Source: A plea, to everyone – from content designers, everywhere
Thanks to Rahel Bailie, who retweeted this article on Twitter.
In the ever-changing world of technical communications, resource needs morph constantly. It’s not enough to be just a technical writer or just a–anything anymore. It’s bad enough that other professional disciplines have co-opted job titles from the tech comm world like “content strategist” when they really want a marketing strategist. Or calling us something that isn’t right. For example, I had the title of “Senior Copywriter” when I either did content strategy or UX writing, not really copywriting.
I like this title of “Content Designer” based on the description. I would like to get more involved in a position that’s like this. However, how long will it be before UX designers or even visual or graphic designers start to co-opt the description for themselves?
One of the difficulties of being a technical communicator is that job titles or descriptions aren’t always clear–especially these days. Something that’s a little more succinct would be nice. For example, it’s usually pretty clear what the requirements for a doctor, a mechanic, a financial advisor, or even a programmer. It used to be clear what various technical communicator positions were. It doesn’t seem to be that way anymore. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s good in that we are not limited in doing just one thing–we’re allowed to go out of bounds and explore and be multi-disciplinary. At the same time, it can be bad because those multiple disciplines can be endless, and sometimes finding what fits your multiple disciplines doesn’t align in many places, making it hard to find work.
What do you think of the concept of “content design”, or the idea of tech comm job titles having…issues? Include your comments below.
–TechCommGeekMom
TechCommGeekMom 