Sarah O’Keefe #tcworldIndia17

Future-proofing your career

#tcworldIndia17

Focus on the things you can control.

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I can’t control everything.

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• World politics

• Family situation

• Executive decisions

• Social media profile

• Career priorities (money? location? working hours?)

• Which clients/executives to work for

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Keep your options open

REPUTATION x NETWORK x SKILLSCONSTRAINTS

=OPPORTUNITIES

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Jobs in your network

Constraints

Skills

Risk

Opportunity

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Constraints

Skills

Risk

Opportunity

Jobs in your network

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Reputation and network

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What risks are you willing or able to take?

flickr: chrisfithall

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• Financial

• Physical

• Health

• Family

• Geography

Risk profile

flickr: cyanocorax

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Geography affects your negotiating power.

flickr: mtrienke

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• Do you have other job options in your location?

• How much of your management chain is local to you?

• How important is your location to the organization?

• Is your cost of living high or low?

Geography and power

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Risk tolerance changes over time.

flickr: tm-tm

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Understand your personal constraints

flickr: tm-tm

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Gain exposure to different languages and cultures.

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Company size matters.

Me Pty Ltd

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Win-win solutions!

Good for you

Goodfor your

employer

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• Growth opportunity

• Cement resume or fill in skill gap

• A reasonable stretch

• Good team

• Increased compensation

Good for you

Good for you

Goodfor your

employer

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Fads, trends, and paradigm shifts

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Product evolution

http://factore.ca/blog/233-everything-is-in-fashion;

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http://factore.ca/blog/233-everything-is-in-fashion;

Trend

Paradigm shift

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• Makes your life more fun.

• Solves a problem that you care about.

If it’s a fad, it probably…

flickr: philliecasablanca

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• Improves business results

• Solves a problem that businesses care about

• Lowers business risk

• Makes business more predictable

If it’s a trend, it probably…

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• Opens up new possibilities not previously available

• Will divide people, especially early adopters versus laggards

• Requires a new way of looking at a problem

If it’s a paradigm shift, it probably…

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Transcreation - bullet and image

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Focus on trends and paradigm shifts

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ants

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• Structured content

• Augmented reality

• Machine translation

• Mixed environments for content creation

• Complex systems and artificial intelligence

Focus on trends and paradigm shifts

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A fad may be part of a trend…

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Hand-coding HTML

Custom XML flavors

Markdown

Virtual reality goggles

A fad may be part of a trend…

Web publishing

Structured content

Mixed authoring environments

Augmented reality

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• Production editors

• Paradigm shift to automated formatting

• Opportunity: shift from production editing to XSL developer

• Risk: production editor skills are devalued

• Risk: Workload is upfront, not ongoing

Paradigm shifts mean opportunity—and risk

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• Paradigm shift from static content to context-aware content

• Opportunity: Augmented reality app development/integration

• Risk: Devaluation of “just write the steps” content

Augmented reality—layer information onto live visuals

#conferencehashtag

API documentation jobs aren’t going to last.

#conferencehashtag

Markdown is the precursor for a trend.

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Markdown: use of special-purpose markup languages

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Augmented reality: combining multiple, context-aware inputs

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Machine translation: Just a matter of time before it takes over.

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Connected machines: You’ll wonder how people existed without them.

http://thehackernews.com/2015/08/hacking-internet-of-things-drone.html

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• Does it improve business results?

• Can it increase automation?

• Does it reduce risk?

Follow the money.

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Management or technical track?

flickr: mikecogh

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• Project management

• Reduced responsibility for writing

• Different skill set than technical communication

• Potential for leadership positions

• Not everyone is suited for management.

Management

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• Technical expert

• Develop deep expertise

• Mentor new writers

• Design/architect overall documentation approach

• Not everyone is suited for technical track

Technical

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• Control what you can

• Manage your profile

• Assess your risk tolerance and personal constraints

• Think about company size

• Don’t drift.

• Fads, trends, and paradigm shifts

• Carefully choose management versus technical track

Future-proofing your career