The Evolution of an Industry

As technologies continue to advance, the ways that users consume, and expect to consume, information is also evolving. As a result, the roles, responsibilities, and skills of the technical communicator continue to shift and expand. It is not acceptable to simply produce long, static, user manuals in PDF formats. Instead, we must consider embedded user assistance, videos, virtual and augmented reality, chatbots and other forms of artificial intelligence. We are an industry in flux. We are no longer “writers” but information architects, user experience designers, taxonomists, and programmers. We must collaborate with marketing, training, customer support, and engineering to support user information needs along their entire journey. This presentation examines the current trends in technical communication and what they imply about the skills you should be acquiring today to be ready for tomorrow.

Meet the presenter

Dawn Stevens is the President, and owner of Comtech Services and the Director of the Center for Information-Development Management. With over 25 years of experience, including 15 years at Comtech, Dawn has practical experience in virtually every role within a documentation and training department, including project management, instructional design, writing, editing, and multimedia programming. With both engineering and technical communication degrees, Dawn combines a solid technical foundation with strong writing and design skills to identify and remove the challenges her clients face in producing usable, technical information and training.

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