What will be the future of Technical Writing

1. FUTURE OF TECHNICAL
WRITING
Mak Pandit
mak@technowrites.com

2. IN THIS SESSION
 Future of Career
 Future of tools
 Future of processes
 Ideas to ponder upon
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
2

3. ABOUT ME
Mak Pandit
20+ years in Technical Communication
MD – Technowrites, Director – Zetaversity
Associate Fellow STC
Past President STC India
Past Owner TWIN
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
3

4. RECAP OF IMPORTANT CHANGES IN
LAST 15 YEARS
 India saw influx of investments and increase in offshore development facilities
 Global teams
 Indian managers managing global projects
 Lay-offs in the west (also started in India)
 New careers being created, in spite of lack of formal education (Technical
Writing, ID, User Experience, Product Evangelists)
 Careers settling down (jobs stabilizing)
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
4

5. OBVIOUS CHANGES
 Communities are user’s platforms of choice
 Cloud is the platform of choice
 Ever-increasing use of Devices – More Apps
 Increase in number of users – some of them never used technology
before
 Users getting smarter – some of them already knowing competitive
products
 Users preparing documents themselves – User Generated Content –
Videos, Discussions, Blogs, Mailing Lists
 Increasing popularity of open-source applications
 Changes in design/development/manufacturing processes
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
5

6. SUBTLE CHANGES
 Communities opening up more and more
 Users relying on Data Security
 Different configurations of cloud are available (including Public, Private,
Cloud-in-a-box, Hybrid, and so on)
 Open-source has caught up with premium products, and may lead them soon
 Overall team-size has shrunk
 Development life-cycle has shrunk
 Marketing has become focused and thinner
 Virtualization is increasing
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
6

7. CHALLENGES/OPPORTUNITIES
 Developing user’s interest
 Making product available through devices and cloud
 Searching content and making sense of it (Web 3.0: Semantic Web)
 Going beyond text
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
7

8. FUTURE OF CONTENT
 Multi-authored
 Reused
 Minimalized
 Structured
 User generated
 Intelligent
 Rated
 Scaled
 Curated
 Auto-updated
 Amalgamated
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
8

9. FUTURE OF PROCESSES
 Group-authoring (sharing, searching, managing, tracking)
 Cloud-based authoring, reviewing, publishing (using cloud-based tools like
CMS, Wikis)
 Media-dependent workflows (different inputs, tools, and deliverables)
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
9

10. FUTURE OF TOOLS
 Open-source
 Cloud-based
 Open-standard (epub3, html, xml, DocBook, DITA)
 SaaS Pricing
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
10

11. FUTURE OF CAREER
 ID & TW have merged
 Content Writing is merging
 In select cases, localization/translation will merge
 Penetration & spread of all writing careers will increase
 Videos producers, Marketing collateral authors will be in demand
 User Experience Designers will be sought after
 Proposal Writing will be in demand
 Increased freelancing opportunities (enabled by shrinking team sizes and
availability of open-source tools)
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
11

12. THINK OF ADDING THESE TO YOUR
SKILLS
 Business knowhow
 Testing skills
 Sound/Video Recording & Editing skills
 Presentation skills
 User Interaction skills
 Technical knowhow (SEO, Internet Advertising, Virtualization)
 Information research & analysis (RSS Feeds, Big Data, Analytics)
 Freelancing
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
12

13. IDEAS TO PONDER
 Will everything be possible for everyone
 Will the jobs of pure technical writers be in danger
 Should one learn to author in more than one language
 Will you be able to take the part-time freelance work
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
13

14. QUESTIONS?
 Mail your questions to mak@technowrites.com
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
14

15. THANK YOU
Feel free to give feedback and inputs
mak@technowrites.com
Send me a mail and I will share the links
with you
23-Aug-14(c) 2014. Mak Pandit.
15