3-00 (September 2000) Finland by Maria Lahti by Ulla Kujanpää by Marjo Kuusto INTECOM

To the nature-loving world, Finland has traditionally been known as the land of the midnight sun and of a thousand lakes. Finland is also the home of sauna and of Father Christmas. Some people may be familiar with Finland’s paper, wood and heavy industries. However, the recent years have witnessed a shift towards high technology, which has gained a more and more important role in our economy and a growing fame for Finland as a live laboratory for new media services. Finland is now widely known for its advances in Internet and communications technologies, and names like Nokia and Linux are recognized worldwide. We take pride in achievements such as the first ever GSM phone call made in the world.

The rise of high-tech companies has provided more work opportunities for technical communicators. Technical communication is still quite a young field in Finland, and only a few people have been in the field for more than a decade. The average age of a Finnish technical communicator is probably around 30, and most of us have four or five years’ experience and an academic background in languages. Estimates of how many technical communicators there are in Finland are hard to come by, but our guesstimate would be anything from 500 to 1000 (and growing). Even though most of us speak Finnish as our native language, English is the main language of technical communication, since most of the products are exported. Localizability is one of the key elements in Finnish technical communication.

As the number of technical communicators started growing a few years ago, a need for a cooperation forum emerged. In 1997, a group of students in a technical writing course at the University of Vaasa decided to found the Finnish Technical Communications Society (Suomen Tekniset Dokumentoijat ry.). For a while the society was relatively unknown outside the town of Vaasa and had about 30 members, but they actively arranged meetings and seminars, and set up a Website and a mailing list.

Two years later in October 1999, the society's new board decided to organise a two-day seminar with the theme "Optimising Users: What Do Real Users Want From Documentation?" Some of us thought we were optimistic to expect 30 people to show up, but altogether 112 people attended, and not only from Finland but also from Denmark, Germany, and England! The number of members in the society also suddenly increased from 40 to 130. Quite a growth in a year! The feedback received from the seminar attendees was enthusiastic and encouraged us to make the seminar a yearly event. At the end of 1999, the society also became a member of INTECOM, and we hope that this will give us more ideas for activities and provide us with more possibilities for international cooperation.

Finnish universities have also noted the growing demand for technical communicators, and some have started to offer education in technical communication. This gives a wonderful new choice of career for language students, who have traditionally ended up working as teachers or translators. Since its beginning, the society has cooperated closely with universities. Last year’s seminar was organised together with the University of Tampere, and in April 2000, we had a joint training event where Ginny Redish gave an excellent lecture and a workshop on the secrets of producing user-friendly documentation. Technical communication students attended both events.

One of the society's main purposes is to provide a forum for cooperation and communication for its members. Our activities for achieving this goal include a general yearly meeting, board meetings that are open to all members, as well as unofficial local gatherings. Because our members are spread all over the country, we also have other interaction channels: a mailing list, a Web site (under construction at http://www.uwasa.fi/std), and an electronic newsletter, Näkymä (= "View"). Näkymä comes out every month as a PDF file and is distributed through the society's mailing list. It contains lots of interesting reading such as reviews on books, articles, conferences and training, interviews with people working in technical communication, and information on open positions and forthcoming events.

The main challenges that the society faces today are finding ways to attract new members and to spur participation in arranging common happenings and events. We do our best to promote interaction and discussion within the Finnish technical communications community, and aim to be active in larger circles than just among close friends and colleagues. From and through INTECOM, we hope to find new stimuli and interaction channels to other countries’ societies in order to share experiences and to gain new ideas about developing in our field. Let’s keep in touch!  

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