Last month Forbes magazine published the article, “The Evolution of the User Manual.” The subhead clearly stated something that you as a technical communicator probably already know: “Products and services documentation is now a core business asset that can drive revenues.” Not only does documentation help bring in clients, but it helps you service current clients cheaper, the article states. A help desk call might cost $5, $50, or even more; users who find answers in a forum or documentation cost a company much, much less.
How have you seen your documentation efforts affect the bottom line of your company or client? How has your work saved money, brought in new clients, or otherwise been an asset? We invite you to read the article and give Forbes your two cents as a technical communicator. Provide some real-life examples to hammer home the article’s point!
It’s interesting that the mainstream business press is only now noticing the impact of technical communication on the bottom line. Long ago at a computer company far away, we developed user documentation so good that not only did we reduce support costs for our product but we also had users who were not even our customers clamoring to buy our documentation for many areas of the UNIX operating system. Unfortunately, this was too long ago to be relevant in adding to the point of the Forbes article.
It is really sad that the value of good tech doc is finally being noticed at a time when technical communication as a career is being devalued by so many companies. Maybe the Forbes article will give some impetus to tech pubs managers to stand up for the value of their departments.
Hi Janet,
Any manager, techcomm or otherwise, who does not stand up for the value of their department deserves to be fired. But the issue here isn’t that managers aren’t standing up for the value of their department (I’d hope) but that they’re not communicating that value effectively. I think this Forbes article, despite some of the negative noise it’s generated among the techcomm community, communicates the value well and in a language business leaders understand (and perhaps that’s the cause for the noise). I applaud the article and hope others follow from other prominent names in the business world (and while that too has been debated, having the CEO of a company specializing in enterprise documentation solutions kick this off is entirely appropriate).
Bill