Letter from the UK: Mapping Technical Communicators

Sarah Maddox will be soon speaking at the STC Summit on API Technical Writing: What, Why, and How. She recently posted an article on her blog on how she has used APIs to create an interactive map showing technical communication events around the world. This in turn prompted me to look at whether I could create a map showing the location of Technical Authors around the UK. You can see the map here: Cherryleaf Survey—Location of Technical Authors map.

I wasn't sure if anyone had attempted to create a similar map in North America, so I've created:

If you are a US or Canadian technical communicator, please add your details, using the form. The map might be useful for identifying where there are clusters and shortages of technical communicators.

Please note: For privacy reasons, the map doesn't include people's name or email address. It simply shows their location, whether they are an employee or a freelancer, and how many years they've been a technical communicator.

I used Google Forms to create the form. This stores the results in a Google spreadsheet. I then filtered the results to hide the email and names of respondents. I then created a custom map in Google Maps and imported the data from the spreadsheet. At the moment, this map uses Google Maps Engine to import the data, rather than the Google JavaScript API approach Sarah used. This means the maps I created do not update automatically (it requires a little intervention from me). I hope to pick Sarah's brain to fix this.

Sarah's map of technical communication tidbits around the world is certainly useful. I hope my map of a map of technical communicators based in North America will be of interest as well.

Let me know what you think.

Ellis Pratt is director at Cherryleaf, a UK technical writing services company. Ranked the most influential blogger on technical communication in Europe, Ellis is a specialist in the field of creating clear and simple information users will love.

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