December 2003/January 2004

Volume 44, Number 3

Market changes afoot: What does this mean for technical communicators?

by Rahel Bailie, Region 7 Director-Sponsor

One of my activities as a self-employed consultant is to monitor various job boards. The job boards I monitor include those that list positions and contracts for technical communicators, but more importantly, they include boards for the industries we support: software development, engineering, and manufacturing. This gives me a daily temperature reading on the industry where I'm most likely to find clients and contracts.

This past week, the activity on the job boards has shot up. Between Nov 21 and 28, 2003, one Vancouver job board had 163 jobs posted, with almost a dozen of them being communication-related jobs: technical writer, instructional designer, marketing communications manager. This encouraging news was confirmed by a consultant from Boston, whose business suddenly got very busy; all consultants in his firm are fully booked. Does this mean that the economy is bouncing back, and what does this mean for technical communication professionals? How can we reconcile this apparent economic recovery with the opposing trend of jobs moving from North America to Asian countries?

Certainly, the increase in North American development jobs is encouraging for North American technical communicators, just as the surge of product development in countries such Singapore, India, and China is encouraging for technical communicators there. Generally speaking, product development generally indicates a corollary need to communicate product features, through marketing communications, the user interface, user instructions, and internal documentation, and the communication jobs are kept in close proximity of the development jobs.

What we must keep in mind, however, is that as markets mature - and the software industry, where so many technical communicators are employed, is maturing along with all other industries - and profit margins are narrowing, companies continue to find ways to be competitive. We consumers like our software to be inexpensive, and we hunt around for the absolute best deals. To provide us with those deals, companies need to find ways to cut costs, then cut costs more, and then cut costs even more. In an industry with few raw materials, where the largest cost is of the brain power of its staff, the way to cut development costs is to cut labour costs. If work can be fit into a formula and done where labour costs are less, that will happen.

From my Canadian perspective (keeping in mind that Canada was one of the first countries to which American companies sent their work "off-shore"), I see the current migration of jobs around the globe as inevitable. As much of the hard-goods manufacturing of the world has gone to China, thereby stocking North American dollar stores with inexpensive merchandise, so follows the knowledge industry, to satisfy the market demand for discounted products.

What this means for me as a technical communicator based in North America is that I need to make strategic career choices. If I choose to specialize in the type of work that is moving to another part of the world, I can look harder to do that type of work locally, or I can follow the work to wherever it goes, the way that actors migrate to Los Angeles. Or I can look for the type of technical communication work that, by necessity, stays closer to home. I would tap into communities adjacent to technical communication, to encourage cross-pollination of ideas and see what types of work is suited to someone with my abilities, work that doesn't come with the title of "technical writer" but involves a using my skill set and qualifications. I would build my network outside of the technical communication community, getting to know the decision-makers in new areas and getting known there, as well.

What it would mean for me as a technical communicator based in a country with an emerging economy is that I would want to build my credibility as a professional who delivers top-quality work that satisfies the demands of a head office that may be overseas. I would tap into the body of knowledge that exists in print and online, to find a way to exceed the documentation standards out there, and deliver work that works for clients and end users. I'd find out what makes the market tick, and figure out where my skills should be going. I would find a colleague or peer as a mentor. I would connect into existing technical communication communities, attend meetings, take courses, and subscribe to listservs. I'd cultivate a "buddy" relationship with a technical communicator in my area of interest, and find ways to share information about the demands of technical communication in various markets around the world. I'd look at trends and determine what's coming, so I can stay current and not lose my work in a year (or two, or five) to another country with even lower labour costs. I'd ensure that my company knows, every step of the way, how much value I add to the product and the company, and make management see that I am a value contributor instead of a cost centre.

The next few years will be very interesting times. From new tools, such as software that writes instructions by recording screen actions as you complete tasks on screen and creating content objects for content management systems, to new trends that include moving jobs around the world in a global economy, we are continually made to examine our personal employment situations and our profession to look for interesting opportunities.One of my activities as a self-employed consultant is to monitor various job boards. The job boards I monitor include those that list positions and contracts for technical communicators, but more importantly, they include for boards for the industries we support: software development, engineering, and manufacturing. This gives me a daily temperature reading on the industry where I'm most likely to find clients and contracts.