The economic crisis in Portugal stimulated the creation of product companies that sell worldwide. Over time, these companies accumulate a capital of knowledge (technical, domain, user) that benefits from governance and engineering by dedicated professionals, traditionally called technical writers.

Technical writers have the ability to learn, organize, and transform knowledge, using a rare combination of technical, language, abstraction, and people skills. There is a growing practice of technical writing in Portuguese companies, and professional communities of writers, but University-level training is mostly absent.

Sophisticated Portuguese product companies would benefit from further investment in knowledge management practices, using senior talent to systematically audit, retain, and improve knowledge capital.

Presented at CAPSI'15, October 2-3rd, 2015, Lisbon, Portugal.
CDROM ISSN 2183489X

Attachments

Technical Writing for Portuguese Product Companies

Paper published in the proceedings of CAPSI'2015, “Atas da 15ª Conferência, Associação Portuguesa de Sistemas de Informação”, CDROM ISSN 2183489X.
Original at http://capsi2015.iscte-iul.pt/index.php?id=1.9

Slides presented on 2-October at CAPSI'2015

PDF slides presented on the professional session.