The Three Minds of Technical Communicators

by Daniel M. Hobbs

Poetry, said Wallace Stevens, should resist the intelligence almost successfully. While this may be a guiding light for the poet, it's the very antithesis of success for the technical communicator. If my message eludes the reader, if it gets lost in a tangled wilderness of haystacked paragraphs, labyrinthine sentence structure, or loquacious technical circumlocutions, then I've failed. The task is always to deliver the message as accurately, succinctly, and cost-effectively as possible.

But one link between poetry and technical communication is that shifting, elusive core of “what we do” that we rediscover again and again, on project after project. Stevens's well-known “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” has given me some insights into my role as writer and editor that apply, I believe, to all aspects of technical communication. Consider the second stanza of “Blackbird”:

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

One key to our success as communication professionals is precisely this ability to be of multiple minds, to move in and out of multiple perspectives on a daily, even hourly basis. There are three minds, in particular, that are crucial.

First is the creative mind. In olden times, the Greek word poesis, from which our word poet is derived, simply meant to make, to craft and any skilled worker, from sculptor to stone mason, was involved in poesis.

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

Certainly, we must be competent craftspeople. We must know the “noble accents/And lucid, inescapable rhythms” of our verbal or visual language and how to use these tools to construct documents, presentations, and web sites. But we know, too, that this process is not entirely straightforward or logical, nor is it completely under our conscious direction. Often we struggle with raw material, rearranging sentences or shapes or slides, with no real sense of how they fit together, until we finally walk away in frustration. Then, a coffee break or a night's sleep later, with no more conscious effort on our part, we return to find the solution waiting for us, the pieces falling into place almost by themselves.

For me, this is one of the deepest satisfactions of the job, returning to find that while I chatted or read or slept, something mysterious within me – the blackbird, to use Stevens' metaphor – continued working, and what defeated me yesterday is now given almost as a gift.

Second is the critical mind, in which we step back from the work to see if it works, and if it doesn't work, how to fix it.

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

Above all else, the critical mind requires detachment. Of course, editing can and should be a passionate activity. But to focus that passion, we must filter out all the daily distractions until they recede into distant, “snowy mountains.” Now, our critical eye is “the only moving thing,” tracing the document's structure, its strengths and fault lines. Some find this detachment in a quiet spot without phone calls or other interruptions, while others find it through headphones that fill their heads with whatever works, anything from Telemann to Tool.

To edit our own work, we need another kind of detachment, as well, for until we can see our own work “fresh,” we cannot edit it effectively. One technique for achieving this fresh viewpoint is, simply, time. We put the material away for a day or a month, don't even think about it, then come back to it with new eyes. Often, however, accelerated schedules don't allow us this luxury. Thus, the second technique: “make it new, make it strange.” Change the font size or style, print it in all caps or in bold or on colored paper, or change the margins so that line and paragraph breaks are different – anything to break the stranglehold of familiarity and allow us to see our own work as if for the first time.

And finally, there is the political, pragmatic mind:

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

As technical communicators, we don't simply reside in some mental ivory tower, pursuing “golden birds” of excellence. Always, the blackbird walks among the feet of real men and women, in a world of schedule and budget constraints, of complex personalities and competing loyalties, of hidden agendas. Whether freelancer/contractor or in-house employee, our professional toolkit must include basic understandings of business etiquette, consultative selling, negotiation skills, and a knowledge of our particular office politics. We piece this information together over time, from reading (everything from Machiavelli to Dale Carnegie), on-the-job observation, advice from mentors and friends, and our own reflections.

Each of these three minds is an essential tool for every successful communicator, and learning to move easily and gracefully between them, as easily as a blackbird lifts into the wind, is an essential skill for every professional communicator.

Author

Daniel Hobbs has worked in technical communications for over 20 years. His experience includes technical writing, editing, marketing communications, and project management. He currently works for Parametrix, Inc., an environmental engineering and consulting firm in Portland, OR.

The Three Minds of Technical Communicators © 2004 by Daniel M. Hobbs