Why Technical Writers Need Collaborative Authoring Tools

The technical writer is at the heart of your business!

Don't put your technical writer in a closet.... The sentence may surprise you. Everyone agrees that technical documentation is very important, thatit is part of the product, software, service. Quality and regulation require: no marketing can take place without proper directions for use.

Traders, product managers and marketing managers will be quick to add that the user manual is an integral part of the product, as it is a sales aid.

The after-sales service will also note that it reduces calls for assistance and limits returns.

Its role is strategic

It allows marketing, participates in sales and sustains the customer relationship. So why this feeling of Placing in the closet feeling the profession? Let us look more closely at the reality of this document production, sensitive in many companies.

It is strategic yet it is neglected by many companies.

A key role at every stage of a product's life

Often, products and services are designed without participation of the technical writer. However, he will have to interpret the link between the technical design, the commercial or marketing presentation and the end customer's use. Budgets and deadlines are thought up for production, marketing and sales. The technical writing is set aside, postponed, experienced as an obligation without great added value, to be implemented at the time of placing the product on the market.

How to correlate production and writing of technical documents?

The observation is simple, no need for statistics: the production of technical documents is generally considered to be the bottleneck, the cause of delay in launching products and/or bad sales. The tensions that follow can explain the disaffection for this stage.

In order to remedy this situation, companies often use temporary or engineering service providers.

But is this really a solution? Or simply a way of turning away from the underlying problem.

The quality of technical documentation is becoming increasingly important in the product strategy. The means of accessing technical information about the product have changed. The consumer does not hesitate to consult the technical documentation before its purchase.

Technical documentation is a marketing element and is an integral part of the product strategy.

So why isolate the technical writer and not put him at the centre of this communication?

In companies that have truly integrated it, it is he who coordinates the team, sometimes leading it according to his skills. It has the opportunity to transform the production and quality of a company's documentation.

What about the technical writing tools?

In many cases, whether he is an employee of the company, an interim employee or a service provider, he will have to use the company's office tools.

This is limited to the use of most of the temp to word processor such as Word, which was designed forty years ago to replace the typewriter...

In the best case, it will be able to use Framemaker, which however remains a complex software application and does not allow document structuring.

Software applications for productivity

To increase their productivity and competitiveness, companies are equipping themselves with efficient software for their various services: accounting/management, marketing, production, logistics...

If the executives of the company are equipped with Word, Excel or Access, still sufficient until a recent time for their jobs, they all today use ERP, CRM, GPAO... So why not also equip technical writers with effective tools to facilitate their work and improve their productivity? It is customary to think that a document should be done with Word or equivalent word processing. Getting the desired result is just a question of training and tool handling.

It's not much to consider this profession that values the product and ignores current document production technologies! With Word, you can write texts, and perform substantially equivalent work. But how long? How many "gaars" for layouts? How many unnecessary duplications of the same content, errors or oblivion with each update or in the famous "copy/paste"... And in the end, what cost?

Companies would undoubtedly gain in productivity and Documentary Security if they equip their teams with efficient and simple technical authoring software. Yet accessible solutions exist...

Moreover, the return on investment will be rapid and significant.

XML technology, structure and efficiency

The technology that allows Rationalisation the business document, earnings productivity and Security content reuse has already existed for several years. It's XML. Thanks to the structure of the document, it makes possible the "industrialization" of its future production.

XML requests a development and construction the upstream drafting. Some spirits, formatted "Word" and/or accustomed to immediate freedom of writing, do not always accept it easily. Quit going back, correct, resume and complete... XML sometimes creates some barriers to change for these reasons related to lack of practice and habit.

However, to structure its content from the outset, by planning and integrating all the fields which will ultimately have to appear,Donesave significant time Down! And without counting the gain in terms of quality which ensures that nothing is forgotten and harmonizes the presentations and contents of all of its documentation. It is also a complex language that requires specific computer skills to master it. XML is now on the training programme for technical writers. (See list of trainings below)

Ready-to-use solutions for the technical writer

This is why the software range Calenco,"ready for use" and in Saas mode, or Calenco, both developed by NeoDoc, are so appreciated! They make XML technology accessible to all, without special computer skills.

Their interfaces allow a collaborator to write technical, legal, commercial documentation... be operational immediately. It can thus reduce its production time, ensure a constant quality of layout in compliance with the company's charter and brand image, while publishing on various media (printed, digital – desktop computers, tablets...). Thus, it can focus solely on the presentation of the content, which it can easily customize according to usage or the intended player.

It organizes its content to optimize its production of documents within a short time frame thanks to the reuse of content.

From editor to architect and technical content manager. Perhaps one way to improve this strategic profession would be to change its title, obviously too reducing and not valuing in our "word-shaped" minds. Just find out which one!

Perhaps the occasion of a participative brainstorming to improve this profession at the heart of the production and life of the company.

Thank you for your suggestions!

Become a technical writer: university courses Indicative list, in alphabetical order of city, of university courses in technical writing available in France (August 2016).

• Master Professional Letters and Languages – Mention Language and Communication, Speciality Editor-Translator (French-English) – University of Western Brittany, Brest

• Master RADI – University of Caen

• Master LID– University of Caen

• Multilingual Technical Documentation Engineering (IDTM, formerly LCT) – Blaise-Pascal University in Clermont-Ferrand

• Professional degree in Information, Design and Technical Writing – University of Limoges

• University of Paris Diderot, Paris VII

• Professional Master 2 in Multilingual and Multimedia Documentation Design (CDMM)– Paris Diderot University, Paris VII

• Master 2MT & C2M– Université Rennes 2, Haute Bretagne, Rennes

• L3 – Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne