Month: January 2024

I’m Your Writer, Not Your Everything

~ Susan Kelley ~ Leave a comment

Or, Hey there, Have You Seen My SME?

I couldn’t even think of a cool graphic or photo to go with this, so here we are, graphic-less. That’s probably good, because I am not starting off the year on a happy, optimistic note to be honest.

Let’s get one thing clear. I am a SME. I am absolutely, without a doubt a subject matter expert. One hundred per cent. Although I spend most of my time writing about a software product in the area of clinical trials data analytics, I am decidedly not an expert in clinical trials data analytics. Nor was I hired to be that.

I am a subject matter expert in technical writing, in grammar and syntax.

I am supposed to be just that. I deliver on that promise every day. I rarely make an error in my delivery of high-quality content. I know what readers need and how they need it to be organized. I understand where the reader’s eye is likely to go and what concepts should be placed where. More importantly, I can spot a typo in difficult language and if I am unfamiliar with a term I know where to go to look it up, when to insist on that word, and when to choose another. I build dictionaries and document frameworks. I organize tables of information. My spelling is almost perfect and so is my grammar.

What I am not is a subject matter expert in data analytics. Do you want to know a secret? I was not a subject matter expert in mainframe banking software when I was a technical writer for my former company, either. And I was not a subject matter expert in cybersecurity when I worked in that field. Are you sensing a pattern or is it just me?

Now is the moment when I sigh.

The burden on technical writers is becoming ever steeper. Our teams are becoming thinner and our demands are becoming heavier. We have always carried the weight of justifying our positions when budgets tighten, showing our value since our deliverable often doesn’t bring with it a 1:1 ROI, and showing mid- and upper-leadership that continued investment in upskilling is essential. As the asks of today’s software teams become greater and the speed with which we deliver becomes faster, demonstrating those values seems to be tougher and tougher.

I generally work with great people and teams and on balance the work that I do is seen as necessary if not critical to the end product. But more and more I learn of teams that want their tech writers to be so fully embedded in the end-to-end development that the lines between coder and ux designer and writer are not just comfortably blurred, they are erased.

At the end of the day, all I know for certain is this: I will remain a subject matter expert in grammar, syntax, and spelling and I will feel quite comfortable in that area. When I am called upon to be a soup to nuts pro in a complex piece of software, I think I’ll start asking my development teams to explain to me the differences between a gerund and a participle, and to recommend when I should use each in the installation manual I am working on today.

I’m Your Writer, Not Your Everything

~ Susan Kelley ~ Leave a comment

Or, Hey there, Have You Seen My SME?

I couldn’t even think of a cool graphic or photo to go with this, so here we are, graphic-less. That’s probably good, because I am not starting off the year on a happy, optimistic note to be honest.

Let’s get one thing clear. I am a SME. I am absolutely, without a doubt a subject matter expert. One hundred per cent. Although I spend most of my time writing about a software product in the area of clinical trials data analytics, I am decidedly not an expert in clinical trials data analytics. Nor was I hired to be that.

I am a subject matter expert in technical writing, in grammar and syntax.

I am supposed to be just that. I deliver on that promise every day. I rarely make an error in my delivery of high-quality content. I know what readers need and how they need it to be organized. I understand where the reader’s eye is likely to go and what concepts should be placed where. More importantly, I can spot a typo in difficult language and if I am unfamiliar with a term I know where to go to look it up, when to insist on that word, and when to choose another. I build dictionaries and document frameworks. I organize tables of information. My spelling is almost perfect and so is my grammar.

What I am not is a subject matter expert in data analytics. Do you want to know a secret? I was not a subject matter expert in mainframe banking software when I was a technical writer for my former company, either. And I was not a subject matter expert in cybersecurity when I worked in that field. Are you sensing a pattern or is it just me?

Now is the moment when I sigh.

The burden on technical writers is becoming ever steeper. Our teams are becoming thinner and our demands are becoming heavier. We have always carried the weight of justifying our positions when budgets tighten, showing our value since our deliverable often doesn’t bring with it a 1:1 ROI, and showing mid- and upper-leadership that continued investment in upskilling is essential. As the asks of today’s software teams become greater and the speed with which we deliver becomes faster, demonstrating those values seems to be tougher and tougher.

I generally work with great people and teams and on balance the work that I do is seen as necessary if not critical to the end product. But more and more I learn of teams that want their tech writers to be so fully embedded in the end-to-end development that the lines between coder and ux designer and writer are not just comfortably blurred, they are erased.

At the end of the day, all I know for certain is this: I will remain a subject matter expert in grammar, syntax, and spelling and I will feel quite comfortable in that area. When I am called upon to be a soup to nuts pro in a complex piece of software, I think I’ll start asking my development teams to explain to me the differences between a gerund and a participle, and to recommend when I should use each in the installation manual I am working on today.