RE: Information Engineers

["Gordon McLean" <Gordon -dot- McLean -at- GrahamTechnology -dot- com>]

I wonder if this skew in job title is a reaction to the more "wordy" amongst
us? 

A lot of technical writers have a background, or degree, in English, and
I've read a lot of beautifully worded technical manuals in my time,
unfortunately it took me twice as long to find out what I was looking for
but hey, look at that lovely prose...

I'm not saying (dear god, I'm not starting THAT discussion again) that
writing is not important, just that the ability to work with technical
people, and understand what is going on, is now valued more?

Just a wonderingment, there IS a reason I'm deliberately hiring more
"technically able" people...

Gordon

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+gordon -dot- mclean=grahamtechnology -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+gordon -dot- mclean=grahamtechnology -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- c
om] On Behalf Of iFaqeer (SIA)
Sent: 30 April 2007 21:32
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Re: Information Engineers

As a person who chose to be a tech writer partly because I really do not
want to be a code monkey, that kind of thing scare, one could say distress,
me--that job descriptions for folks who monkey with content and information
must have coding and thinks like "network administration skills" in them. It
seems like just another expression of the attitude a lot of engineering
managers (and CEOs) have, that "You're only valuable if you also do
technical stuff."

Don't get me wrong, I have written my share of multimedia script--and
enjoyed it--and love to monkey with Blog templates in HTML and CSS.
But I don't think even that should get in the way of finding someone--and in
the way of opportunity for folks--who can "think in information
hierarchies", write good text, and so on.

I have taken to going around saying that the deployment of Web 2.0 (blogs,
Wikis, etc.)  means that some of the most exciting new things on the web are
exciting because of the content that they carry and how it is organized.
(And the technology side is open/Open.) And in this wave, us content folks
should be more critical and be in there owning and riding this wave to a
large extent.

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