Emerging Roles and Hot Markets for Tomorrow’s Tech Writers (7/2012)
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To command top dollar, Technical Writers need to stay current with trends in the tech industry. This presentation offers a recruiter's anecdotal insights into which industry sectors are creating most demand for (qualified) technical writers, and names sectors where it's more likely you'll earn a lot less or even see your job offshored. For context, this presentation was prepared and delivered in the Spring and Summer of 2012. Things change. As of 1/2013 (when I posted this to SlideShare and LinkedIn), demand from technology companies in the analytics and big data markets was even hotter than a year earlier, while mobile, social, and advertising seems to have cooled considerably. As always, I welcome feedback to the email address listed in the presentation itself.
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Emerging Roles and Hot Markets for Tomorrow’s Tech Writers (7/2012)
- 1. Emerging Roles and Hot Markets for Tomorrow’s Tech Writers © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 2. Context and Disclaimers I recruit content developers in Silicon Valley What kinds of company need me? Credibility is my motivator Skills and experience are not enough These are organized observations, not empirical research © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 3. Hot Industry Niches for SF Bay Area Content Developers Data Analytics IP Security Big Data (Hadoop, MapReduce, NoSQL, etc) Mobile/GIS (iOS, Android) SaaS-ified apps Data Center optimization/Virtualization/Cloud Open Source Social Advertising Games/Entertainment © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 4. Tepid Niches SQL/Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence Enterprise applications (non-SaaS) Search Development Tools Content Translation/Localization/Internationalization technology Medical devices Biotech/Pharma Storage (SAN/NAS technology) Networking (including videoconferencing) – non-cloud © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 5. Not-so-Hot Niches, pt 1 Finance/Insurance CRM Semiconductors/EDA PCs, tablets, smartphones (hardware) Peripherals Manufacturing (most) Government © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 6. Not-so-Hot Niches, pt 2 Healthcare Law Utilities Infrastructure (transportation, etc) Education Publishing Graphics (hardware, software) Clean/green tech © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 7. Desirable Intangible Skills/Experience Understanding of business goals and model Entrepreneurial experience Understanding of audience’s context, needs, and priorities Ability to visualize and design customized content deliverables Understanding of translation/localization Experience making a business case for content initiatives Understanding of tools Project management and consensus-building skills © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 8. Desirable Empirical Skills/Experience HTML5, EPUB3, or iBooks Author. IOW, eBooks conversion and delivery XML, XSL, XSLT, XSL-FO, DITA, DocBook, structured authoring tools Arbortext Editor (formerly "Epic") and XMetaL Author, and (to a much lesser extent) Structured FrameMaker, Author-it, and MadCap Flare Video production (iMovie, etc) and/or screencasting experience (Captivate, Articulate, Camtasia, Presenter, etc.) Wiki implementation experience Interface/user-experience (UX) design, especially for mobile applications © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 9. Technical Skills & Experience – what’s valuable? Q: Is your role a money-maker? Today’s most valuable skills generate profits The rest are redundant or offshore-able, and often disrespected © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 10. Consistently Hot TC Roles Developer-oriented content creation (API references, developer tutorials) Video (scripting, creation) – not just scriptwriting, podcasting, vlogging UX Design Structured Content Design/Migration (part of “Content Strategist” work) Others? © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 11. Not-so-Hot TC Roles Publications Manager Editor Proofreader, Indexer, Formatter End-user doc (for consumers and non-technical audiences) System/Network administration doc Proposal Writer Business Analyst Trainer (non-technical, but in recent years also the technical variant) Instructional Designer (non-technical) © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 12. How to Get Hot (a One-Page Primer) Avoid academe Download (and immerse yourself in) trial versions of your niche’s tools Participate in open-source projects Build a portfolio online Study how others do it, then emulate Intern or sub-contract – or just volunteer (for a written reference) Informational interviews (solicited via LinkedIn) Sell your services to very young companies Network! © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 13. “Upsold” Variants on Core TC Skills, pt 1 Content Strategist (cf Information Architect) Content Marketer Community Liaison Corporate Storyteller Toolsmith (for wikis, structured content authoring/migrations, mobile content, content management, etc) User Experience (UX) Designer (not UX Engineer) Terminology Manager © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 14. “Upsold” Variants on Core TC Skills, pt 2 User Assistance (UA) expert Content Manager (SharePoint administrator, process/workflow optimizer) SEO expert Niche Analyst/Blogger/Tech Gadfly/Content Curator Conference Organizer Ghost Tweeter Demo Builder (involves scriptwriting, animation, and marketing) © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 15. Sample Successor Careers Business Analyst Project Manager Program Manager Engagement Manager Marketing Communications Manager Corporate Communications Manager Localization Manager Executive Communicator (speechwriting, spokesperson work) Technical Sales (including recruiting) © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 16. Wanna talk? Andrew Davis, recruiter 408-395-8178 ext. 105 andrewd@contentrules.com www.contentrules.com/jobs © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
- 17. © 2012. Content Rules, Inc. All rights reserved.
Notas del editor
- Lots of speaker’s notes appear on subsequent pages. I hope you find them helpful. Share your comments with me at andrewd@contentrules.com, and feel free to distribute this presentation itself to those you think might benefit. Thanks!
- I recruit content developers – mainly technical writers, trainers, course developers/instructional designers, and marketing communications writers – but I’m going to focus this talk on the market for technical writers in the Bay Area. I don’t hear about “easy” jobs; the people willing to pay me a premium to find them talent typically want rare skills or have schedule constraints that make my services necessary. My credibility, and that of my employer (Content Rules), is at stake every time; we guarantee the work of those we introduce. Bottom line: I’m not highly motivated to take risks by placing an unproven resource. What I look for isn’t just the skills and experience my clients seek but also a set of factors that boil down to maturity, reliability, and resilience. In short, I need well-adjusted professionals. For more “attributes of a rock-star” (specifically a content development consultant), see the series of ten short blog posts at Great Advice Rules ( http://www.contentrules.com/jobs/category/gar/ ). I see a lot of variants on core technical communications responsibilities, and I see plenty of related opportunities in a variety of industry niches. Mine is hardly the only perspective, and there are probably exceptions to each of my assertions – not to mention plenty of options I’ve omitted. That said, my views evolve as I interact with the market. With those disclaimers out of the way, here is my current take on what’s currently hot and what’s not.
- Hot Industry Niches for SF Bay Area Content Developers Data Analytics – companies like Splunk, which IPO’d 4/19/2012 and doubled instantly, typify this market. IP Security – lots of companies, from Cisco on down, have stakes in this arena, but no one leads it. Big Data (Hadoop, MapReduce, NoSQL, etc) – think Cloudera and Hortonworks when you think Hadoop (the open-source framework from Apache that makes it possible to organize not just structured but semi- and unstructured data). Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and many others use it or variants (Google’s is BigTable) to run their businesses. Mobile/GIS (especially for iOS and Android) – everything from mobile app development tools (eg, Sybase, which is part of SAP), to the myriad small companies developing one or more apps who demo at meetups around Silicon Valley (esp svnewtech). Many of them need documentation help; most don’t yet have a budget for it. SaaS-ified apps – anything that’s being offered “as a service” helps companies reduce their IT infrastructure costs. The reason is simple: they don’t need an IT staff to maintain it, hardware to run it on, and annual maintenance contracts to troubleshoot it. The downside: they also don’t need tech writers to explain how to install, configure, troubleshoot, and tune these applications. Data Center optimization/Virtualization/Cloud Open Source – dirty secret: these companies have to pay top dollar to technical writers, trainers, and instructional designers because those professionals’ services are their ONLY differentiators. Look at anything in the apache.org, gnu.org, and similar hierarchies for ideas. Social – I still haven’t figured out where content developers fit in at Twitter, Facebook, and their myriad competitors. You’d think they’d need API writers, at least, but thus far they seem to be doing this work internally using their own engineers, and crowdsourcing the rest. Advertising – I have Google and Yahoo in mind, but there are a huge number of companies whose business model is “attract eyeballs with free content, then sell advertising to related vendors.” Games/Entertainment – I have Sony Computer Entertainment and Zynga in mind; they pay well. But I’ve seen paltry compensation and zero respect for IT-focused content developers at Electronic Arts, Industrial Light and Magic/Lucas, and a few of their less-visible competitors.
- Tepid Niches SQL/Data Warehousing/Business Intelligence – traditional, structured data management, as distinct from ‘big data’ systems (that organizes semi-structured and unstructured data) Enterprise applications – non-SaaS, traditional data-center-managed apps with their hardware, staff, and maintenance contract overhead Search – it’s still profitable, but it’s largely dominated by Google (because they’re good, and because their technology is free). Also, the M&A (mergers and acquisitions) activity of the past decade has resulted in fewer employment alternatives for content developers (and everyone else). Development Tools – IDEs, supporting apps such as bug-tracking, project management, version control Content Translation/Localization/Internationalization technology – note, not the craft itself. I’m thinking of technologies to optimize content (Acrolinx, SDL Author Assistant) as well as streamline the process of getting content localized (eg, Cloudwords). Medical devices – please, someone, tell me where there’s growing demand in this field. Biotech/Pharma – despite lots of investment in this arena, I’ve not seen much demand for content developers. What am I missing? Storage (SAN/NAS technology) – NetApp, Brocade, EMC’s DataDomain, and related companies Networking (including videoconferencing) – non-cloud-based technologies. Cloud-based network management companies (eg, Meraki) seem to be hot.
- These are niches that aren’t even tepid, they’re cold. Perhaps because Bay Area labor and real estate is so expensive, these niches no longer hire as aggressively here. Alas, I suspect that they’re mature markets and past their prime, meaning fewer opportunities to stand out (let alone get ahead) for content developers. This means they’re often great places to “retire” to – doing the same work over and over, but not innovating or evolving – at the end of one’s career. Just don’t pretend it’ll be easy returning to the fast lane (lucrative, leading-edge work), should you ever want/need to. Some niches on this and the next page, such as government and finance-related work, are legally obligated not to offshore many of their activities. For these reasons, they can provide a modicum of security when all else fails. I just don’t recommend them if your goal is to remain relevant and thus able to command market-rate compensation.
- See my speaker’s notes on the previous page for why these niches might be worth your attention.
- Desirable Intangible Skills/Experience Understanding of company’s business goals and business model (especially if the product is open-source) Entrepreneurial experience – seeing an opportunity in the marketplace and seizing it. What companies value is the focus, initiative, and drive to bring a new solution to an old problem. Proven ability to understand audience’s context, needs, and priorities – and deliver autonomously with minimal SME input. In other words, don’t expect your SME to tell you everything (or even very much) about what the user knows, what the user needs to know, or how to cross that divide. Just because you can’t relate to a given deliverable (eg, a developer tutorial, sample code, detailed troubleshooting or performance-tuning info) doesn’t mean the user doesn’t need it or that you don’t need to be the one to create it. Ability to visualize and design content deliverables customized for specific audiences/roles that share/reuse as much content as possible. In other words, “Information Architect” or “Content Strategist” experience with a clue about what XML and a CMS can do. Understanding of translation/localization (process, costs, schedules, roles), especially machine translation, translation memory (TM), tools such as Acrolinx and SDL Author Assistant Experience making a business case for content-development initiatives Understanding of tools available to achieve content-development goals (eg, for structured content authoring, content management, pre-translation authoring, graphics/web media creation, learning management, etc) Project management and consensus-building skills
- Desirable Empirical Skills/Experience HTML5, EPUB3, or iBooks Author. In other words, eBooks conversion and delivery. Remember, there are at least two different categories of eBooks. The simple migration of PDF files is the least complex, but users won’t pay much for that service. Migrating formerly printed content (minus page references, hyphenation, and so forth) to various reader and mobile platforms comes next, and companies such as DCL (Data Conversion Labs) are leaders in that arena. Next will come “enhanced eBooks,” which incorporate audio, animation, and video – eg, author interviews, demos, social-networking applications – usually by reference. XML, XSL, XSLT, XSL-FO, DITA, DocBook and related structured authoring technology – being able to use XML-producing tools (next item) is different from understanding and being able to work with the underlying technology. The latter, for many companies, is more valuable, but these are not strictly content development skills. Content developers who can manipulate content using XSL, XSLT, and related technologies can earn much more than those who can’t, and typically sell their ability to recognize effective content organization; pure XML engineers can’t do that, and it often makes the difference to a project’s success. Arbortext Editor (formerly “Epic”) and XMetaL Author, and (to a much lesser extent) Structured FrameMaker*, oXygen, Author-it, and MadCap Flare. All of these products have free trials (mostly 30 days), but there are entirely free XML editors out there too, including Serna and “XML Copy Editor” (both of which are open source) and DITA Storm. For minimal cost, too, you can join lynda.com ($25/mo) or any number of other education sites and take as many relevant classes as you want. Video production (iMovie, etc) and/or screencasting experience (Adobe Captivate, Articulate Engage, Raptivity, Lectora, Flashform, Articulate Presenter) for formal e-learning as well as integration in marketing content Wiki implementation, especially delivering an engine that permits the writer to edit/review/curate and the user to get PDF output – PonyDocs from Splunk, and Atlassian’s Confluence. (Others?) Interface/user-experience (UX) design, especially for mobile applications (iOS and Android in particular). You don’t need to code, just to use interface-design tools. Your value is in your ability to relate to users, master usability standards, apply best practices, and keep users happy (translation: not calling tech support). Today’s users are especially impatient and often consider unintuitive interfaces inexcusable. In the mobile market in particular, they will abandon non-standard, unusable, and/or inconsistent interfaces long before they ask for help. * Evidently Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite (TCS) is available for an indefinite trial if you opt to run the apps from your browser. Choose “test drive” at http://www.adobe.com/products/technicalcommunicationsuite/try.html.
- Today’s most valuable skills are those that generate profits, as opposed to those that reduce expenses. Remember, unless you generate a lot more money than you cost, you’re expendable (aka redundant or offshore-able, and at the very least disrespected) – and most employers are already seriously lean.
- The audience at the San Francisco STC presentation 4/18/2012 suggested other hot TC roles include: * Technical training – we discussed how audiences had largely come to prefer e-learning to paying $1000/person/day for in-person training, likely a factor in the cooler-than-usual market for technical training services. The upside to ILT (instructor-led training), namely having a knowledgeable/accountable engineer/trainer to the room to quiz, evidently is offset by the availability of user forums, knowledge bases, and so forth. * Terminology management – maintaining core terminology glossaries, style guides, and the like to keep trademarks, service marks, and other key terms consistent. Related roles include maintaining translation memories (TMs), optimizing machine translation (MT), and project-managing localization vendors. I opted to put these in the Tepid category because they’re not (yet) particularly lucrative. In addition, they’re often not strictly content-related roles.
- The audience at the 4/18/2012 San Francisco STC presentation offered the following insights into why Publications Managers are a dying breed: Agile methodologies. When tech writers are in multiple in-person, stand-and-deliver meetings with other key team members every week, they often know more about what’s happening with their products than their managers do. Managers, therefore, become relevant only for strategic initiatives (such as the migration to structured content), and are minimally effective in protecting their direct reports from the winds of change. When individual team members are held accountable by multiple others in a highly iterative product development environment, underperformance is discovered sooner and dealt with more decisively. Cost-cutting. Senior management used to hire pubs managers to keep tech writers organized, productive, delivering to the same standards, and well-informed about the company’s technology. Most of today’s technical writers are in their late 40s and older – ever wonder why? – and don’t really need to be shepherded. No one trains anyone anymore; companies hire those who already understand their technology. And once there’s a style guide and template in place, senior management perceives that managers (especially pure managers) don’t add much value for their price. Regarding the role of Business Analyst, the attendees at the Berkeley STC meeting on 7/11/2012 discussed how the role has been tacked onto those of Application Engineers (at Advent Sw), Project Managers, Scrum Masters (at OSIsoft), and even Customer Representatives (at PG&E). As the person responsible for creating functional specs and ensuring that IT understands what in-house users need from (mostly) internally developed apps, the role of Business Analyst has morphed and, many would argue, become less distinct and thus secure.
- Sorry about the provocative nature of the first suggestion, but my personal experience since 1988 indicates that most technical writing-related programs, typically certificate courses, don’t provide a job-seeking advantage to the student. (It’s possible that what the student learned may make him or her a better technical communicator, but hiring managers almost uniformly ignore that possibility.) In today’s job market there are lots of experienced (but Recession-sidelined) professionals trying to get work; by comparison, newly minted certificate program graduates are qualified for little more than an internship – unless they also have relevant subject-matter experience. Yes, I consider those who teach much of the content in local certificate programs to have lost touch with what the marketplace really needs, and thus to be putting their students at a disadvantage. When those students come to me for a resume review or a market reality check, they always tell me that I’m the first one they’ve met who has given them hard, actionable information about the career they’ve been training for. They’ve spent up to two years chasing a hunch – that they might enjoy the work, that they’d be suited to it, and that it might pay them well – without any first-hand input from the marketplace. That’s disappointing. As a result, employers distrust academic training; they strongly prefer workplace experience. Employers ask for at least one peer-level reference to call to verify a candidate’s viability, and with new grads they can’t get even that. Unless they had an internship in a related arena, the experience (tools, technology, even writing ability) certificate grads offer is largely theoretical and thus almost worse than useless. The exceptions, as I noted to the San Francisco STC attendees 4/18/2012, always were Carnegie Mellon’s technical writing program, University of Washington’s technical communications program, and RPI’s similar offering. These aren’t certificates, but rather formal college majors. An attendee told me that UW has recently changed the focus of its program – to UX work. I haven’t kept up with what’s offered at CMU and RPI. Also, I respect for UC Berkeley Extension’s technical communications program because I know several people who teach it to be active, respected industry professionals. I just haven’t interacted with any of their graduates in the past 18 months to be able to tell whether the program has improved those candidates’ marketability. Three more things: 1. Build a portfolio online and link it to your LinkedIn profile. The portfolio demonstrates initiative, mastery of tools, and subject-matter awareness/interest. Make it easy for your target audience to get the info it wants. 2. Use LinkedIn to network, and LinkSV.com, Linkup.com, and VC sites to hunt for off-radar opportunities 3. Network in person via meetups (I like svnewtech a lot), and also via LinkedIn and corporate alumni networks
- My introduction promised ways to “upsell yourself and live at peace in a globalized economy” so here are some new job titles that are hybrids of core technical communications skills. Since the 4/18/2012 event I added “Terminology Manager” because, as indicated in previous notes, it’s integral to the translation and localization effort of larger companies. Many have asked what a Content Strategist is. See my comments in the Notes field of the next slide for my perspective. At the San Francisco STC meeting there was a very interesting discussion on the pros and cons of “Community Liaison” work, at least as practiced at Adobe. Three staff members of that team opined on their frustrations, largely resulting from the fact that Adobe management won’t let them author content – at all. One said management is fully committed to crowd-sourcing all content, and has in fact laid off all content developers throughout North America (US and Canada). As with all new roles, the duties and boundaries are in flux. On the positive side, there’s tons of work for these people, and for the most part they enjoy the customer interaction. I’m aware that other companies, notably Splunk and Mulesoft, involve technical writers almost daily in interactions with their customers and prospects. Again, for the most part, it’s a highly stimulating and productive arrangement. I wish more companies would let their technical writers out of their cubes. If yours does, let me know andrewd@contentrules.com.
- See related comments in previous page’s Notes section. Regarding people calling themselves “Content Strategists” (previous page), I’ve seen 20-something copywriters and 50-something tech pubs consultants. Interestingly, all Facebook’s writers are called Content Strategists; judging by their LinkedIn profiles they write and manage web marketing content but have no tech experience. After attending dozens of content strategy webinars and scrutinizing LinkedIn profiles, here’s my take. Today’s content strategist is a blend of content developer, user experience pro, SEO expert, marketing writer, information architect, and managing editor. The goal of a content strategist is ensuring that the right content reaches the right audience in the right language at the right time on the right device so that the user engages, but also so that all possible efficiencies are achieved (including reuse, standardized terminology, and content optimization). Content strategy is definitely not tech writing, training, instructional design, project management, editing, localization, or production work, although all of these processes may be involved tangentially (eg, to create a terminology database, or to migrate unstructured content to structured, or to implement a content management system). At a high level, content strategy involves deciding which deliverables to create for which audiences, and ensuring consistent messaging (visual branding, tone, accessibility). At a low level, it involves XML (and sometimes DITA), virtualized storage solutions, component content management systems (CCMSs), networking, and interaction with translation vendors. In between, it involves creating and enforcing best practices for content creation, maintainability, review, and deployment. There seems to be a clear division between the profiles of technical and non-technical content strategists. The latter often have backgrounds in web writing, journalism, marketing, publishing, non-technical instructional design, social media, and mass-market writing. The former come from the world of technical content development (for example, technical writing, technical training, information architecting, toolsmithing, technical instructional design, and content management). Anecdotally, non-technical content strategists are often 2-3 decades younger than the average technical ones.
- This is a (very) incomplete list. I also don’t mean to suggest that one must manage in order to get ahead; in fact, moving into management can be disastrous. You’ll probably notice that some of these careers are on the Tepid and Not-so-Hot; I also don’t necessarily endorse these transitions. (Just sayin’.) Following the 2001 tech wreck, I tracked the fields into which a number of experienced technical communicators moved at “Career Paths for Tired Tech Writers” (http://www.synergistech.com/career-paths.shtml), and would be happy to connect anyone interested in reaching out to these individuals.