Concluding thoughts (where'd the time go?!)

"What Do Technical Communicators Need to Know about Genre?" Well, according to Henze, tech comms need to be familiar with the company's genre(s) of writing. This will help the tech writer be effective in the job as well as modifying existing genres. To illuminate: Henze gives the example of a tech writer in a cell phone company who had too many steps in an instruction manual, potentially causing customers to think the phone it too difficult to assemble (342). So, it's important for tech writers to review the company's documents to get a feel for the ways a company uses genres. I wonder about genre here: What about audience? Is it more of an issue? It seems like genre is getting thrown around and maybe used incorrectly?

Then there's Blackeslee and Gerald's: "What do Technical Communicators Need to Know about Writing?"

Also thinking about how tech comm need to be flexible enough to adapt to changing workplace environments, but now the focus is on writing. Tech comms need to continually learn about stuff related to the company, expand on writing skills, and learn new technologies (382). I guess what bothers me about this piece is that you could exchange 'writing' with 'genre' and it wouldn't change the meaning of the text all that much. I felt that the collaboration and international environment article were more insightful...

Burnett et al.: "What Do Technical Communicators Need to Know about Collaboration?"

Pretty much the same thing as in-class collaboration, only now it's a part of daily life rather than an occasional class activity. This hinges on the other articles because one can use the same idea when it comes to collaboration, that is, one must be flexible, knowing that not all groups will work the same, dealing with "social loafing," conflict and how disagreements can move things forward rather than hinder progression. I think this is super important for folks to realize that the workplaces they enter into could require group work. They will need to know how to do this well, in spite of what they might feel about collaboration vis-a-vis college. 

Amant: "What Do Technical Communicators Need to Know about International Environments?"

I kind of liked how Amant made broader cultural awareness as a selling point for tech comm ("...skills than can increase job security today and in the future") (494). This may not be the most noble way of looking at cultural awareness, but it's honest! And I think that even if people go creating more cultural awareness by looking at the monetary aspects, doesn't mean they won't be impacted more ethically in the long run.

This last run of articles has me wondering about the other side of 402: the professional writer and how these articles could be of utility for them as well. Do these articles cross over? If so, which ones and how to make them accessible for the professional writer?

Brad Mehlenbacher: "What is the Future of Technical Communication?"

Mehlenbacher identifies the problem technical communicators face is an issue that "is largely a communication challenge" (189). In today's workplace, the idea of tech communicator as "expert" is mostly nonexistent, so it's more important to be a facilitator between technology and employees. As the workplace is downsized, tech writers are expected to do more. This had led to the increase in "wicked problems" for tech communicators (191). In the past, problems were "tame problems" or issues that have a clear beginning and end. Mehlenbacher uses the example of chess and how one can use similar strategies to win games, strategies that are repeatable, learnable, and can be improved on (191). Wicked problems, on the other hand, have no real beginning or end; strategies that worked in one instance may not work across others; and repetition won't necessarily make for better tech communication. Wicked problems are bad because 1. tech communicators may generalize a problem and apply the same method to any issue that's similar (becoming static rather than dynamic). 2. The general becomes the rigid and used on more complex issues requiring a different solution. 3. Tech communicators can ignore what they don't understand and use what they do know to make it easier for them, rather than what's most valuable for the situation (192).
Because of wicked problems, "rhetorical self-consciousness" is decreasing. To be rhetorically self-conscious, is to know about modes of persuasion, understanding that wicked problems take time to figure out, and to reflect upon the problem (193).
Tech communicators no longer need to be experts. The increase in wicked problems calls for tech comms to be facilitators, "to strive to understand and mediate the relationship between complex symbolic systems and human beings" (194). In other words, to be the go-between technology and humans. Mehlenbacher stresses the importance of tech comms to reflect; to think about what went right and what needs to be improved on; to think about knowledge, how it's gained, what the person already knows, and how to navigate these spaces(197-98).
To teach this, the author also stresses that teachers themselves need to reflect on their "own learning and communication processes" (198). He recommends using many problem-solving activities in class to give students a chance to play around with a new understanding of knowledge so that decisions are influenced by "reflection rather than reaction" (200). That's what the take-away from this article is: with the workplace as it is today, tech communicators need not be experts, but facilitators. To be the most effective, tech communicators need time for reflection on issues, and to not rely on past ways of problem-solving strategies, but to continually revise as to not get lulled into a false sense of security by using strategies that are the easiest.
Connections:
Longo and Fountain- rather than looking to the future, think of the past to unearth what has worked, reflecting on who is serves (or doesn't). Close to Mehlenbacher's article in that it calls for a high degree of reflection.

Swarts- wants tech communicators to " understand the user's tasks and the functional capabilities of the tools used" (146). Goes along with future of tech writing as being the facilitators between technology and humans.

As I was reading this I was reminded of Johnson's "user-friendly" posit. Mehlenbacher wants tech communicators to be better equipped at solving problems and being mediators of technology and other employees.

Questions:
Is it possible to do the level of reflection Mehlenbacher's asking for? He admits that the workplace has become "busier." If tech communicators are on board with this idea of reflection, what if the higher-ups at a job aren't? What if they're more concerned with product than process?
 

Because Lauren always has cool pictures in her blog, here's a gratuitous picture of my Ry-guy 

(Don't be) Jealous of My Boogie

This week I had the nicely titled, "Living Documents Liability versus the Need to Archive, or Why (Sometimes) History Should be Expunged" by Beverly Sauer.
Sauer identifies the problem of "living documents" (which I'll get to unpacking that in a moment) and how the use of cultural studies can help technical communicators better write about risk in high stakes occupations. Cultural analysis already deals with "economic and political dimensions of science," so it only makes sense to integrate the two fields. But it's not a one-way street: she also acknowledges that technical communicators can help cultural studies, which I will elucidate later (172).
Sauer is concerned with "living documents," which are documents that are always changing to keep up with "new information, new technologies, and changing local and institutional practices" (172). She feels that using a cultural analysis lens will help technical communicators ask questions like, who is writing the documents, for what purpose, who does it serve, and what should be included in the document (175-76). So, cultural analysis then can help technical communicators by close reading documents to analyze risk for certain times in history. And it's important for tech communicators to help cultural studies folks by cluing them into moments where writing isn't sufficient in understanding and describing risk (177-78).
Sauer uses coal mines most specifically as the subject to demonstrate how to apply cultural theory. She points out how hard it is to write standards when dealing with a high risk environment where people's lives are at stake.
This is where the issue of having "living documents" and outdated material is detrimental to workers' safety. Sauer's answer is to remove the extraneous information completely from the "living document," so that it can best indicate where potential risks are, and for workers to be able to respond appropriately (180). To be clear, she is not suggesting to throw away documents, but to remove the outdated material and store it in archives.
This brings us back to Sauer's main point that tech communicators and cultural studies theorists can work together reciprocally to make better decisions on what needs to stay in a document, what needs to be removed, and what users really need to understand from the document (186). Or, as I like to think of it: don't be jealous of my boogie, let's boogie together. (I say this because there's too much dissonance between academic disciplines, and if you know the song I'm referring to by RuPaul, then you'll know it's a good metaphor for academia.)

Questions:
Of course I gotta ask it: how to implement this into the classroom? It seems like Sauer is writing to an audience who's maybe more in the field rather than teaching it. So, it seems hard to put this into practice in a classroom, but it is important to think about. Do you think students would be receptive to working with cultural studies folks? As I mentioned in my parenthetical comments, the sciences and humanities don't get along so well. I have never understood this, other than we're just skeptical of each other because we don't understand each other enough. Sauer's idea of bringing the two together are spot on (we could get a whole lot more done if we had each other's backs), but what needs to happen first?

Connections:
Graybill: Like Sauer, Graybill also argues that cultural studies can help tech communicators identify problems of authority and create social change (151-52). Unlike Sauer, Graybill goes into specific detail on methodologies, which makes me think his piece was written more for teachers of writing, rather than how Sauer seems to be talking to professionals in the field.

Britt: Calling for cultural studies into tech communication, but also adding sociology and anthropology to look at institutions (134). I find it very interesting how Britt is calling for a critique of "microinstitutions" like a writing center (135). Disciplines are too small and "macroinsitutions" are too big. Britt sees that institutions get too big and stop accounting for itself, so that's where cultural studies et al. can help bring into focus what goals an institution has and if they need changes. I like the idea of bringing the wc into the mix, but the problem there is that it has no real power to change institutional power, and wc's are now going through a shift since computers have entered the mix.

I also wonder about the Russell article from earlier this semester. It was the one where he said that lit crit should say out of tech and professional writing classes. Kind of seems like maybe that argument has been blown out of the water, but I still wonder if Russell has a point in keeping the two separate.