Meet our featured TC, Agnes Espineda
February 2017
Agnes Espineda is the Managing Director of Tactics Limited – a Wellington-based company established 26 years ago that specialises in documentation, training, process mapping, and online content design for clients in New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Agnes caught up with Jim Costello in Auckland last month.
What do you think is the greatest challenge facing the technical communication industry at the moment?
The concept of information management has always been the same, but the channels are different. For example, ten years ago nobody talked about mobile apps. Now when people are looking for information they might go to their PC, they might have a tablet, or a phone. So when you design some form of communication, it often needs to use different media, and be view on a variety of devices. For people in our area of technical communications, that is quite a challenge.
Do you think that all this new technology creates jobs in the industry or takes them away?
My answer for that is that it depends on how you look at it. You can always make yourself relevant if you know what is required. So we always need to upskill ourselves and be open-minded to cope with these changes. If you don’t, you will become irrelevant.
In your opinion what makes a great technical communicator?
All readers will generally have a question. A great technical communicator can structure the information with any media and make it easy for a reader to find the answer to their question. The way we access and process information in this age is very different than it used to be. Smart design means that a reader does not have to think about moving from one part of a document or webpage to the next. This requires a structured writing discipline, a flow, and an organisation that is sensitive to the audience’s information needs. Effective documentation is very much founded on how the human brain works, how people process information. People in the business world are busy and need to be able to easily find the information they need. So for me, a great technical communicator presents information that follows a certain flow that is easy to follow and intuitive to navigate.
When you are hiring a technical communicator, what do you look for?
Right now I look for people who have a visual design perspective. In the past, we didn’t talk about visual language or infographics, everything was text. Now, something can be expressed in a graphic, a diagram, an image, or an embedded video. That is the new way. So I am not just looking for technical writers, but people with design flair who can work with different media to get a message across in the best possible way.
How do you think Tactics differentiates itself from other technical communication consultancies?
We have always had a unique selling proposition. We use a structured way of presenting information that initially identifies the required information types. As an example, we are currently developing content for a large industry client based in Singapore. We have developers in New Zealand, Malaysia, and in Singapore working on the project, but because we follow a structured method, the finished document is written as if by only one person. Because all the team members have identified the information types, they know that if the information asked is a procedure, the team write steps that start with an action word. If it is a process, they write a process that describes what happens from beginning to end. Whether it is a, flow diagram, a fact, or a description, the team follow a structured format. So we first identify the type and then write to that type.
Is there anything that you would like to advise a new technical communicator?
Learn to network, show passion, and keep current with what is happening in the industry. Also, don’t be afraid to ask if you don’t know the answer.