Knowledge Management 4-00 (December 2000) by Wolfgang Sturz

Knowledge management - is it a challenge for technical editors? Shouldn’t knowledge management be more than just taken for granted in technical editing? And isn’t the technical editor also the knowledge manager, per se?

 

Who is the Technical Editor?

The way that technical editors view themselves must be gone into detail before the challenges or things taken for granted within the job outline of the technical editor can be discussed. There are time and again astonishing deficits: Technical editors are often considered by the outside world as the henchmen of the inventor and builder of machines and equipment. "Editors", you hear quite often, "are a strain on the budget that bring no added value".

Unfortunately many technical editors have taken this view downright to heart and then do their job with this same limited view. As a matter of fact, it should be the other way: Without communication between the inventor and user or between the builder and repair specialist the value and use of every machine or piece of equipment would be dramatically reduced. It is exactly this type of communication for which the technical editor is responsible. Technical documentation represents - as long as it is correctly done - an essential added value for every technical product. Technical editors’ view of themselves should also be correspondingly high.

 

What is Knowledge Management?

What does knowledge management have to do with the communication about how a machine functions? To answer this question, knowledge management must first be defined. Knowledge management has two main tasks:

1. The organized collection of facts.
2. The organized collection of information about knowledge carriers.

Some consulting companies employ well-aimed editorial teams for the organized collection of consultants’ knowledge. Their job is to dissect the factual knowledge from the project teams and give it back to them in a structured manner. However, positions in these editorial teams are even today only in the rarest cases occupied by technical editors. Quite often the team members come from other fields and acquire the necessary knowledge through trial and error. These positions would be the ideal match for qualified and educated technical editors who, in the meantime, already have the information required to correctly practice their profession.

A particular area of knowledge management, on which technical editors most likely will not have too much influence, is the structural collection of the knowledge carriers. This is a really delicate situation, because the information involved has been passed on from insider’s experience to their colleagues. Often it is perceived that if one passes on one’s knowledge it could give the other person a competitive advantage and therefore may jeopardize a knowledge carrier’s career. In reality, passing on knowledge greatly increases the availability of knowledge within a company: "I give you a piece of knowledge, you give me a piece of knowledge, and when we are done we both have two pieces of knowledge.- This way of thinking is, however, not logical in the conventional way of doing things. To break up the old structures, management has to ensure that changes are made to the corporate structure.

 

Knowledge Management - Challenge or Taken for Granted?

Knowledge management is not a challenge for the technical editor; from a professional perspective it should be taken for granted. Nevertheless, knowledge management is rarely a topic for technical editors today because very few editors trust themselves to look over to the other side.

Instead of a challenge, or just taking it for granted, it should be seen as a technical documentation opportunity. Involvement in knowledge management offers every technical editor the chance to work themselves out of the narrow responsibility for the communication between the developer and customer, and into a much more open field where they can also distinguish themselves.

 

Knowledge Management and Economic Feasibility

Knowledge management should never be pursued just for the sake of pursuing it. While foreign companies put an emphasis on what benefits new management concepts have to offer, German companies are more inclined to jump to the new catch words without putting much effort into what the concrete benefits may be.

Both your own company and - this must be emphasized - your customers benefit. Only when the criteria "Bringing benefits to the customer" is fulfilled is it worthwhile to discuss knowledge management and the new challenges or opportunities for the technical editor.

Dr. Wolfgang Sturz has been involved with issues concerning global communication and knowledge management for over 20 years. Dr. Sturz is the editor of specialized books for technical writing as well as the German magazine Wissens-management, which covers knowledge management topics.  

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