I’ve often thought that half the trouble STC members face in the workplace arises from pride in our tool skills. It’s natural to be proud, just as skilled artisans take pride in their ability to use the tools

of their trade. In fact, most of us have quite a bit to be proud about. But even if that pride doesn’t quite achieve the status of hubris, we still spend an inor-dinate amount of time focusing on our word processors and HTML editors and graphics software, debating the relative merits of various tools, and helping each other solve problems related to the use of these tools.

By Geoffrey J. S. Hart, Fellow

And what’s wrong with that? you might be asking. Quite a lot, actually. As soon as we define ourselves by how we do our work—by the tools we use rather than the results we produce—we become a commodity. As soon as that happens, we become vulnerable to the commod-ity syndrome: employers look for the lowest-cost provider of a service (that is, anyone with tool skills), not some-one who can provide superior results. Evidence of this problem can be seen in most Web sites—and, of more concern to us, in most advertisements for tech-nical writing positions. Increasingly, the ads I see specify a minimum number of

years of experience with FrameMaker or Word or WebWorks, and anyone lacking these credentials need not apply.

Correcting MisperceptionsOn the one hand, this is just a case of

wishful thinking on the part of employ-ers. If you have two equally promising candidates, but one has many more years of experience with the software you’re using at work, then obviously that candidate is the better choice. In an employer’s market, where there are more communicators than there are jobs available, this is a reasonable strat-egy for human resources departments to adopt: ask for the sky, and accept less only if necessary. This phenomenon is symptomatic of a subconscious thought pattern we have collectively absorbed and have somehow transmitted to hir-ing managers. It biases our thought pro-cesses even when we believe we’re being practical and logical.

Most of us have learned the tools of our trade on the job, sometimes supported by formal training. The modern technical communicator is typically someone who can learn the key features of a new tool, usually without much formal training, in no more than a few days. This is because of several factors. First and most obviously, most modern software offers a relatively limited and consistent set of features and a similarly consistent approach to using the features, thanks to the standardized Windows and Macintosh user interfaces. As a result, we know that the keyboard commands for cutting and pasting text and the menu commands for opening, saving, and creating files are the same in all programs we’re likely to use. Then there’s the standard keyboard, which is our primary tool in much the way a piano keyboard is the pianist’s primary tool.

The second and more important factor is Pareto optimization; see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_optimality for more than you ever wanted to know about this topic. We only use a small proportion of the features of software to perform a high proportion of our work. You’ll often see this referred to as the 80–20 rule: 80 percent of the work is accomplished using only 20 percent of the features. The actual numbers aren’t

We’re communicators,

not just tool

users

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important, but the concept is; as com-municators, we spend (for example) 80 percent of our time writing, and use only 20 percent of a software’s features to accomplish this task. Those few times we need to accomplish something dif-ferent (such as automatically creating a table of contents or exporting XML files), it’s a matter of a few moments’ research in the manual or online help to figure out how to proceed.

But even those two factors pale into insignificance if you think about what we really do. As the mythical “million monkeys with typewriters” meme tells us, equipping a million of our hairy cousins with typewriters and teach-ing them how to type won’t create any Shakespeare plays, pretty much irre-spective of how much time you give the monkeys. People hire us because we write, and write well, which is something of a vanishing skill in this increasingly postliterate age. Train those monkeys to use FrameMaker, and all you’ll get is a bunch of highly skilled monkeys who still can’t communicate. That’s our job.

A Sometimes Subtle ProblemThe problem with excessive reliance

on tools becomes obvious once you’ve been alerted to it and shown where to look. Consider, for example, Tom Johnson’s interesting and highly prac-tical article, “Corporate Blogging,” in the September/October 2006 issue of Intercom. Blogging is a technology with old roots, but it has not yet matured technologically. As a result, we’ve only begun to see some of its potential, and we’ll see more as Johnson and others begin to explore how the technology can be used in our daily work, and as the tools evolve and mature in response to the needs of bloggers.

But a closer look at the article reveals some interesting assumptions. Consider, for example, the following: “If your manager blogged . . . wouldn’t it be one of the first things you read each morn-ing? … You can comment on your man-ager’s thoughts, and other workers can comment on your comments, and that way, according to Scott Anderson, you build camaraderie.” This is unquestion-ably true as far as it goes, particularly for

managers of distributed work teams who may never have a chance to see each other in person. But most of us still work in the same office as our managers and colleagues and can accomplish the same result much more quickly and effec-tively with no tools other than the ability to talk. As Isaac Asimov demonstrated so eloquently in his novels Caves of Steel (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caves_of_Steel) and The Naked Sun (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Sun), human contact is fundamental to who we are, and we are diminished as humans when we sac-rifice that contact.

Anderson’s error is to mistake the tool (blogging) for the result (communica-tion). I’ve worked for several bosses who accomplished the same goals Anderson attributes to the manager’s blog by regu-lar in-person team meetings and “man-agement by walking around,” mostly in the form of occasional visits to reestablish personal contact with me and see how my work is going. Blogging is cool and shows promise for certain situations, but it’s only a tool, not the truly important thing: communication is what’s important, and the blog is just a means to that end, and not the best one at that.

Tool Skills or Communication Skills?Technical communicators soon learn

that they can use pretty much any mod-ern tool to accomplish the job of writ-ing, creating Web pages, compiling online help, and so on. Many people still create their Web pages in primitive text editors such as Windows Notepad, eschewing more sophisticated tools such as Dreamweaver. But Web surfers soon learn that not every Web designer creates usable Web sites despite clear mastery of all the bells and whistles pro-vided by Dreamweaver, and readers soon discover that not every technical writer can write intelligible, clear, concise information. Which of the two is more important?

Nobody goes to a doctor because the doctor uses CAT scanners and other high-tech tools, or spent far too many years in a university training program. We go to doctors because they can diag-nose and solve our health problems. As communications professionals, it’s long past time we stopped promoting the cool tools we use and focused on what really sets us apart: our ability to communi-cate. Portraying ourselves as knowledge workers who can solve communication problems, not as computer experts, is what will begin to gain us the respect we require to obtain satisfying, secure jobs. In contrast, failure to convey the relative importance of our tool and communica-tion skills is a recipe for low-paying work that is vulnerable to outsourcing to the lowest-cost provider.

Let’s conclude this essay by return-ing to the aforementioned pianist. Anyone can learn to pound the keys on a piano to play a tune; witness the number of nonmusicians who learn to play “Chopsticks” on a child’s toy piano. A smaller but still large num-ber of amateurs eventually learn to play more challenging and occasion-ally even interesting music. But it takes more than just this level of technical skill to know what music to play and how to play it. Truly great musicians are certainly superb tool users, performing feats of keyboard virtuosity that elude even the most gifted amateur, and they demand the best tools available. Those tools may be a million-dollar piano and the finest “software” available (whether classical music or your favorite rock opera), but those tool skills aren’t the reason they take our breath away. The greatest are first and foremost skilled communicators, and without that abil-ity, they couldn’t transport us beyond the ordinary. Clearly, there’s a lesson there for us.

Geoffrey J. S. Hart can be reached at ghart@videotron.ca. Visit him online at www.geoff-hart.com.

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Discuss this article online at stcforum.org/viewtopic.php?id=817

Discuss this article online at stcforum.org/viewtopic.php?id=817

the modern technical communicator can learn the

key features of a new tool in no more than a few days.