Re: Question re: Contracting Experiences

[Elna Tymes <etymes -at- LTS -dot- COM>]

Rebecca Merck wrote:

> I'm curious -- one of the things that worried me about going contract was
> the issue of staying up to date with subject matter technology.

I've had no problem staying up to date on technology.  For one thing, remember
that it's the business of the technical writer to start from not knowing a
subject, and proceed to knowing the subject; one uses the process of getting
there as fuel for writing the material that will help the next person along that
process.

One thing: you simply can't stay up to date on all product technologies.  You
can stay pretty much up to date on the tools and techniques available to writers
by bouncing from company to company, and you can pick up product technologies
based on where you take contracts.  But just because you become something of a
product expert in one technology doesn't mean that that expertise is going to be
valued in a company using some other technology.  I'd submit that you're
actually becoming LESS valuable on the market, in general, as you get more
specialized product knowledge.

On the other hand, having done a couple of user manuals you know the basic
ingredients for just about any user manual. Having done one online help system
you have a pretty good idea how to approach the online help system for another
product in a different technology.  And having done one set of API documents
generally means you know how to approach and display the information for an API
set for a product in some other industry.

Elna Tymes
Los Trancos Systems

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