December 2005/January 2006

Volume 46, Number 3

The Holidays, Our Skills, and Slowing Down

by Marella Colyvas, STC RMC President

It is December 28, 2005, a day which falls in that rather strange, quiet in-between time that isn't quite Christmas or New Year's, but is still the holiday season. This year I decided to deliberately slow down for the holidays; I wanted to savor the time with my family and not let myself be lured into a frenzy of party-going and buying gifts. Paring activities was difficult, but gave me the reward of time to reflect on the past year. I also decided not to make the traditional dozen or so "resolutions" for the new year; instead, I contemplated and planned for activities that, I hope, will make my professional and personal life more rewarding, all the while fulfilling obligations. During my planning, I reached an "ah-ha!" moment and came up with three "non-resolutions" that will be useful for all technical communicators.

The first is to keep our skills up-to-date. Over this past year, many interesting topics have come across the STC RMC discussion list. Here are some sample topics: FrameMaker questions that ranged from licensing recovery to how to do tab stops in auto-numbered format and in tables; grammar and usage problems in marketing materials; PDF in A4 format; corrupted Word templates; embedded font issues; document numbering schema and naming conventions; and consulting contracts. Our discussion list is a great asset to our community and allows us to really reach out and help each other. It is also a testimony on how important it is to:

• Give ourselves skill refreshers, even in those areas where we excel; we never know when we might be called on to help. And besides, it will help us professionally.
• Share our knowledge. Everywhere, companies and agencies are having to do more with less. This means that often we do not have time to learn everything we may need to know for a particular solution; if technical communicators can rely on each other, it ultimately means more respect for the profession, because a greater body of knowledge is had by all.
• Learn from others. Even when we think we know the answer and that our answer is "best," allowing ourselves to be open to the possibility that someone else might have a better answer teaches us to think outside our own box and improve our creativity. We might be surprised at how much we can learn from another's response to a question.

The second item is to actively engage in some activity to explicitly improve your writing. No matter if you are working in user assistance (help files) documentation, medical writing, standards documentation, technical marketing, program (SDK/API) documentation, policies and procedures, or any variety of web content, it is vital to keep up your writing skills. I think many of us are so engaged in understanding the tools of our trade or doing other aspects of our jobs that we don't actually write as much as we once did. I find myself organizing, eliciting, and editing information, or facilitating group documentation projects much more than actually writing. If you still harbor the love of writing (and I'll bet most technical communicators do), why not try your hand at a creative writing class? Or at tutoring young adults with their English class writing assignments? Both do wonders for your self-esteem, and improve your writing skills to boot.

The third item is to keep an active eye on the economy and job market. With the ever-present threat of downsizing, off-shoring, and old-fashioned layoffs, most technical communicators have to scramble to find that next assignment, next contract, or next job. Read the business pages, listen to the market reports on NPR, and tap into your fearless STC RMC for local job leads and new trends via our fabulous speakers. Also, don't be afraid to look at other professional organizations. Transitioning skills is something that every technical communicator should think about and plan for as job markets change. Last spring we had a very successful seminar on transitioning from technical writing to technical training. That is only one example.

Note: If anyone has a particular skill set they have used successfully to transition to another area of technical communication, please offer to write about it in the next edition of the newsletter.

I hope these three "non-resolutions" have given you something to think about for the upcoming year. I think there's a fourth item: slow down. Take time for yourself, your life, your hopes, and your dreams. Focus on what is happening now and less on what is going to be. There is never a time like now to live your life - in fact, it's all you've got.