Communicating in the Workplace

How important is technical communication?
Technical communication in today’s market place is one of the strongest assets anyone can bring to an organization, that’s if your starting your business or joining one. It has been shown regularly with surveys from people that oral and written communication skills are among the most important trades you can have in a technical workspace. The strong paradox that surrounds technical jobs is the ability to communicate verbally among the work that is being done. In order to succeed in a technical demanding career a college graduate is demanded for technical writing abilities, from engineering to the sciences.

What is technical communication?
Good question, the book put’s it this way. Technical communication is a process of managing technical information in ways that allow people to take action, so in other words its the ability to present information to the right people at the right time with the right type of presentation which can be done may ways internet,databases,USB’s, and many more not just simply translating a complex idea into writing.

Technical communication actions words and images
How can action words and images set apart your technical writing? probably up to now most of us just have written papers for other peers or instructors but none for technical communication channels, this type of writing is a new form of communication because it puts more emphasis on the action with words, images, and anticipating the needs of the readers wile at the same time trying to set aside ethics,issues of legality, politics, and culture.

Interactive and adaptable

With the mainstreaming of computers and the role they play in communication at this time, documents can be updated, removed, edited, revised and commented on. This was not always the case before if something was printed it stayed that way with out change for a long time. Now technical communication has to be interactive (keep the readers reading) and adaptable (change can be made easily).

Reader Centered

Keeping the readers centered is essential to technical writing here are some simple ways to do it.
-Efficient (only tell them what they need to know)
-easy to understand
-accessible (easy to understand ideas images)
-adaptable (change documents on the fly)
-action oriented (tell them to do something)

Teamwork

Working with a team of people collaborating in projects can be fun and rewarding, not only are teams great for getting things done but also good for managing and maintaining documents.

Visual

In this time and era, some technical documents take full advantage on the ability of the computer being able to generate images, videos and graphics. Most technical documents get red to go out and do something, by visually showing what your going to be doing today’s readers can quickly get things done.

Ethical, Legal, and Political Dimensions

Now the information is being shared at much faster pace then ever before, one must stop and question what really is going in ethics, law and politics. It is become more of common practice to allow employees to make decision with out high departments getting involved in the issues. Here are some of the things to watch out for when decisions need to be made
-any documents that involve ethical issues of rights, justice, and fairness (knowing ethical issues)
-legal issues including liability, copyright, and how ownership is portrayed.
-political issues this some times can get complex so be careful

International and cross cultural

In the ever expanding global market,  a new challenge has to be met. Not only will you communicating and working with people in other countries but you also have to grow accustom to different cultural backgrounds they hold. But wait you might not even have to travel or Skype your friend in India, cross-cultural communication is coming more and more common in the us with the rise of minorities from different social backgrounds.

Help: E-literacy and overcoming cyber-phobia

Ok, so if you have been locked up in a cage for the last 50 years and have never got a chance or have not let yourself enter the new cyber world. Take some time and really start enjoying all the new features and advantages that technology lets you enjoy. The phobia will be gone before you know it, a good starting point would be to start actually solve problems with this new technology and see where you go from there.

Your career and technical communication
Ok, so if you have gotten this far a question might be pondering in your mind, “why do i need technical writing” i am going to go ahead and give you an example, i was talking to a software engineer a couple of months ago and i went ahead and asked him a question to tell about how often he uses mathematics on an everyday project. His reply goes as follows. “i use math most of my days but what takes up most of my hours is documentation and communications including collaboration with team members which sometimes involves both” as you can see technical communication is one the strongest assets you can bring to any job.
Quick Review

*computers, the internet, and instant communication have changed technical communication in the work place.

*technical communication should be presented in a way that lets the reader take action.

*readers expect images, graphics, visuals and design when reading technical information

*technical communication is very closely related to team work and user oriented.

*don’t forget that technical communication has cross-cultural,  international, political and ethical considerations.