By Carol Leahy
As technical communicators, we have a wealth of soft skills at our disposal. These soft skills are our calling card and we can use these to gain influence and respect within our organization. In this article, I aim to summarize the core skills that can be of use in gaining influence. In my opinion, the number one reason that technical communicators do not have an influence in their organization is that their work colleagues have no idea what a technical communicator is and what value they bring to the organization as a whole. Why don’t they know? Because we don’t tell them. This is a shame, especially when you consider the most important soft skill we have is our ability to communicate. This skill is the heart of what we do. We spend our working day communicating within our individual teams so we can effectively communicate how a product functions to the user. But do we ever take the opportunity to communicate with other teams in our organization and show them what we can do? It’s time we started.
The Customer Is King
To gain influence, people need to know you exist in the first place. They need to know what a technical writer does and what technical communication is. They need to see what you can do and how it is transferable to other areas of the organization as well as being essential to the area in which you currently work. The soft skills that we possess are becoming ever more important to organizations. This is due in part to the new buzzword customer experience. It’s all about customers right now. They have a voice and they will use it. The popularity of social media has seen a rise in customers taking to these platforms to voice their grievances with products, companies, and brands. Twitter is the probably the most popular platform for this. When people tweet their frustrations at having to assemble a piece of furniture from really bad instructions, everyone who follows that person can see the tweet. One Twitter account, useless assistance (@uselessassist), is becoming popular in the technical communication world for retweeting such tweets to serve as a reminder to organizations that people are frustrated when dealing with poorly prepared assistance. As a technical communicator, I find these tweets eye opening. I cringe at some of the negative comments aimed at my area of expertise, but I also see the benefits of highlighting these comments as it makes people aware of how important the work we do as technical communicators is and (hopefully) starts organizations pumping resources into this area.
As technical communicators, it is our job to write for the customer. We put ourselves in their shoes and write documentation that will be understood by them. We are the voice of the customer and we need to tell people in our organization about this. Organizations are beginning to see how important it is to communicate the right message to customers, and who better to ask to communicate these messages than technical communicators? We know that we are the best people for this job, we just need to show the right people that we have the skills to do it.
Ask Questions
As communicators, if something doesn’t sound right to us, we question it. We question why an interface was designed the way it was, we query the naming convention for new functions, and we walk through the help files to make sure each step is correct. I’m not saying that developers or management don’t ask these questions, but sometimes you need a fresh pair of eyes at different times of the product cycle. This is something we already do at a team level and it’s something that we need to start doing at a higher level. You have a voice; you have an opinion so let it be heard. Speak up in team and departmental meetings. Let people know what work you have been doing all week and what value you are bringing to projects and the company as a whole. If you hear about a project in a meeting that will impact your work, start asking questions about it then. We all have a fear that the questions we ask may be silly, but if you don’t understand how something works, then how are you meant to write documentation that explains this for the user?
Detectives in Training
One of the reasons that most people are successful as technical communicators is our attention to detail. We spot things others might not; even the tiniest detail can make a huge difference in a user manual. A lot of the research work we do is detective work, pouring over specifications and talking to developers until we can piece the information together correctly. This is a great skill to have and we need to start using it outside of the team. Find out what is going on in the organization and how you can get involved, especially socially. Is there a team sport that you would like to join? Getting to know your colleagues in a non-work environment can make it easier to find out what’s going on in the workplace. The more people know you and know what you can do, the more likely they are to remember that you can help them with communicating a message.
Innate Quest for Knowledge
I think it’s fair to say that most technical communicators are lifelong learners of everything. Every technical communicator I know either plays an instrument, writes novels in their spare time, creates patchwork quilts, or is in the midst of acquainting themselves with a new language. Most see these as hobbies, things they do to unwind after a long day. I see these as an example of our quest for knowledge. You need to use these to your advantage. Start a creative group with your work colleagues and create a patchwork quilt for charity, or maybe you have a colleague who plays another instrument that you want to learn, so why not ask them to teach you? If you want to learn a new coding language and you know there is a developer, is he willing to teach you? Don’t be shy; show your enthusiasm for learning something new that’s relevant to your job no matter how tough it might seem. Enthusiasm goes a long way in a work environment.
Chances are you have a hobby that you love and is related to your job, so use it to bring attention to what you do. For example, an interest in learning Chinese might get you thinking of translating your documentation into other languages and the benefits and value this will bring to your company. Our quest for knowledge helps us build up our list of contacts. The more people know us and what we do, the more influence you can have in the organization
Creative Thinkers
Communicating a big message using an image or just a few sentences is an everyday task for most of us. In a lot of cases, we have to think outside the box to find the solution. We put ourselves in users’ shoes to get a sense of how they will use the product and what they are going to look for in the documentation. You want to communicate the message in the simplest way possible, but we also need to be creative. Most of the technical communicators I know have creative hobbies and draw inspiration from them to bring to their work. My hobby is jigsaw puzzles, and I always start with the bits that I can easily put together and keep working until the more difficult pieces are left. My approach to creating images for documentation in my workplace is the mirror image of this. I always start with what I know is definite and slowly build until the last piece, which makes sense of the whole image.
Born Organizers
Technical communicators work to a deadline, so being able to prioritize our work is an essential key skill. If you are a born organizer, chances are you’ve found yourself working in the technical communication field. We work to deadlines, which more often than not are tight deadlines. Last-minute code changes or changes to a user interface are common in the software industry, so prioritizing our workload to ensure it gets completed in time is crucial. Even though this is an important skill in the workplace, it is not one that everyone has. Maybe you can give coaching lessons to others in your team on how to prioritize the workload? You might teach these skills to engineers who write design specifications, for example. There is always a challenge in getting engineers to communicate a message clearly in a concise way that everyone can understand.
Summary
Most of what I have discussed here is aimed at getting you out of your comfort zone and interacting with others in your organization. In my opinion, this is the best way to start on the road to having influence in your organization. Elevator speeches are great, but put your money where your mouth is and, instead of just telling people what you do, show them. We have so many useful transferable skills, but we need to start showcasing them. The next time you are in the kitchen making yourself a coffee, start a conversation with someone you haven’t talked to before. Find out what they do within the organization and, more importantly, let them know what you do and what your value to the company is. The more people who know what a technical communicator does, the better.
CAROL LEAHY is a technical author for Siemens PLM Software in Cambridge, UK, where she writes API documentation. She has been a technical author since 2011 and an amateur baker almost her whole life. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and a Master’s in interactive media. You can follow her and her culinary efforts on Twitter @yellowshoe82.