Yesterday’s Chicago Tribune did a story about technical communication. In it, they quote both the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the STC as predicting continued growth in the number of technical writers.

The article focused on the benefits of good documentation to the bottom line, and included a couple very specific examples. There was the customer who chose a competitor’s product because the manual was too big/intimidating. There was a success story about a revamped manual reducing the number of products that were returned to the manufacturer. And of course, the old stand-by, a better manual that reduced the number and cost of support calls.

It all makes it seem obvious that an investment in good documentation is a good investment for any company. Now we just have to convince the other companies!