Here we are, at the end of my TECM 5200 coursework. 8 weeks ago, if someone said the phrase “SWOT analysis,” I would have assumed we were talking about law enforcement—not strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Transitioning from an academic to a techcomm career has reminded me of a line from T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets:
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
So, from this starting point at the end of this class, here are some final thoughts on what I’ve learned in this course.
What’s the most important thing someone learning about content strategy should do?
On the macro level, I found the most important lesson involved two interrelated pieces of advice:
- Businesses care about the bottom line, not split infinitives
- Always connect your content to what businesses care about
This advice summarizes Dr. Kim Sydow Campbell and Val Swisher’s article, as well as Val’s guest lecture. It is easy for writers to get stuck studying the grammatical fence and ignore the world of content that exists beyond the post. Minute details are important, but technical communicators need to learn how to frame those details in a way that addresses a business’ concern.
This leads to my second point: we need to know how to frame our content and our tasks. For example, in Paula Landenburg Land’s Content Audits and Inventories, the first two chapters describe why you need to conduct an audit in the first place. You have to communicate effectively, framing your concerns as a technical communicator in a way that addresses the primary anxiety of C-Suite: profitability.
My third point connects to my second: the importance of writing to a wide audience.
In our inventory and audit, one of our client’s consistent problems was inaccessible language. One of the most important lessons about technical communication is writing to individuals with different concerns or capacities than yourself. This reiterates a Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) quote I used in a previous blog post, “Anton Chekhov, Apple Maps, and the Power of Consistent, Accessible Content”: Accessibility is “essential for some, useful for all.”
Whether you’re targeting the C-Suite or individuals with assistive technologies, a good technical communicator should use language that welcomes—rather than isolates—the reader to understand the content. This is basic communication, yet it is easy to overlook when we get stuck in our own little worlds.
Fourth, I would encourage someone learning about content strategy to, in the words of some shoe brand no one’s heard about, just do it.
After college, I was looking at graduate programs to pursue. I want to write novels (does any English major not want to write novels?), so I was debating between going down an academic track with a MA in Literature or a more creative track with an MFA in Creative Writing.
Someone—I’ve forgotten who—told me, “James Joyce didn’t get an MFA.”
The point isn’t to dismiss MFAs. Some of the best writers of the late 20th century earned an MFA. (And James Joyce didn’t even get a graduate degree.) The point is: If you want to be a great novelist, imitate the best novelists: read great novels, join a writing group, write daily, etc.
So, if you want you want to become a strong technical communicator, begin.
What’s the most important thing someone learning about content strategy should NOT do?
For me, the biggest error would be writing inaccessible language.
Not only does it isolate those with assistive technologies, but it also showcases your ignorance of individuals who use them. Pragmatic arguments like this one may not be the norm. Usually, companies and corporations appeal to inclusivity, which is apt. But, if we are technical communicators, and the goal of communication is to translate ideas to the widest, most diverse audience, why would you employ outmoded, exclusive language? You’re not only limiting your audience but highlighting your own limitations as a communicator.
The most impactful piece of information I learned was about reusable content. I had no idea Component Content Management Systems (CCMS) existed. After completing TECM 5200, I’m taking a class on Digital Literacies, so I’m looking forward to learning more about how these databases and “chunks” of text function.
What was most meaningful about content strategy for your own career goals? Why?
When I was in college, I organized student events. In February of my senior year, I went to my boss with a beautiful, gigantic idea. (I don’t remember it at all, but it was grandiose. One for the record books—the stuff of legends.) I said, “We could do it in May, right before graduation.”
This would be my triumph as a student events organizer. My boss looked me in the eyes and said, “Great idea. Too bad you didn’t think of it in October.”
It was the best advice I’ve ever received. My idea was aspirational but impractical.
One of the most meaningful elements of content strategy was the focus of my previous blog post, “Profitability, Pablo Picasso, and Using Artificial Intelligence.” Technical communicators need to create equally aspirational and practical roadmaps.
To write a practical roadmap is to acknowledge the concerns and anxieties of the C-Suite. But a roadmap that is exclusively practical is only interested in the bottom line. A roadmap that is exclusively aspirational shoots for the stars, trying to level up a business’s maturity level to impossible heights. It may have great intentions and stellar goals, but the timeline is impractical.
Writing an equally aspirational roadmap means connecting C-Suite practical concerns to optimal strategies and tactics that elevate the business’s maturity level. This point reiterates the framing argument I talked about previously. As technical writers, we have the opportunity to inspire growth in a practical way.
Final Thoughts
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
— T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets
This blog has tracked my shift from the classroom to techcomm. I have described that shift as exercising the same muscles with different exercises: much of what I learned in my PhD in Literature transfers to techcomm, but I didn’t know how much was relevant until I began. When I first got my PhD (becoming “Dr. McCoy” to my students and “Bones” to my friends), I always made the Star Trek joke: “Dammit, Jim! I’m an English professor, not a torpedo technician!”
Now, as I take the next step into technical communication, I look forward to changing the joke ever-so-slightly, replacing one profession with another.
So, here’s to boldly go where many have gone before, stepping from one ending to another beginning.
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Works Referenced:
Campbell, Kim Sydow and Val Swisher. “A Maturity Model for Content Strategy Development and Technical Communicator Leadership.” In Journal of Technical Writing and Communication vol. 53, no. 4 (2023): 286-309.
McCoy, Zachary. “Anton Chekhov, Apple Maps, and the Power of Consistent, Accessible Content.” Stepping Into Content Strategies (Blog). September 9, 2024.
______. “Profitability, Pablo Picasso, and Using Artificial Intelligence. “Stepping into Content Strategies (Blog). September 26, 2024.
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAB). “Accessibility: It’s About People.” https://www.w3.org/WAI/people/