IT and technical communication industry is an ever-changing industry and there is no stagnancy when it’s up to the technical aspects. Every now and then new updates and new technologies are reserving their place in the software industry. To sustain in this environment a technical writer needs to be armoured with the skills to become an asset to the industry. In this blog post, I have tried to mention few points that are necessary for a future technical writer.
1. Will be Agile and Adaptive
Afuture technical writer should be agile and adaptive.
He should have an iterative approach to software delivery, in short agile that is to build software incrementally from the start of the project. He should be adaptive to new technology and updates to do the work in time box and effectively with negligible errors.
Being adaptive helps to equip with new technologies in no time, reducing the time and effort given to a project.
2. Will love line of Code
A new age information developer should be well versed with the line of codes equally as the line of words.
He should have a love for codes to understand and deliver the best documentation.
He should not be necessarily a programmer but being in love of code will let him be the first choice for any company that needs documentation.
3. Will not follow traditional DDLC
The use of traditional Document Development Life Cycle will lose its frequency in future because it will have to make way for new methodologies of documentation.
It is necessary for a future technical writer to be ready to absorb the new advancements for a better document development.
Information Developers in the coming future will have to gear up themselves to automate the things for better performances.
Automation reduces the efforts, errors and the delivery time in creating a document.
A love for automating things will let a technical writer stand apart from the others.
5. Will Content Curator to Content Marketer
Unlike a traditional technical writer, a future information developer should not only write a content but also will have to market it.
He should promote, reach out on social media, connect with influencers, engage with the community, to market the content.
6. Will be more Customer focused
A technical writer should be aware of the customer interaction with the document.
The document should be customer friendly and should have the clarity to have a better understanding.
User manuals, online help etc are the things that are used by common people who are not technocrats so, it should be documented in such a way that even a non-tech background people can use it effectively.
7. Will not know the pain of unstructured authoring
Rinni Mahajan- TechComm Rising Star-2017
Structured authoring reduces the error percentage and consumes less time. In the coming years’ industry will move more towards the use of structured authoring leaving the old unstructured authoring tool.
8. Will be more open to explore and innovate
A future technical writer should be open to experiments not only with the with tools and technologies but with his writing skills also. Creativity and experiments help in new discoveries that ease the documentation process.
9. Will Unlearn and Learn Continuously
To learn new things we have to unlearn old technologies.
A technical writer deals with tools that are regularly updated so he should be ready to unlearn and learn to get the best out of every new update.
10. Will be a Generalised specialist
An updated and new-gen technical writer should not be just a technical writer but an information developer.
The documentation will not be just a written document but preceded by some research and experiments too. An information developer should know all form of communication such as content writing, UX designing, business writing, digital marketing etc.
11. Will come more from engineering college than Art or Mass Communication.
12. Will have more Fun
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