What is the Scope of technical writing?

Answer 1

What does the future hold for us? Well, change and competition are constants, so clearly we will have to adapt to ever-more sophisticated tools and media. Where today we have to concern ourselves with certain nuts and bolts, soon we won't in the way that hardware engineers no longer handle soldering irons or individual components. Today touch screens and mobile-device interfaces are new, but they will become passé soon enough. Also, we will have to adapt to understanding new subject areas. (Don't ask me what they'll be. As my stock portfolio demonstrates, I have no idea.)

Information is a strategic asset and potential competitive advantage.

Today few companies realize it, but Information is a strategic asset and potential competitive advantage. In the near future many more companies will realize it, and I think it will cause them to hold these assets more closely and not outsource their development. Also, this will open the way for technical communicators to be information managers.

Increasingly, I think our role will be subsumed into the general work of product development. The more information is seen as a component of the product, the more we will be seen as part of the development team. I think that will be a positive development.

Today there are European Union (EU) regulations concerning the presence and structure of information for consumer products; the FDA has strict requirements for the documentation of medical products. Few writers know that there are International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards for software documentation and the process of creating it. These regulatory and standardization pressures will only increase. In the future, we will likely be required to know and implement them in our work.

Finally, just as there are increasing pressures on companies to demonstrate their conformance to standards, we will increasingly need to provide assurances before we're hired that we are competent. We can meet this challenge through specific education or, in my opinion, some form of certification.

To continue serving its members, STC will need to lead the way in publicizing the strategic value of information and how we can maximize it; provide education and training on new regulations and standards (and help shape them!); and determine how best to assess practitioners.