April/May 2007

Volume 47, Number 5

Technical Communication: It’s Not Just About Software

by Deb Lockwood

Sometimes we get stuck thinking that technical communication is just about writing computer software and hardware documentation. Although some technical communicators do just that (myself included), many communicators do radically different things. In this article I’ll list a few of those and discuss how I got my start as a technical communicator in the financial services industry.

Since joining STC, I have met technical communicators in many different fields including government, aerospace, medical, manufacturing, finance, oil and gas, law enforcement, telecommunications, management, marketing, and education, as well as many independent contractors who represent a variety of industries. These communicators include usability experts, training developers, website developers, writers, editors, and educators, to name just a few. Our field is so broad, in fact, that I have a difficult time keeping up with it!

When I ask fellow STC members how they got into the technical communication field I hear fascinating replies, with the answers as varied as the individuals. The common thread seems to be that none of us started out on the road to technical communication, but each of us found ourselves on that road, and we have developed common skills along the way.

My path to technical communication was by way of finance. Before getting into documentation, I worked in financial institutions for nearly 20 years. Do banks hire writers? Sure! As a technical writer at U.S. Bank (and the banks that would eventually merge into U.S. Bank) I performed the following tasks:

• As a regulatory compliance officer, I developed and delivered regulatory training, conducted compliance audits, and wrote audit reports for deposit and lending operations.
• As a policies and procedures analyst, I chaired the policies and procedures committee, and wrote bank policies and procedures for various operations including deposits, safe deposit boxes, and security.
• As a conversions analyst, I wrote test scripts and conducted system tests in preparation for multiple system conversions.

In the Colorado area there are many types of financial institutions: banks, savings and loans, credit unions, credit card companies, mortgage brokerages, trusts, and investment brokerages.

Financial institutions need communication products like the following—and all of these can be produced by technical communicators:

• Training materials
• E-learning modules
• Policies and procedures
• Marketing materials
• Annual reports
• Customer correspondence
• Websites (external and internal)
• Systems test scripts

Financial institutions also need to produce the following legal items, for which a technical communicator’s skills are vital:

• Compliance reports
• Compliance training materials
• Audit reports
• Loan file review reports

Technical communication is a broad field that is not easily definable. But you can be assured that most companies need our skills!