From Commodity to Contributor

by Craig J. Battrick
Mid-Valley Chapter, STC

A bar of soap is a commodity. Despite marketing's claims to the contrary, any old bar will do to get one's face clean. Often, managers view technical writers as commodities, where "just get a technical writer" is the mantra. Any old writer—or any young writer—will do. Just get the words on the paper.

In such a market, unique contributions are not recognized nor valued. So how does one get from the commodity bin to being a unique and highly valued contributor? I can't answer that for everyone, but I can share my experience and draw some principles from it that might help.

I became a writer on a beautiful spring day in my Junior year of high school. A beautiful student teacher complimented me on a well-written paper, and in a surge of hormones, I declared, "I'm going to be a writer!" The goal was driven so deeply into my being that I became a writer at that moment.

Getting paid to be a writer took another fifteen years and lots of practice and study. I might have shortened that road by staying in college and getting a degree. But I didn't, and we don't have time for that story. But I continued to write and study on my own. I eventually sold a series of articles to Oregon Coast Magazine. Then I was a writer who got paid.

Principle 1: Keep learning.

In a way, my success from then on was dependent on being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people.

Principle 2: Keep networking.

I leveraged my small success into a startup position with a startup company that needed cheap writing skills. In two years I built a five-person communications team and learned even more—from writers with degrees, from graphics artists, and from the business itself.

I moved from that little company to another, and then another, each time increasing my experience and improving my skills.

Environmentally, PCs were taking over the business world, and they provided both the tools and the opportunities to write—and get paid even more. Eventually I found myself at Hewlett-Packard's Inkjet Business Unit documenting manufacturing lines. My manager introduced me to usability engineering, and I began to study usability and incorporate usability principles in my writing.

Principle 3: Watch for new opportunities.

Usability engineering is founded on clear communications skills. It also requires sharp observation skills and the ability to put one's self into another person's mind. These skills are easily transferred from technical communication. And a funny thing happened as I began the transfer. I began to move from being a commodity to being a contributor. I noticed the difference when people started asking me for advice. In the meantime, I had a few advisors of my own. I knew that without a degree—and being in a degree-conscious company, I was going to have to be better and smarter that I was, and so I went back to the basics—keep learning and keep networking.

Principle 4: Find mentors and be one yourself.

HP eventually invited me to finish my bachelor's degree on my own time. I'm still working on it. But a corporate policy funds only certain kinds of undergraduate work, and technical communication isn't one of them. I'll eventually get a bachelor's in degree in Business Management, of all things.

But by definition, a strategic contributor has to understand business, customers, and competition. So HP's strategy has been to my benefit.

There's a fifth principle that I haven't mentioned. In doing so, we return to that spring day in 1968 when I vowed to become a writer.

Principle 5: Set goals.

If you want to move from being a commodity to being a strategic contributor, make a plan. Then follow it. See obstacles as opportunities to learn new things. Practice making contributions. Be visionary. See yourself in a new way and work to make that vision come true. And stayed tuned. I'm still learning new things that I can share.

Craig J. Battrick is a technical analyst for Hewlett-Packard in Corvallis, Oregon. He has been a member of the Mid-Valley STC on and off since 1985. He spoke at Region 7 STC conferences in 2001 and 2002 on knowledge management topics. A native Oregonian, Mr. Battrick is racing his 28-year-old son, Joe, to see which one of them graduates from college first.