Guest post by Buck Wilbur.
Are Technical Communicators also Knowledge Managers?
Much of today’s organizational production is accomplished by people putting their ideas into computers. Everyone is constantly on their computer. Whether you are an accountant, an aircraft designer, a lawyer, or a technical writer—we all use it as our main productivity tool. We use it to store ideas that we create in our heads. Most of us spend the majority of our work time creating an ocean of information.
But what happens to this sea of information that we are constantly producing? Is anyone responsible for ensuring that the best bits—the really creative and valuable stuff—gets to all the right people, in the right format, at the right time? Are we even recording our organization’s best ideas? Does anybody filter and channel this flood of ideas so we can leverage the organization’s productivity? Who manages the workflow for capturing these ideas so that they can be used for a productive purpose? Who defines the discipline for moving these ideas from brain to disc—and out to other brains? Is it the technical communicator?
Knowledge is the major factor in the performance of an organization’s work. Managing that knowledge is a critical, but still a relatively obscure discipline. As it happens, today’s technical communicators may be knowledge management’s leading practitioners. Technical communicators capture the expert’s insights everyday. But that is just the first step in managing organizational knowledge. They also document the organization’s processes, procedures, and policies. Technical communicators develop training collateral, administer content management systems, and document all kinds of methodologies and other domains.
Yes, it sounds like today’s technical communicators are already tomorrow’s knowledge managers. Who knew? You can know more with Buck Wilbur’s webinar on 16 June, The Technical Communicator’s Transition to Corporate Knowledge Manager. Click the link for more information and to register.
There is a profession that has been managing knowledge for many decades. The practitioners are called “librarians.” Of course good communication is a fundamental requirement of effective knowledge management but there are a good many other skills involved as well. Librarians are trained in information organization, information needs assessment, intellectual property issues, metadata, information architecture and many other areas vital to good knowledge management. I think many of our members would find getting an ALA accredited Masters degree rewarding — both intellectually and in their career paths.