Trends in the Profession

Technical communication is undergoing significant changes as a result of pressures to decrease costs and increase productivity. Managers are promoting cost savings associated with topic-based authoring, minimalism, reuse of topics in multiple outputs, and repurposing of content in multiple media. The move to decrease costs could result in decrease value to customers unless we adopt best practices and use tools effectively and carefully. However, if we fail to decrease costs while maintaining value, corporate executives will look for other avenues including off-shoring.

Dr. JoAnn Hackos is President of Comtech Services, a content-management and information-design firm based in Denver,Colorado, which she founded in 1978. She is Director of the Center for Information-Development Management (CIDM), a membership organization focused on content-management and information-development best practices. Dr. Hackos and colleagues are called upon by corporate executives worldwide to consult on strategies for content management, development and organizational management, product interface design, customer studies, Web and traditional information architecture, and tools and technology selection.

For more than 25 years, Dr. Hackos has addressed audiences internationally on subjects ranging from content management, project management, effective interfaces and information, minimal information products, usability testing, and online and Web-based information, to managing the information design and development process. Her workshops are dedicated to enhancing the practices and products that will best promote customer satisfaction.

She authored Content Management for Dynamic Web Delivery (Wiley 2002), Managing Your Documentation Projects (Wiley 1994), Standards for Online Communication (Wiley 1997), and User and Task Analysis for Interface Design (Wiley 1998). JoAnn is a Fellow and Past President of the International Society for Technical Communication (STC).