Adapting to the Information Age
The times they are a changin’.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan lately. My fifteen year-old son finds him cool. It’s a strange revolving world.
Regardless of my motives, the Bob prediction of the ‘60s reappears 50 years later with the same growing urgency. Socially, economically, and technologically, the symptoms and repercussions are different but the same grassroots revolution hangs in the air today. The environment of Web 2.0 and cloud computing hastens many changes on the job front and the advent of the “Great Recession” only accelerates its reality. Society is discontent. Unpopular wars persist. Freedom and change cross everyone’s lips like mantras. People are mad and aren’t going to take it anymore. I have seen this before.
John Steinbeck said all human endeavor was two steps forward and one step back. It seems like we are about to move off our one step backward and take two big steps forward. And as with all major changes in the never-ending cycle of destruction and rebirth, there will be winners and losers based on those who can and those who can’t adapt.
Quick Note: This posting is the second of four articles that explores some of the major changes and opportunities in the ecosystem for the technical communicator. See Evolving as a Content Strategist. Your criticism, reality checks, pushback, and all-around input is appreciated.
Changing Landscape
Fourteen thousand years ago, the natural dam that held ancient Lake Bonneville in the western United States broke and the lake immediately drained. Almost overnight an ecosystem evolving for 16,000 years washed through the 
Snake River to the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, catastrophically changing the landscape for all local species in and out of its wake. The freshwater fish poured into the ocean and the osprey found different prey or moved to new hunting waters, or died. A lake the size of Lake Michigan released a surge of floodwaters which lowered its level by 105m (350 ft.) on average. All that remained was a puddle with no drainage now called The Great Salt Lake and the other low-lying lakes and rivers feeding into it.
Things change. Sometimes dramatically.
For the alluvial fans of igneous rock damning the waters at Red Rock Pass, seepage had been wearing away the mountain notch for years and the rising levels of the lake consistently put pressure on an already existing weakness. The process of wearing away the north wall of Lake Bonneville was gradual, but its effects were dramatic when it failed: 33 million cubic feet of water per second burst out at a rate of 110 km (70 miles) per hour into the unsuspecting valley below. The landscape changed forever in the blink of a geological eye.
The Information Age is here. As writers and content providers, imperceptible changes have been occurring for the past twenty years. But soon the dam will break and the floodwaters will inundate. So grab your surfboard or learn to breathe underwater. In some way, all of us will be affected and we need to learn to ride the wave.
Factors of Impending Change
Things may happen slowly beneath the surface, but their consequences once actuated are immediate and cataclysmic. As software and information developers, we all feel the ongoing strain of impending change in our world. But that change is not relenting. It is only accelerating as the destruction/creation cycle begins anew. Here are some of the factors that come to mind causing these changes:
- The flattening world. The world is getting closer and flatter, meaning that immediate and interactive communication brings together interested audiences and employment resources irrespective of location. Goods and services are electronic so vendors, corporations, and personnel can reside anywhere in the world. Companies can outsource from the U.S. to Estonia, from Estonia to India, from India to China, from China to the Philippines—wherever the job costs are lower. But it also means that the individual can compete directly with a corporation on a level playing field. Stature between the individual subject expert and the corporate messaging machine is also becoming level.
- The “Great Recession.” Or so it has been termed. The slowing global economy put all types of content providers out of jobs. During this crisis, executives focused on cutting costs and bolstering the end phase of the sales cycle to wring more revenue without spending more money. It was a short-term solution that put more pressure on writers, web developers, and training personnel seen as expendable. These highly-skilled, creative people are now roving the new world looking for new opportunities and challenges. And the pen really is a mighty weapon.
- Social groups. Facebook, Google Wave, Twitter, wikis, forums, and all the other resources of Web 2.0 technologies and social-oriented communication continue to change the way we consume and disseminate information. Customers can no longer be easily lured to your website. You need to go to them on Facebook or elsewhere where they congregate. Or use Facebook Connect and Google FriendConnect to continue with a web presence while integrating with these social sites to get the best of both worlds. Customers look for germane and honest content delivered directly to them based on their personal needs.
- Content is king. The web infrastructure is built and now real content is needed. Entertainment and information stand preeminent to the delivery tools. Those who have the creativity, perspective, and writing skills can now take their rightful place with programmers and technicians as a thread in the wide tapestry of economic opportunities.
- Cloud Computing. Mashups, Semantic Web, lifestreaming, real-time web, and other emerging methodologies and technologies provide new ways of delivering and consuming content. Online books read on Kindles, multimedia novels, multisource notebooks saved to the cloud using EverNote and accessed from your iPhone—all provide a new wave of capturing content and communicating with stakeholders. Cloud computing technologies will provide a way to bring content directly to you and your readers.
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) and mashups hold much promise for corporate development for business needs in the future, as does Wikipedia for the teacher, online real-time practice groups for the musician, timely information for sales people, and online multimedia travel maps for the retiree to share real-time with the grandkids. What do they have in common? All of the services have APIs on the web now and can be implemented with the correct know-how using simple HTML, semantic markup, and mashups using scripting languages. - Information turnover. For some disciplines and technologies, 25 percent of what you know this year will be obsolete next year. Make your plans accordingly.
Technical communicators face changes in the near future. Exciting ones if we ride this wave well and tact our course correctly. Catastrophic changes if we panic and try to hold on to past practices. Like always, the impending changes will have good and bad sides.
The World is Flat—Laterally and Vertically
All economic waters run together and the world’s cultures and markets are more equally sized. This is commonly referred to as the “flattening of the world.”
- Corporations take advantage of globalization and instant electronic communication to outsource or employ independent contractors at lowered costs. Getting costs down is just good business.
- Global communities, the blogosphere, aggregators, search engines, social groups, forums, wikis, knowledgebases, websites, and free online information seemingly handle all communication needs, casting newspapers and technical communicators as yesterday’s word processors. Again, using latest trends and technologies to improve processes, lower costs, and market globally is just good business.
- Increased training costs and professional service engagements is likewise just good business. Adjusted pricing of new services and arresting free services halts when everyone hunkers down for a global recession.
There’s lots of good outcomes for business that can be disruptive to traditional technical communicators, web developers, and programmers. The flattening of the world means location is moot, companies global, and products and services virtual. We compete on an open field.
On the flip side, business opens itself to competition on this flat field. Communication is democratic. Customers prize objectivity and can smell out a business scam. Customers are looking beyond corporate goals to saddle them with professional service costs and training courses as an add-on sale. Technical communicators have an opportunity to take market share from the large corporation.
Until recently, the freedom of expression used to be only with those who owned a printing press. Now we can all publish somewhere. The environment and rules have changed for all organization and individuals.
Business has other vulnerabilities. Sales forces traditionally focus only on the big sales and leave small and medium business to fend for themselves. While many free services and tools exist out there in the web that need only knowledge about integration and best practices, companies still see information management as their exclusive province. It may be time for predatory “trimming of the herd” from the marketplace to keep companies lean.
It’s Alright Ma
The pressures of wholesale change have been pushing on the walls of the dam for many years now. Corporations put too much value on in-house marketing and proprietary platforms. Writers only delivered basic reference content with little value. Training teams required customers to travel to costly education sites while lowering quality. Corporations forced customers to buy overpriced professional services contracts. Technology gave too much praise for delivering too little actual cost savings and productivity.
We’ve seen it all before. The outpouring of discontent brings on radical change. But we can embrace both the horror and hope to make 
some plans for our future. If anyone can acclimate to a changing ecosystem, it is the technical communicator: the most communicative and adaptable creators of new information and products.
That’s inspiring and comforting. And exciting. It calls for another Bob quote:
He not busy being born is busy dying
There’s no laying back in the heated swimming pool and taking it easy nowadays. You are either creating something new or lagging behind professionally. Innovation stands supreme. But for those of us who are used to producing new content and meeting deliveries, we will be alright.
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
—from It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).
Eric Schmidt, now the CEO of Google, said we are all our own company. He has been saying that for years. He claims the market is going on all around us. I believe him. I believe now is the time to brand ourselves, employ our expertise or become experts on something compelling, communicate our expertise, sell our ideas, and open new markets in this world of infinite communication and open commercial possibilities. Especially those of us who can communicate.
I acknowledge that the climate out there for information developers is unsettled and many questions are pending. But let’s take a look at what we do know and try to forecast some answers together to this changing environment.
Finding new feeding grounds
Writers need to take advantage of this golden age of information development and delivery. The Web provides a smorgasbord of research and writing opportunities begging for someone to give the disparate data structure and readers meaningful knowledge. We are the technical communicators—the creators and conveyors. We’re not the clean up crew.
As we are told, globalization flattens the world. Instantaneous communication allows for extended teams of experts to work in virtual teams worldwide without regard to distance. It can improve our lives dramatically and allow us to work together for our mutual benefit. Companies can employ the best workforce based on expertise and production to provide value to their bottom line in addressing societies’ needs. These are the best of times for technical communicators.
The next postings will keep questioning many new assertions and publishing some ideas from myself and others. It is also time to put the rantings of my latest posting to the test with a real-life project. So stay tuned for “feet to the fire” time.
I for one plan to take advantage of the opportunities of the future-trends and put down the expectations from the past.
It’s time for Bob one more time:
I got a head full of ideas
That are drivin’ me insane.
It’s a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor.
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.
December 7, 2009
· 
Michael Hiatt · 
2 Comments
Tags: Content Strategist, democratic mercantilism, Information Age, technical communicator · Posted in: Content Strategist, Information, Information Age, Information management, Knowledge management, Real-Time Web, Semantic Web
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