Technical Communication Poll: Those Pesky People Skills

Here’s one for the “other” bucket”: Learning something about your SMEs’ non-work lives — family, hobbies, interests — and using it to build rapport with them. You get a lot farther when you approach them as fellow humans rather than simply as “resources.”

I think the point of the Yahoo article is that tech writing is not a “high” people contact career likes sales, customer service, HR… Anyone who thrives on high people contact would probably be bored out of their mind in most writing professions. This article on Tech Whirl appears to be a hypersensitive response to a fairly well-accepted belief that writing is a good career for introverts. In no way did the Yahoo article imply that tech writers do not have to interact at all with other people, which is something that is required in all fields. It is just a matter of degree.

Hi Teresa,

Hypersensitive we’re not. It’s just a poll question designed to start a discussion about people skills and what it takes to do well in this field, nothing more. The article generated a lot of buzz on the email discussion list because it’s a very superficial attempt at discussing a career that the writer clearly has no clue about. That tends to hack off a lot of Whirlers who were offended by references to stocking refrigerators and living inside their own heads. In fact, I agree with a couple of the posters in the discussion that it’s a fluff piece designed to get folks to click on the links to the for-profit school. But it sure was good for getting a debate started!

The trouble with generally accepted beliefs is that it’s hard to figure out how they got started, and how to combat them. I keep hearing that technical writing is a field that’s ideal for introverts, but I haven’t seen any evidence that more TWs are introverted than not. If it’s available, please share it with us, it would add a lot to our discussions. Thanks for the post!

Leadership skills are extremely important as well. I often have to lead a documentation planning meeting to make sure the whole project team is on the same page in terms of expectations, responsibilities, scope, schedule, methodology, etc. That means I need to keep people on task during the meeting, make sure there are no misunderstandings or miscommunications, be convincing, and just generally interact well with others.

Connie’s right, Yahoo created the piece to generate controversy and, more importantly, web ad clicks.

I’d love to see a true introvert perform the routine tasks I’m required to manage just to get my deliverable to market by deadline (I create both Online Help and demonstration videos). Shy and retiring is one thing I can’t be if I want to succeed.

One skill I’d have to add to a tech writer’s arsenal of effective tool’s would have to be gentle intimidation…er, persuasion. I see developers as the true introverts, and it sometimes takes the gloved fist of fear to produce the required information. Sounds worse than it really is, and being nice and all that is great, but sometimes…