A Note from the Editor – March Intercom

March Intercom 2015A common theme in this issue on megatrends in technical communication is the human factor. In three articles on disruptive technologies—the Internet of Things, Big Data, and machine translation—the authors have each shown how human effort is a required factor in interaction with these technological solutions, in such roles as user advocates, data interpreters, and translation experts.

Although there has always been a certain level of distrust associated with disruptive technologies, the authors in this issue argue that tech solutions should be embraced by technical communicators because of the new opportunities and career growth they produce, along with an increased emphasis on tools to help research and the work in the field. For example, in their article on Big Data, Michael Salvo and Adam Strantz argue for the “humanization of technology” and that technical communication’s role in Big Data must be the role we have played with other disruptive events—“representing people and their needs.” In “We Are All Things in the Internet of Things,” Ray Gallon defines the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) and explains that, in a content economy, people are required to not only interpret Big Data, but also to communicate the analysis to stakeholders. And in his article on megatrend machine translation, Alan Houser emphasizes that issues with machine translation quality are being resolved with the addition of human translators in the process, which meets a global demand for localized content.

This issue also marks the launch of a new column on globalization, “Working Locally, Communicating Globally,” by Kirk St.Amant. In the column, he defines the REACH approach to developing online materials for international audiences. In “Meet the Change Agents,” Scott Abel interviews Philip Wisniewski on content engineering—“a discipline of applying an engineering lens to content and a content lens to engineering.” And Ferry Vermeulen reviews a new release of Flare, with detailed features, including frameless website output for HTML5, Doc-to-Help import, absolute positioning, and much more.

STC also published its annual Year in Review this month. To learn about the state of your professional association, read more on page 24. And two articles on the annual Summit in Columbus, Ohio, remind us that it’s time to register for the premier technical communication conference! Hope to see you there!

To read the March issue of Intercom, visit intercom.stc.org.

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