Everyone wants to communicate. There’s not too much that’s more satisfying than being able to understand someone else or making your own thoughts understood, when the lightbulb goes on and everything makes sense. I remember feeling this very keenly when I was vacationing in Athens, unable to understand rapid-fire Greek in the markets of the Plaka, and then, suddenly, making a connection through my limited French. Smiles on both sides, a relaxation of tension. We’d communicated.
I get the question all the time – “You’re an analyst/mathematician/engineer, so why are you so interested in reading / writing / social media / communication?” My answer? “Why aren’t YOU?” It’s just as bad for an engineer to excuse bad writing by saying, “I’m not an English major” as it is for the liberal arts major to excuse their lack of math skills with the usual, “Hey, that’s why I’m in <insert field here>” when asked about numbers. Bad numbers distract from your argument, no matter what field you’re in. So does a lack of communication skills.
Anyway, I’m on a bit of a communication crusade right now, because my department head recently approached me about “fixing” the way we teach and evaluate technical communication in the department. We don’t really have a system right now – we’re relying on our students to synthesize what they’ve learned in the English, Philosophy, and Law departments from writing an analytical argument to writing a technical argument. The good students aren’t having any trouble, but we’re unleashing way too many students who lack essential technical communication skills on the world.
So what constitutes a “good” set of technical skills? Here’s a rundown of the skills I think our students need to have in order to be able to successfully “talk tech”:
These are pretty generic communication considerations, but communication, as so many of you know, is equal parts art and science. The science is knowing how to ask and formulate the questions, and devising a set of rules to help answer them. The art is finding that correct answer, the one that best fits the feel of the situation. I have a few ideas for how to teach this, but they’re all just rattling around in my head right now, looking for something to connect with. In the meantime, I’m brainstorming with faculty and scouring books, blog, and the Internet at large for resources – if you have a good one that might help us formulate a new plan for teaching technical communication to systems engineers and managers, please send them my way!