athloi's Journal: "Technical Writing in Transition" republished

I wrote this little piece about where technical writing should go if it wants to stay relevant in a time of increasing bureaucracy, regimentation of language and buzzword-happy managers. Bolg recently published it, so I present to you my nonexistent readers a brief excerpt:

With the transistor revolution of the 1970s, two crucial changes occurred. First, the computer migrated from the machine room to the desktop. Second, high schools got more lenient at the same time users became more acquainted with television media. This new generation were shaped by seeing machines used before understanding the principles behind them, which laid the ground for the interface revolution to follow.

On the heels of those developments, a second computing revolution occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Both the graphical user interface (GUI)-based operating system and the world wide web took existing technologies and put them to new use. This usage redefined the comput from being being a calculating machine to an information browser. This role shift entailed thinking about interface in user-centric contexts and resulted in both these revolutions.

Usage exploded since the layperson could now interact with a computer as they would a video game, vending machine or automated teller. This in turn spurred a network revolution. Since the computer was viewed as an information browser, it needed connections to information, so the network became the computer. These influences caused the computer to become increasingly powerful, standardized and ubiquitous.

The standardization affected technical writing...

You can read the whole thing at Technical Writing in Transition.