Strategically Named

So very often I hear about how tech writing is a dying industry, and it makes me sad. Then, I remember that our name has just changed. The bluster is just bluster. We are content managers, information engineers, media strategists, and so on. The funny thing about some of this rebranding is, I recently looked on Glassdoor, and learned that, depending on what you call yourself, the salary for those titles varies widely.

For example, the average “media strategist” nationally is clocking in at $46,736, while the national average for a “content strategist” $70,000. I’m wondering what the huge distinction is, to be honest. And, I can admit that I don’t really know. My work title is information engineer because I am in a company full of engineers. We make software, we build solutions in the fast-paced software world, so my work is a little more specialized. If you want to know the national average on that salary, I’ll let you do your own research, and then I’ll reassure you that I am not making what Glassdoor says.

I looked on Wikipedia, and the generalist definition of Information Engineering is that we take a software engineering approach to writing and developing information systems, or that mostly we are computer geeks who write. Well…I’m actually a writer who enjoys software systems. I was hired to work specifically on mainframe systems even though I knew almost nothing about mainframes when I joined the company. I think the big distinction is that, as writers, we know how to communicate complex information and that we have knack for learning things. Definitely if I was not into learning, I would stink at this job. But what actually separates me from a “media strategist” in terms of my skillset? That is to say, what if I wanted to leapfrog from my current job into media strategy? Am I working on the tools that might be portable enough to move from one position to another? Yes. And you should too.

In this field, I argue that it is critically important to continue honing not just the technical acumen, but the strategy, to keep abreast of what is going on in other writing areas in order to be as portable as possible. My specific company is using what might not be considered the most cutting-edge authoring tools, so I make sure I learn some techniques and tools outside of my daily grind in order to stay on top of what’s out there elsewhere. So, if you are in a particular niche, say Information Engineering, it is not an altogether terrible thing to make sure that you know that a “media strategist,” for example, is an increasingly complex role that puts you in charge of content delivery in broadcast arenas. Knowing this, in my role as a software documentation writer, I step up on a regular basis and record videos, work with a program called Captivate (an Adobe product) and just play around with what is out there on YouTube in instructional video land. Admittedly, this is never going to put me in the C-Suite of media strategy, but neither is it going to leave me looking like a gasping fish.

Likewise, I try to keep tabs on other media and collaborative tools like #slack or Asana for collaboration tools. If you are knee-deep in managing content projects, you’ll surely want to be adept with these beauties, or at least one of them. My company is currently using Flowdock. It’s not my favorite, but it is a powerful tool, proven with doc-sharing and it gets  around. Some companies are making great use of Yammer as a powerful intranet communication device as well. I recommend at least having a working knowledge of these gadgets. You can’t go wrong, and a broad skills base is never a bad thing, right? Right.

What about the idea of content strategy, you say? These things lean on media management. A recent post was about content, and I daresay I could reiterate that everything I do is about content – content is text, video, graphics, interfacing all of these things into a usable, consumable, finable set or even suite of instructions and understandable items that users can then put to use, find again if necessary and move on if not. From an installation guide to a set of scenarios for implementation to third-party software agreements, it all has to be chunked into usable bits of information in the best way(s) possible, and it is up to us – the wordsmiths, the video script writers, the graphic designers, and the UX specialists, to get it right. And often, more and more and more often – we are the same person.

I suppose all of this goes to say that in the pool of tech writing tools, we aren’t supposed to stay focused only on the items that specifically make us “tech” writers. So grab that pint and start spending part of your day – every single day – finding what’s out there to make you the best writer, editor, designer and consumer. Because that is your new name. It’s been mine for a while. Communications specialist? A rose is a rose is a technical writer is a media strategist is a content implementation designer. All I know is I craft exceptional messaging every day.

Nice to meet you.