My Blog's Mission Statement

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

Albert Einstein must have been thinking of technical communicators when he made that statement. In technical communication, it's not quantity but quality that matters. I have been in the field of technical communication for over 20 years, and Einstein was absolutely right: if I don't understand something, there's no way I can explain it to someone else. So being a technical communicator means you have to be a Renaissance person - you need to have the interest to learn new things and then figure out how to present that information to others in the most user-friendly, effective way possible.

Through this blog, I hope to explore the issues facing technical communicators as knowledge becomes more and more specialized. Do you have to have a computer science degree to be a software documentation specialist? It sure helps to have at least a basic understanding of how applications work. What is a variable? What about a parameter? How does a database work? Furthermore, what is the best way to describe a database? Should I use images or tables? If I am creating online documentation, should I use animations or static images?

In addition to examining these issues, I also feel compelled to examine how we can use documentation to make technology less intimidating and more appealing to young girls today so that they might consider pursuing careers in technical fields. When I attended a technical university back in the 1980s, the undergraduate student body was only 20% female. Surprisingly, that statistic is still the same in 2009. How can we use technical communication to make technology something to be understood and created by girls, instead of just used?

(image reprinted without permission from www.sandia.gov)