The Evolution of Technical Communication

As engineers, we are often reluctant communicators.  I remember my first job out of college, working in the electrical engineering R&D dept at a now-defunct Fortune 500 company. It is safe to say that “writing the manuals” was usually the last item on the list of tasks for almost every project;  nobody wanted to do it, but being the newest person there, it was a task that usually fell to me.  A decade ago, technical communication was done with very rudimentary tools, using Word or Robohelp, and distributing documentation updates via CD-ROM.

The growth of technical communication industry is testament to the fact that technical writing is an art all to itself.  An outgrowth of what was once only thought of as “manual writing”, technical communication has evolved over the past few years into a much more social, collaborative process.  The advent, and staggering growth, of social collaborative technology has changed the world of technical communication forever.  Whereas before technical writing was thought of as more of an afterthought, it now sits front and center in the interface between a company and their customers; talk about a crucial positioning!

In the past, for example at my first employer, the path from a user finding a way to solve a problem to the release of updated documentation took about a month or more;  could you imagine waiting that long for something today?

Technical communicators and their tools are evolving to meet the needs of today’s real time content. Using a system like MindTouch Technical Communications Suite enables users to make live changes to documentation, shortening the time required from a month to just a few seconds.

The University of Washington recently re-named their degree in Technical Communication which they are now calling “Human Centered Design and Engineering” to reflect the changing nature of Technical Communication.

Here at MindTouch, we have seen this change coming for the past few years.  The growth of social tools, higher demands from customers, and a need to engage with the community have helped us shape our latest Technical Communication solution.  In our latest release, we’ve built in powerful features to empower everyone from engineers to customers to become not just consumers of documentation, but producers as well.  MindTouch solutions are enabling our customers to migrate away from the slow technical documentation solutions of the past and deploy solutions that meet the needs of today’s real time communication channels.