The Tech Comm Café meeting on February 19 provided an opportunity to catch up after the December hiatus and the cancellation of the January meeting because of a rare and traffic-snarling snowstorm.
Several people who attended were making the transition to technical writing from other careers that included nursing, journalism, translation, and teaching English at a local university or abroad. Some were enrolled in a technical writing program, some had recently graduated, and some were teaching themselves programming skills and tools either to improve their chances of finding work or simply because they enjoy learning new things.
We debated the relative merits of various programming languages and the conflicting definitions of “language agnostic,” a term that was new to some of us. It might be used to describe a person who knows multiple languages and doesn’t have a strong preference for any of them, but it might also refer to a program or script that doesn’t depend on a particular language.
This led us to discuss whether programming skills and subject expertise are more important to employers than writing skills. Some employers require pre-employment writing tests that can take from half an hour to a full weekend to complete. Are they worth your time, or should you set a limit, refuse, or offer an alternative such as an existing sample from your portfolio? If you offer to write a couple of sample pages about the employer’s product, who owns the work? Should you charge them for it? Will they “take it and run,” keeping and using the work but declining to hire you?
When writers get together they often end up discussing language quirks, and this meeting was no exception. We heard about the challenges of transliterating the word “croissant” into different Chinese characters for North American and British audiences, and discussed hyphenation of compound words: “Web site” has now morphed into “website” almost everywhere, but should you write “up to date” or “up-to-date”? (Answer: it depends.)
The meeting demonstrated the great variety of tasks and skills that keep technical writers’ jobs interesting!
The Tech Comm Café provides networking opportunities, job leads, answers to work-related dilemmas, and a burst of professional energy to keep you motivated. We discuss technical writing tools and techniques, career planning, portfolios, and anything else related to working as a technical communicator.
We welcome anyone who’s interested in technical communication — contractor, in-house, student, long-time tech writer, STC member, non-member, career-changer, or recruiter. We hope to see you at the next meeting!
Next Meeting: ONLINE on Wednesday, March 18, 2020
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- If you plan to attend, please RSVP by 4 p.m. Wednesday, March 18 to receive login instructions.
Date: Wednesday, March 18
Time: 7:30–8:30 p.m. Pacific Time
Location: Online via Zoom.
Agenda
- Introductions. Take 60 seconds to introduce yourself, your background, current activities. A good chance to try out that new elevator speech.
- Announcements and job leads. If you know of an interesting event or a job opening, or you’re looking for work, share it with the group.
- Brainstorming Q&A. Ask about a work-related problem and discuss potential solutions.
- Networking. Chat with other technical writers and discuss your professional backgrounds, goals, questions, advice.
Heather Sommerville is a senior technical writer and editor with over 20 years of experience delivering clear, concise writing for business and technical audiences. She is an STC Associate Fellow and has served in many volunteer positions with the STC Canada West Coast chapter.