Newsletter of the East Bay Chapter of STC
November/December 2003

Letters to the Editor

We'd love to hear from you with comments, suggestions, and stories we should know about. Write to Becky Rude, Interim Managing Editor.

[Editor’s note: The following letter is in regard to Karin’s book review of Steve Krug’s book Don’t Make Me Think. Steve is hosting workshops in conjunction with Lou Rosenfeld, which we posted on our web site.]

Becky...

Thanks from me, too. And please thank Karin for the generous review.
Very nice job on the site, too. As a long-time (ten years) tech writer myself, I have to admire any newsletter that has an entire column about apostrophes (or is that apostrophe’s?) No wonder you received the Best in Show award. (I won the best user manual award in the international STC, for the last manual I wrote back in ’89, so I know how much it means.)

Steve

[Editor’s note: The following letter is in regard to Susan’s article Alternative Jobs or Alternative Job Search Methods?]

Hi Susan:

I read your article on the outsourcing of technical writing. I often ask myself the same questions you raise in your article, about whether or not to even stay in the business. After my independent contracting business in Santa Clara ended in 2001, I had a really tough year in 2002, being unemployed for most of it. Finally, after doing some traveling and soul searching, I am currently technical writing in Taipei, Taiwan! I’m making a fraction of what I used to, but for Taiwan, it’s a pretty high salary, about 27K U.S.

I am seeing the outsourcing of our line of work firsthand. The company I work for hires writers out of the Philippines and India. And a few Westerners, including myself. I keep asking myself, “How am I going to remain competitive?” and “Will I ever be able to go back to California?”

I don’t know about the second question, but you helped to answer the first one. We just got a new tech pubs manager here, and one of the reasons for replacing the old one was because he did not use “metrics.” You’re right, aside from knowing the latest programs, ROI has really become popular. I would just like to add one of my own points “to stay viable in the market”: Marketing—more important now than ever before. A simple resume will no longer do it. When networking, either in person, by email, or over the phone, you must market yourself as a confident problem solver, and show samples of how you do this.

Thanks for your article, Susan.

Daniel Enciso

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