Technical Communication and Consulting: The Flat World Alignment Paradigm, or Why Technical Communication Consultants Have Nothing to Fear from Offshoring

Abstract

In support of the IEEE Professional Communication Society's 50th anniversary conference, this paper suggests ways in which the technical communication profession can ensure its sustainability throughout the next 50 years of business evolution. This paper seeks to present a compelling argument directed at conventionally-employed technical communicators that a paradigm shift towards consulting employment is in their best interest - and in the technical communication profession's best interest. Because of exposure to many and varied companies and methodologies, technical communication consultants tend to have more wide-ranging and current skills that they can offer to companies over their peers who work in conventional employment arrangements. For this argument, this paper will look at how technical communicator consultants can make significant contributions to business by comparing the attributes of technical communication consultants to the attributes of the untouchables defined and discussed in The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, the maverick analysis of the globalization phenomenon by Thomas L. Friedman.