(Forgive me, but the previous quote is from my own presentation called The Plug and Play Technical Communicator. I am happy to report that, over the past five years and 50 or so presentations, this truism has been validated by virtually every participant!) I recommend that you, when possible, offer your customer the "total human interface solution!" The fact is, many of your customers and potential customers are counting on you to do just that. Why do I say this? Let's look at the events of the late 1980's and early 1990's.

There was a time, from a historical perspective of American business, when customers really knew what their customers needed in terms of documentation and training. That was one of the casualties of the post-Cold War "upsize-downsize-rightsize period that the American business community went through after the Cold War was "won." Remember when the US government, saddled with tremendous debt, curbed spending. Companies like Rockwell, Lockheed, Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, Loral and the like made significant cuts in staff.

Concurrent with this, cheap transportation and cheap international telecommunications melded the American economy, the European economy, the Asian rim economy, and others into the truly global economy we have today. Foreign competition found, and claimed, an increasing proportion of the American marketplace. For US companies to remain competitive, they had to consolidate smaller companies into bigger companies. The bigger companies had to cut costs to survive.

The acronym "BAD" (banking, aerospace, and defense) captured the essence of the industries that took the brunt of these cuts. No professions were hit harder than the technical communication and training professions! Companies protected their critical resources by moving them into these roles. They cut the natural staff, those of us who really know these core competencies.

So even though these companies were semi-purged of the corporate memory that they collectively possessed, the need did not go away. Customers still need quality documentation and training materials. Although much of business came to realize this (and they are realizing it more and more as time passes), the business community also realized that much those who remained after the upsize-downsize-rightsize period ended had not the aptitude, skill set or desire to meet their customers' needs in terms of documentation and training deliverables. Indeed, many could not even identify what a basic deliverables list should comprise!

The shiny silver lining of this cloud is that the technical communicator of today is more skilled, more up to date, and more adept at a wider range of skills than ever before in our profession's history. Our collective salary averages have increased geometrically; our profession has received legitimization as a core component of any business that relies on a marketplace for success!

From these rudiments, the boldest and bravest of us emerged as true consultants within the technical communication arena. The business world needs us. They need us to tell them what their documentation and training deliverables should be, and they need us to deliver them!

One more side note is that, in this awakening within the business community about the essentialness of our profession, many are beginning to rebuild (and paying well in terms of provision of quality equipment, work environment, and salaries) the technical communication and training departments. However, it is doubtful that the rebuild will be to the level that the broad-based need for consultants and contractors in our professions will drop to the level it was prior to the end of the Cold War.

Of course, it is incumbent upon each of us to maintain a high level of quality. We need to recognize all of our customer's needs in documentation and training, make sure that our customers understand these needs as well, and then fulfill them.