, and gets you out into the daylight instead of stranding you in an office building. It is up to you to decide what works best for you, but if at the end of the day you don’t feel like writing, that’s a clue that you made the wrong choice.

Part-time solutions

Part-time work is yet another option. You draw a somewhat smaller paycheck, but you get back more of your time. Working two days a week at a store in the mall probably won’t pay all of your bills, but it may be enough to get you by in the weeks between freelance payments. It will also remind you of why you want to work hard as a freelancer, so that you don’t have to hold a job like that anymore.

Temporary solutions

Another option beyond part-time work is temporary work. You work full-time or even overtime hours for several months, banking your paychecks so that you can then have money in reserve to support your time freelancing for the next few months. The benefit of this, beyond the money, is the additional motivation to do well. You won’t have to get a regular job again until you run out of money. That gives you extra incentive to work hard and get paid as a freelance writer so that you don’t have to go back to a regular job. The danger is that you won’t know when to quit. Months can quickly turn into years, especially if you don’t save your money well.

The important thing to remember is that you do have choices as a freelance writer. When the freelance market gets slow, a job will provide you with another source of income and security. Just remember that your primary goal is to make a living from your freelance writing.

What are the primary skills of a technical writer?

The first skill a technical writer should have, of course, is writing. You should be able to write in a clear, concise manner. Technical writing is not poetry or prose. Depending on where you work, you may or may not be able to add some stylistic flair. Either way, your job is to clearly tell your audience exactly what they need to know, and everything they need to know.

The second skill you should have is knowledge of a technical subject. My emphasis has always been in the field of computers, which is probably the largest segment of the technical writing market. Your knowledge can be in many other areas, however, such as science, medicine, engineering, mechanics, or law.

No matter what your area of knowledge, you will need computer skills, especially desktop publishing skills. At minimum, you should know the Microsoft Office suite of applications, especially Microsoft Word. Beyond Office, there is Adobe FrameMaker, which is used in many technical-writing environments. Other publishing packages such as PageMaker, Quark Express, and Interleaf can also be useful. In addition, online documentation tools such as RoboHelp, Doc-to-Help and Lotus Notes are great applications to have on your resume, as are HTML and other Internet skills.

In addition, you should try to develop interviewing skills, because you will probably find yourself interviewing technical people to get the information you need for your documents. Often, they will have no idea how to tell you what you need to know, so it is up to you to figure out how to draw the information out of them.

How do I become a technical writer?

This is my most frequently asked question, and a difficult one to answer. I can only tell you how I got into it. I have spent my entire adult life (and a good deal of my youth) as a writer of some form or another. When I entered college, I became first a reporter for and eventually the editor of my college newspaper. It was exciting, interesting, and very stressful. When I chose a major in college, I finally settled on creative writing, with a minor in English. I took very few technical courses in college and I have never taken a course in technical writing.

What I did do was work with computers, constantly. I got my first computer when I was 13 years old and I have never been without one since. In high school and at the beginning of college, I took some programming classes, but only about three of them. The rest of my computer skills I acquired either at home or on the job. When I transferred from my community college to the University of Arizona, I got a job in their computer department in the ‘Courseware Library for Instructional Computing’. There, I was exposed to just about every micro platform available at the time (IBM, Apple/Macintosh, Next, Commodore) and hundreds of software programs. I enjoyed it and I eventually began to teach seminars in Macintosh computing to the faculty and staff. While doing so, I wrote some short manuals and performed other various desktop publishing functions. After college, I had a series of jobs, all of them either computer, publishing, or writing related, until I eventually found myself out of work and needing a career path. I had done some technical writing as part of my past jobs, and I decided that I should dedicate my efforts towards building a career there.

Despite being broke, I managed to acquire my own copy of FrameMaker, and train myself on the package, adding that to my skills in PageMaker. I also taught myself HTML programming and learned to read C and other languages that I had not visited in many years. I sent out over 300 resumes and refused to settle for less than what I wanted. I used up all of my unemployment and dug myself deeply into debt.

Then, I received two job offers. The first one was to work as an Internet content developer for my local newspaper. It paid eight dollars an hour for 30 hours a week of work. I was willing to take it, and would have, but right as I was about to I got a call from a contract agency I had sent my resume to. Another local company was looking for a technical writer for a six-month contract. It paid $20.00 an hour, but much of that got sucked up when I opted for salary and benefits such as medical and dental insurance, holidays, sick days and vacation days. In the end, I started at $29,000 a year and after 6 months I renegotiated to $35,000. As my experience has grown, so has my pay.

What should I take in college?

As an undergraduate, I focused on creative writing and English. If I had gone to college with the goal of being a technical writer, I would still have majored in English or Creative Writing, but I would have minored in a technical subject such as computers or one of the sciences. For some, engineering may be a better choice than science. Even if you are a college graduate, you should consider supplementing your education. An associates degree in computers or another technical subject will prove you have learned the basics.

For graduate studies, more and more colleges are offering Technical Writing or Professional communications degrees. I recently went back to school to get a degree in professional communications.

I’m just out of college, and I want to be a technical writer, but I have no experience, how do I get my first job?

The first technical writing job is difficult to get, especially if you were a writing major and did not major (or even minor) in a technical subject. The first thing you need to do is prove you can write. This involves creating a sample of your work, which is not easy to do without having a specific project. What many people do is try to find a short, badly written manual (There are thousands) and re-write it. The other approach is to write a manual about something you know. The key is to have proof you can do the work.

Do I need a sample?

Yes. Prospective employers often ask for a sample of your technical writing. This can be a problem because these same employers are likely to tell you that what you write for them is confidential. For this reason, I use a ‘fictionalized’ sample. It is based on a short manual I wrote for one company, but I have gone out of my way to change any company-specific information. This was not fun, but it was the best compromise I could come up with. My sample is about 15 pages long. I keep it this short because the employers often want to keep it or review it, and they are not that cheap to reproduce, especially because I have my sample vellum bound with a transparent plastic cover. I also include an explanation of what publishing package I used and what the requirements and restrictions of the project were.

What is the best way to look for a job?

The Internet is a great way to look for work, and even better if you are willing to move around. I especially recommend indeed.com, which searches severl employment sites at once. I also try to hit all the local technical employment agencies. The easy way to do this is check the Sunday paper of the town you are interested in and look in the computer or technical employment sections. Look for agencies advertising several jobs and get either their fax numbers or e-mail addresses. They do not have to be advertising technical writing jobs. If they place technical jobs, then it is worth the time to get your resume and cover letter to them.

There has also been a growth in resume distribution services. These companies claim to send your resume to thousands of recruiters. I haven’t tried this approach, but if you are interested try: EmailMyResume.com, ResumeZapper.com, and ResumeXposure.com.

What should my resume look like?

Emphasize your technical skills. If you know a software package or computer platform or if you have a scientific background, make sure you supply details. I am a strong believer that good writing skills are far more important than knowledge of a specific subject or program, but the reality out there is that if you know the programs or subjects they’re looking for, then you have the distinct edge in getting the job. Writing skill is far down the list of what they take into account. I have gotten two jobs without even providing a sample of my writing. If you would like to have a professional work on your resume, try: Employment911.com or A and A Resume.

What kind of cover letter should I use?

If you are contacting an agent and not responding to a specific job request, then simply indicate a few basics about yourself. indicate you consider to be your strongest and most relevant skills. Don’t make it long and don’t go out of your way to provide details. If they want to know more, they will ask. Keep it short and simple.

On the other hand, if you are responding to a specific job description, especially if you are responding directly to the employer, then a careful cover letter should be written. Analyze the job description, and in your cover letter state specifically how you qualify for as much of that description as possible. Make them believe that you are exactly what they are looking for. Paraphrase their description as much as possible.

What should I ask for in negotiations?

Negotiations are a difficult process. Most agencies work on the “What pay range are you looking for?” system. This is a tricky system, but one that can be beaten. The key is to ask for more than you expect to get. Do this every time, and by at lease five dollars an hour. I give this advice for an important reason. If you are dealing with an agency and you under-price yourself, you are at their mercy. They will either give you what you ask for, or whatever the minimum in their range is. That is it. End of story.

However, if you ask for more than what their range is, they will then proceed to tell you what the range is. Remember, you aren’t dealing with the employer, you are dealing with the agent, and they know what the job will be bid at. When they tell you your rate is too high, ask what the range is and tell them that whatever the high number is will be good enough. It is possible to price yourself out of a job, but frankly, I’m willing to accept that risk. If you aren’t, then follow your own instincts.

If you are dealing directly with an employer, negotiations are more difficult. The key here is to wait until they are ready to extend an offer. If they ask early on what you want, tell them that you will be happy to listen to whatever their offer is, once they have one to make. If they get adamant about it, then you’ll have to name your figure and take your chances. Again, I recommend starting on the high side, but it depends on your instincts and whether you are willing to risk not getting the job in order to get what you want. I have been lucky enough to be pursued by more than one company at a time, and I have been willing to play the two off each other in order to get what I wanted. There is also a big advantage to already having a job when you look for your next job. You have the luxury of saying no.

The one most annoying question an employer can ask me is my past salary history. This has happened a few times, and I have refused to tell them on some occasions and I have told them on others. In both situations, I never got the job, so I can’t say which practice works best. I always take the question as a bad sign, however. Any company interested in this is not likely to treat their employees well, in my opinion.

What is a good technical writing rate?

There is, of course, no clear-cut answer to this. Rates vary according to geography, experience, benefits, and the current job market. As I write this, the market has been slow for a three years but is now starting to pick up. There are still more writers than jobs, but the numbers are evening out.

If money is a prime concern, then you need to be in a major market. I am currently working in Phoenix. Phoenix is a good market because there are several major technology firms (Motorola, Intel, AT&T, American Express, etc.) and there are quite a few smaller companies that employ technical writers. California in general and the San Francisco Bay area (also known as Silicon Valley) specifically are the largest markets, though they have also been the hardest hit by the slowdown in the technical industries. Dallas, Denver, New York, Atlanta, North Carolina and Washington State are also good markets. In those places, contract technical writers commonly make from $15-60 an hour. Salaried employment ranges from $30,000-90,000 a year. There have been more jobs in the lower part of this range during the slump, but compensation is also picking up.

Is it better to take a permanent job or a contract?

This depends on the job, of course. I originally chose to go the contract route because I knew that with a couple more years of experience under my belt, I would be able to command much more money than I would when I began, far more than I would be able to count on through raises. I also had no family to support, so I had a certain freedom to move around and to take risks. I did take a permanent position once, but permanence in this industry is an illusion. I have continued to take contract work and I prefer it.

If you do contract, you will find that you are generally treated differently from regular employees. This will vary widely from company to company, but you may or may not find yourself with a little less respect and acceptance, especially as a technical writer. You are disposable. Also, you will be expected to do your own training. Rarely will companies finance training for contractors.

On the up side, you generally attend fewer meetings and deal with less company politics. Also, I have always tried to get my training on the job. Moving from company to company has given me the opportunity to learn a variety of applications that I would be ignorant of if I had only been at a single company all this time.

To me the key difference between contracting and regular employment is one of attitude toward the company. When I am contracting I consider the company to be a client. I probably work harder to give them what they want, but I have less personal interest in the outcome. Even if I feel the project is flawed, I do what they ask because they are a client and that is my responsibility to them. As an employee, I get much more caught up in the reasons for projects. I am more likely to object to a course of action I don’t feel helps me or the company because I feel it is our mutual responsibility to succeed. I am more invested in the outcome and less concerned with pleasing the company. This may be different for other people, but I think it accurately reflects my past attitudes.

Why are there more contract/consultant jobs then there are permanent jobs?

The hard fact is that most companies do not value technical writing. They bring in writers to fill a specific need, often because they have been required to provide documentation for a project. Many companies bring writers in at the end of a project to document what has already been created rather than include writers in the full product cycle.

Why don’t more companies value technical writing?

Much more emphasis is put on the programming side of products than on usability and documentation because these are viewed as secondary issues. I strongly feel this has helped lead the technical industry into its current down cycle.

Technical writers are viewed as a luxury. As valuable as I feel my skills are, and can be to a company, the company can still function without me. If the programs or systems are undocumented, or if they are poorly documented by programmers or analysts, it will not damage the company as obviously as if the program fails to get developed. I happen to feel that a company that spends money on good technical writers will get a very high return for its investment, in more satisfied customers, smoother processes and greater institutional memory. I believe that dollar-wise this can make money for the company, but those are categories that are difficult to measure and often hard for management to comprehend.

Also, some companies do not understand what a technical writer does. Some consider writers to be glorified secretaries, and do such things as give them notes to type up or even have them take minutes at meetings. Part of the problem is that secretaries and administrative assistants have also become a thinning breed, and management (not the upper management, who have secretaries, but the lower management and team members) are desperate for anyone who can make a document look good. I once found myself at a company that constantly asked me to attend meetings simply to record the minutes. I comforted myself with the fact that I was paid $36 an hour to do it, but I also started looking for my next job,

What types of documents do technical writers create?

The range of writing a technical writer performs varies widely. Much is dependent on the technical specialty of the writer and of the needs of the company. You may find yourself a part of one large project, or overseeing dozens of smaller projects. You might write manuals, articles, proposals, white papers, product descriptions or any of a hundred other types of documents.

My specialty is writing manuals, especially user manuals and programmer manuals for specific software applications. This is the technical writing I enjoy most, because for me it involves solving problems and figuring out puzzles. To write a user manual, I need to think like the people using the program and try to tell them what they need to know, rather than what I would need to know or what the programmer would need to know. For me, this is a lot of fun and very fulfilling.

There are dozens of different types of writing that come under the banner of technical writing, however. Many people document processes. Processes can be just about any system by which something gets done. For example, in order for a company to generate a payroll, certain actions must be taken, such as logging hours and generating checks. All of those steps are part of a process, and intelligent companies document those processes so that, if an employee leaves or a system goes down, they have something to consult in order to get themselves on track. One name for this type of document is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure).

Another type of documentation is SLA (Service Level Agreement). The SLA describes exactly what a provider (company or department) will do for a customer (another company, another department, or an individual). These can be highly technical documents or busywork, depending on the service and the company.

Proposals, often written in response to an RFP (Request For Proposal) document are much like SLAs. They describe what work will be done, but they require more writing finesse because they are also pitching the service. The company is proposing to sell a service. I have written several proposals, and depending on the request and the company, they can be quite interesting or more busywork.

These are just a few examples of the types of work technical writers perform.