STC-Chicago members may be headed home from the conference today, but they aren’t done blogging about their experiences in Las Vegas. Me? I’ll be talking about emerging roles and new opportunities in the field of technical communication.Interested in the future of technical communication as I am, I sought out conference sessions with the phrases “new roles,” “future of,” “new media,” “consumer-generated content,” “technical marketing,” “integrated communications,” “strategic,” and “business analysis” in their titles.
Luckily, plenty of tech comm people in Las Vegas were interested in new directions for the field. My professional experience tells me, and recurring themes I’ve heard at the conference lead me to believe, that technical writing and editing will continue to be key to the work we do. Increasingly, however, those in tech comm will become known for their expertise as business strategists.
Learning how the work we do fits into the larger, strategic goals of our organizations will help us to articulate thoughtful, integrated communications strategies and to work across teams and geographies, spurring innovation and creating productive partnerships as we go.
More on this in future posts, as well as input from attendees who presented on these topics at the conference. Stay tuned.
The profession is definitely changing and we are doing our best to allow everyone in our profession to write about their experiences at www.keycontent.org. Our latest articles are about free Web collaboration tools -- collaboration is becoming a very important aspect of our work. The future is not far off.
ReplyDeleteThe site is free and open to everyone who is doing technical communication.
--Bill Albing
editor-in-chief
KeyContent.org